The Community Aspect Of The Hobby

Message boards: we all use them, we all peruse them, but which is the one you want to focus on? Personally I have checked out a number of boards and I have tried to get involved in a lot of them, but not all were equal in my eyes. We all have our preferences, I know I do, so I thought I might take a (partially) objective look at things. Ill add to this list if your board isnt on here, but be aware, I will give my honest opinion.

Idiot Bomb Beckett Message Boards

It used to be a place where everyone went for up to date info. It used to be a place where you could find a topic, and a fight on that topic, at any point during the day. I posted on the BMB for about a year until I was banned for linking to this site, yes, the mods are that tight assed. So besides the obvious minus of being completely monitored and censored, the boards are filled with people who have come to call the "idiot conglomerate." They post stuff that you curse for wasting your time, and the majority of the people on the boards don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Yet, there are a few people who I know are quite knowlegable, and were quite interested to hear the other side of things that the sheep over there refused to listen to. Most of those people are now readers of this site. There were also a number of people who refrained from the normal idiot battle cries of mojo and an abundant and moronic use of exclamation points, they were okay in my book. Now, despite all of this crap, there was a good amount of info on the site, ONLY due to the number of people who were posting. Box breaks were posted more frequently and it was very easy to find out what products to bust and which to stay away from. You could be assured that at least one box of every product would be posted. For that fact only, it was nice to have the boards around. Beckett, being the complete douchebags that they are, ripped that all away, however. Read about it a few posts down. Right now, if it were up to me, don’t waste your time with this crapfest.

Trading Card Central

This forum is the most MOJO infested place I have ever seen. If it doesn’t pop up at least twice in your thread, you can bet something is up. However, despite that, the people on the board are very, very nice people. They may fit right in with my former definition of JCs, but unlike JCs they are more interested in the collecting than the business side of things. I really like this board because it is easy to navigate, and one always feels welcome there. Trading on the board can be tough as there really arent the sheer number of people on there as other boards, but their feedback system makes Beckett look like they are in the stone age. I would say this is a great place to get involved, if not only to meet some collectors who don’t let the money get to them.

Sports Card Forum

I just signed up here a few days ago, but I have been receiving links from them since the beginning. The forums are broken down about five times per sport, which can be annoying, and I still have no idea what "card cash" is. Other than that, this site has become a Beckett refugee camp, although there were a lot of people to start. Its not a bad place, the Mods don’t rule with an iron fist, and trading is pretty good. The best part is that they use iTrader for transactions just like a few other card forums out there, and that is the best form of feedback that has been created yet. They also transfer feeback from other sites, which is a great idea and made me want to get going and fast. I don’t think I am going to rack up a ton of posts at SCF, but I will continue to check up on what is going on over there. Not a bad site.

Blowout Cards Forums

I love these boards. LOVE THEM. Members are not afraid to tell people to shove it if they sound like idiots, and my two least favorite words in the hobby have been banned from use in their forum. The box break boards are great because people bust cases more often than individual boxes. The problem over there is that they arent updated much because not many people post. I encourage you to check this place out if you want box info. Other than that, there really isnt much substance to the forums.

Hobby Kings

I go on this site when I need info on Basketball stuff. It is basically a site for Basketball collectors, and more specifically Exquisite Basketball collectors. You can pretty much expect what goes on in their forums, but it’s a good spot for information, and the guys who run it are pretty cool.

The Bench Trading

If you want a good trading site, the Bench is it. The site is almost exclusively built for traders and you know that there will be someone who wants your stuff if you have something to get rid of. The problem is that no matter what kind of feedback you have on other forums, you have to send first for a set number of trades. This almost guarantees that you have to trade with a high feedback person if you want to feel secure until you have enough Bench Points to get out of that. The issue here is that this site is so focused on trading that non-trading members almost have no place in their forums.

There are other boards out there im sure, but these seem to be the most popular. I would say that each forum has their own merits, and its probably a good idea to check them out regardless of what I say. Hopefully one day, someone will create a board that focuses on not being idiots. That would be my new favorite place.