Doing Our Own Thing

I've seen a lot of discussion on message boards and blogs recently regarding a long-time hobby publication and one of its major advertisers.

A story in the New York Daily News that claimed the advertiser, which has been accused by serious collectors and hobby dealers of selling notoriously bogus autographs, is no longer being allowed in the pages of the magazine. Another message board post now claims the advertiser pulled out.

I've gotten emails over the last couple of weeks from collectors and dealers asking to me to put together a story on this development and others regarding the magazine. You haven't seen one. And barring any really newsworthy development you won't. My policy from the beginning has been to let our content speak for itself.

The hobby media landscape has changed drastically this decade. No longer are printed publications the only way collectors get their news and features. There are message boards, blogs, forums, e-newsletters, Facebook and other forms of communication that have put information sharing in the hands of everyone...not just a select few.

This website was started for one purpose: to be a news aggregation for the sports card and sports memorabilia industry. I heard for years that the hobby never got any attention in the mainstream media, but since I've worked in that profession for years I knew that wasn't the case. And in three years, Sports Collectors Daily has proven that there are plenty of stories appearing in large and small newspapers and TV stations across the country. We've brought hundreds of them to you, put corporate news and important court cases in public view and offered a boatload of what I think are pretty good news stories and features.  All of it free.  All of it fresh.  All of it archived for easy searching. 

I'd rather spend time continuing to do that--and setting the standard for what a hobby news site should be--than attacking another hobby media entity for decisions it makes or doesn't make. In short, I'd like to let our content speak for itself. Because if you're not reading us--or some of the other more interesting baseball card blogs and forums--you're missing out on a great new era in hobby media--one that doesn't require a successful and high quality site to have multiple employees or a multi-million dollar budget.