Is YOUR Hobby An Investment?

Is your hobby an investment?

Because mine isn't

I have been collecting for roughly 25 years and haven't ever sold a card. I have only collected.

Sometimes I ask myself, in the end, when and if that day comes when I need to unload my collection, will this be an investment for me or do I care?

To answer this I will break a few things down.

First off, the hobby first is a hobby to me. It's not done for money at all and is only done for fun. Anyone who follows me on social media or reads this blog can tell I am not into investing in the hobby and expecting big money returns by simply looking at what I collect. It's not like I am out there buying all of the top rookie prospect autographs and rookie cards. It's not like I am out there snatching up valuable vintage and collecting sets from that era. I am spending money on Rodney Hampton cards. I spend it on celebrity autographs even if they are not big named. I spend it on NY Giants cards of players who only spent a week on the team. I spend it on late 90's inserts including of players like Ryan Leaf and sets from that era as well and so many other oddball things I can only imagine the relief I put on a lot of sellers when they finally see that card they have had listed for 20 years leave.

Secondly, I look at sport cards as a terrible investment to begin with. Cards like stocks, go up and down in value all of the time. You invest all of your cash into a hot prospect, he gets hurt, never gets called up and his values decline and you lose out. I look at card values overall over the years and notice the decline in value in general. I think that's because whether we want to admit to it or not, overproduction (who thought we would ever say that again after the junk wax era but I guess some days we can call this the new version of it) and a lot less collectors have hurt the market.

Third, this hobby takes me away from real world problems and gives me a place to talk to you guys who I consider as my friends. Investing my time into the hobby with things like sorting, blogging, tweeting is relaxing. A time investment is my only investment into the hobby and I find that alone rewarding.

So to sum all of this up, my straight out answer to that question is, I don't collect to invest. I collect to collect and I collect for fun.

Now I pass this question onto you guys. Do you collect as an investment or do you collect for just fun?