Cabin Fever Podcast 13 Jan 22

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I really hate what "investment" has done to collecting. I've always viewed any money I've put into collecting as being spent, in the same way I'd view it if I had to buy a new sofa or something. The money is gone and now I have the item instead. While I do know that I could sell my collection if I ever needed to (and I somewhat keep track of prices for insurance purposes) it's never the goal. Seeing people buy items they don't care about just so they can sell them on does sadden me, especially when it's someone just buying every copy of an item on the market so they can arbitrarily raise the price. I have always personally gone after the best condition for my collection, passing on items that didn't meet my standard, but only because that's how I would rather have it. Now there's so much pressure from a lot of areas that if you don't have everything as PSA10 you might as well not have it (Trading Card grading uses a 1-10 system rather than the 1-100, and 10s are possible rather than with figures and comics where a 100 is almost unheard of). The only time I've ever sent my own cards to a grading company has been because of wanting the protection rather than hugely caring about the grade. On a lighter note, totally agree on the doing art point. I used to put off making certain YouTube videos for so long because I was afraid they might not be perfect, but they were never going to get perfect if I didn't try. I definitely like to think my videos are improving in quality, as well as being streamlined in how long it takes me to make them, and I'm having a lot more fun and success with it than when I was worrying too much.

I missed the boat when discussing the winter cabin fevers but i would just like to say they did help alleviate feelings of being lonely. In fact all cabin fevers do this for me but the week made me feel a bit like Popeye eating spinach (but without the misogyny).

Mat Guest