Don't be part of a shady system.

Another article (in the Bulletin) about fraud in the sports card industry.

Well, duh.

I'm shocked, shocked, to find there is fraud in the sports card industry!

I've spent the last 25 years steering Pegasus Books away from the entire concept of "investment" value in anything--comics, cards, books....anything.

I was a true believer in the first five years of the sport card boom, but at the end of that period I realized that there were so many shysters and conmen selling stuff that I simply couldn't be part of it. I spent the next five years trying to ween myself from the dependence on that market--telling anyone who would listen that they should read comics for entertainment and collect cards for fun. Period.

By 1997, I was no longer dependent on sports cards. I still remember the moment when I answered a sports card complaint by saying, "I'm not a card shop." Pheww.

By 1997, I was rebuilding from the wreckage of the comic speculators by focusing on readers.

And here it is, 22 years later, and there is another boom in comics that has nothing to do with the actual comics. "Variant" covers...oh, my! And I'm keeping the store out of it. I think it's bogus, and I'm sad to see some of my fellow retailers encouraging it.

My saying is, "The Antiques Roadshow has a lot to answer for!" Investment and speculation simply don't work for the average consumer. And by the time you learn enough to do it properly, you should have learned that you are surrounded by some very unsavory practices.

So just don't do it. I mean, think about it. Who would have more an inside advantage than an actual dealer?--and yet, I chose not to go there.

Don't be part of a shady system. Don't be part of something that almost by definition means taking advantage of people less knowledgeable than you.