The Future of the Blog: Developing Cheap Card Collecting

I thought I'd dedicate a post to want I want this site to become. Although I enjoy making the usual trade posts, pack breaks, and card show posts, I really want to develop the value-finding and "Cheap Card Collecting" part of the blog.

The inspiration for this blog is the site, http://www.cheapassgamer.com/

     Although I mainly play video games during the summer now, I used to spend a lot of time on Cheap Ass Gamer looking for deals. Basically, the site highlights deals on games throughout the internet and tracks prices (along with the usual website duties). When I used Cheap Ass Gamer to look for deals and the best times to trade in games, I basically spent only $80 dollars a year without altering my buying habits. I still bought new games and whatever other ones I was interested in, but I barely had to spend any money. Gamers who bought the same games as I did at full MSRP and without trading in old games probably spent $400-500 a year.

     When I returned to the card collecting hobby at the beginning of the year, I had never bought full hobby boxes or understood the prices and gambling that come with modern-day card collecting. I'd like to contribute to the community like how Cheap Ass Gamer contributes to the gaming community. Without trying, I spent most of my time searching for which boxes have the best balance of design, hit resell value, price, and photography. I spend hours watching box breaks and reading previews trying to find out which products will deliver. I create a database in my head of which cards are pulled from certain products and look up their values. Don't think that I only judge on resell value though, because I know that you don't bust boxes to make a profit (unless you bust cases of Bowman). I look at base design, inserts, numbered cards, checklists, etc. I can't spend hours sorting through base cards to build sets, but I'll spend hours trying to find products that provide the best value. It's just the type of collector I am. Even though each person looks at products differently, there are plenty of products that 90% of collectors can say provide poor value (see 2010 Limited football where most boxes contain two plain jerseys and a terrible rookie autograph).

Here are some objectives I'd like to complete for the blog:

• List online sellers with reasonable prices and update weekly for special deals (I don't update every week because most of the time, the sites feature the same deals each week).
• Price tracker for popular boxes and products in the sidebar highlighting the lowest prices.
• Guides to selling on eBay, Checkoutmycards, and Sportlots.
• Tips on finding value outside of the main products--- card shows, sites that assemble their own boxes, how to find a good lot, etc. Some opportunity for guest posts here?
• More reviews on whether a box has good "value"
• Increased user interaction and reader opinions on products.
• Turn into more of a full site than just the daily blogging.