Published November 24, 2025 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

There is a quiet exhaustion settling over the hobby, and it’s not just coming from too many releases or too much product. It’s also coming from the growing realization that integrity keeps being compromised in plain sight. Shill bidding has become one of the most damaging forces shaping the current hobby landscape, not because it exists, but because it keeps being normalized, excused, or quietly ignored. Every scandal, every exposed pattern, every “technical issue” chips away at the foundation our hobby is built on—trust.

When bids are manipulated, nothing feels real anymore. Prices stop reflecting genuine demand and start being driven by artificial pressure, manufactured urgency, and silent coordination. Collectors begin questioning every outcome, every “win”, every record sale. And when that doubt settles in, it doesn’t stay contained to one platform or one seller—it spreads outward, slowly contaminating the emotional safety that made collecting meaningful in the first place.

A culture of inflated clicks and invisible hands doesn’t just distort prices—it skews perception. Every artificial bid fuels a false sense of momentum, pulling genuine collectors into a game that looks competitive on the surface but is hollow at its core. What should feel like passion becomes performance, and what should feel earned starts to feel engineered. This is how trust erodes quietly, one manipulated auction at a time.

What hurts most isn’t just the financial fallout—it’s the psychological impact. The feeling that the game is rigged reawakens the same compulsive instincts many of us are trying to move away from. Instead of collecting with joy, we start chasing something as fundamental as fairness—a standard that should have never been up for debate. Instead of celebrating the hobby, we brace for disappointment. And in that emotional tension, the line between participation and self-protection becomes harder to see.

But this moment also creates clarity. It forces us to ask better questions. It reminds us that silence enables harm. It challenges us to stop accepting “this is just how it is” as a permanent condition. A healthy hobby cannot exist without accountability, transparency, and real oversight. We cannot keep glorifying inflated results and manipulated markets while pretending the consequences will stay invisible.

At Collectors MD, we believe that awareness isn’t about fear—it’s about empowerment. Choosing intention over impulse means recognizing when something feels off and being willing to take a step back instead of leaning further in. It means valuing long-term stability over short-term adrenaline. And it means understanding that protecting the integrity of this space is not the responsibility of a few—it belongs to all of us.

The hobby does not heal through denial. It heals when the community decides that honesty matters more than hype. And we can’t allow a handful of bad actors to define the integrity of an entire community.

#CollectorsMD
A market without honesty does not just lose money—it loses meaning.

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