Part 4 shifts from “what annoys us” to the deeper stuff: what becomes iconic, what makes us anxious, and what actually fires us up as collectors.

Chris McGill lays out what might be the biggest collector question of the next decade: you can’t reliably predict which cards will transcend their peers, but you can study how it happens. His take is that a card needs to hit the “main stage” of the hobby consciousness. People need to see it, compare it, and give it time for lineage and tradition to develop. He uses Nikola Jokic as an example, contrasting staple products with one season “one offs” like Clear Vision. Then he goes even further: what if the next wave is driven by collectors chasing obscurities and “forgotten artifacts” because everyone keeps posting the same cards?

Josh Adams agrees prediction is brutal and adds a personal angle from the 1990s. Sometimes your collecting tastes are shaped by what your local shop actually had, and those experiences stick.

From the chat and the panel:

unpriced cards at shows are still a top annoyance

whether the rookie card logo belongs on inserts

why some collectors accept rookie year cards as meaningful even if they are not base rookies

sticker autos vs on card autos, and how scarcity of options can force exceptions

redemptions, and how Upper Deck says they have cut them down significantly

Then Chris tosses a great question: what is your biggest source of hobby anxiety? Shipping cards, traveling with cards, auctions, and that final 10 seconds of bidding all come up. The chat adds more: postal delays, collection value swings, and fear that the hobby gets mistreated by people who do not love it.

We also get a quick prospect moment: Josh asks about Oliver Moore, and Jason explains how inclusion can depend on debut timing and autograph deals.

Finally, Chris flips the script to the opposite of anxiety: what actually gets your hobby juices flowing? For Jason it’s new product concepts and the rush to get them to market. For Josh it’s the hunt and finally landing the card you’ve been chasing. For Jeremy it’s discovery, aesthetics, and going down rabbit holes on platforms like COMC, plus the real physical “butterflies” reaction a card can create.

This is one of those segments that explains why we do this in the first place.

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