Daily Reflections

Collecting Isn’t A Competition In the hobby, it’s easy to find yourself measuring your collection against someone else’s—especially in today’s culture where every pickup—every transaction

When Passion Turns Compulsive When we hear the word “addiction”, most people can picture it. A person drinking too much, betting everything away, or chasing a high.

Purpose Over Profit: A Collector’s Journey Back To Joy I was a card collector during the boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, like

Big Stage, Bigger Risks Fanatics Fest 2025 was nothing short of a spectacle. By every metric—attendance, transactions, energy—in only it’s second ever show it eclipsed

Gaming Or Gambling? The Lines Are Blurring Is gaming just a way to pass the time? Or has it become something else—something with stakes, risks,

We Heal In Community Healing rarely happens in isolation.Healing happens in community. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned while building Collectors MD over the

Will I Ever Buy Sports Cards Again? Last weekend, I found myself walking into a Target instead of heading to my weekly Gamblers Anonymous meeting.

Unchecked & Unregulated: The High-Stakes Hobby Boom This past month, collectors spent $305 million on trading cards. That’s not a projection. That’s documented sales—from marketplaces,

Platform Pet Peeves It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a live break room and a boiler room. I’m not trying to

The Proposal: Pushing For Real Change When we decided to publish CMD’s “Proposal for Regulating Sports Card & TCG Breaking Activities,“ it wasn’t just to

The Power Of [Being Loved] (Pt. IV) Being seen pulls you out of hiding.Being heard reminds you your voice matters.Being known brings your whole story

Always On It’s the middle of the workday. Meetings, deadlines, responsibilities. And yet, the live break rooms are buzzing. Hundreds—sometimes thousands—of people live, active, bidding,