Are You "A Need It Now" Collector?

Does the market sometimes drive your collecting? Does it say, "hey, this player already has 10 home runs in their first 20 games and you need to pick their cards up now!" Or does it say, "this guy is leading a 4-0 football team and has 10 touchdowns and no interceptions and could lead this team to the Super Bowl and be the next great. You own any cards of him?" Then it tells you after this information, "Well, if you don't own any of these guys you need to. I know it's not apart of your top PC, but you don't wanna miss out!"

I will admit I fall to this craze in the hobby. A lot of collectors are driven to sell when a player gets hot, but not me, I either dig out all of the cards I have of that player and feel satisfied or I end up having to seek trades to acquire them.

There is always that 50/50 chance when collecting like this that the player will pan out for you in the end. Some players I already had key cards of and held onto them too long when I should have traded them and the values fell flat, while others I acquired either through trade or bought and the same happened.  However, I have had times where I have gained on adding the "hot players" that had driven the market. It's all that risk of being in the business I guess.

I remember in 2014 how desperately I NEEDED a Johnny Manziel rookie card as he was going to be the next Dan Marino or big time super star. He was going to turn the Browns around and was the hottest thing since slice bread back then. So instead of grabbing a few cards of some guy named Odell Beckham Jr, I had my wife invest $6 into a 2014 Panini Prestige rookie card of Money Manziel. That card now I could probably find for .6 and his name changed to Less Money Manziel.

Then there were good moves like when I traded off a Heliot Ramos autograph for some guy named Gleyber Torres before he got hot.

Like I said, it's a 50/50 run.

I try not to get caught up in the market driven players, but I can't seem to get myself out of it. It's my hobby DNA I guess. I will cover more about Hobby DNA another time.

Currently I seem to be seeking out Patrick Malhommes cards as they are the hottest things on the football market. I do have one rookie card of Patrick that's just a Donruss base one, so I wasn't happy about that. I tried to seek out more but haven't had much success yet. I could have traded for an autograph, but I didn't want to give up the hockey cards that would have been required or paid to ship the trade to Canada.

I am not sure if Malhommes will even pan out past the first few weeks of the NFL season, but either way I am still seeking. It am starting to lean that way for James Conner of the Steelers as well.

So I gotta know, does the market sometimes or all the time drive your collecting in any way?

 Let me know in comments and help me not feel alone in this.