This 1979 Topps Earl Campbell Rookie Card is a true piece of football greatness. A Hall of Fame icon, Earl Campbell dominated the league with strength and speed this rookie card captures the start of it all.

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Published February 12, 2026 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

One of the most overlooked parts of modern collecting is how many layers of anticipation the hobby has implemented into its structure. It’s no longer just about owning a card. The system encourages repeated moments of suspense, validation, and payoff. For some collectors, especially those with compulsive tendencies, this layered design can turn collecting into something far more consuming than it initially appears.

It’s important to keep in mind that grading your cards adds another layer to the chase. The grade reveal taps into the same part of the brain as the hit itself. That’s one of the reasons the hobby can feel so magnetic for people with compulsive tendencies. It’s a layered format: a gamble within a gamble within a gamble.

First it’s hitting the right team in a break. Then it’s hitting the right card. Then it’s waiting for the card to arrive. Then it’s inspecting it for grading. Then it’s submitting it to a grading service. Then it’s waiting for the grade. Then it’s waiting again to get it back. And only after all of that, you first have to decide whether to keep it or sell it.

If you choose to sell, the chase doesn’t end. You still have to pick the right marketplace, hope for a fair offer or a strong auction, wait for the buyer to pay (and hope they don’t flake), ship the card, and then wait for your payout (minus the seller fees of course) once it’s delivered.

This entire process can take weeks, sometimes months. Sometimes even longer. And all the while, the player on the card could suffer an injury, hit a slump, or become part of a scandal, eroding the value you were chasing in the first place. Ultimately, I think it’s fair to say that cards are anything but liquid in today’s modern hobby.

Each step reactivates the same reward loop, pulling you further in. One of our community members recently called this prolonged process “hobby inception”, and that description couldn’t be more spot on. The deeper you go, the harder it becomes to tell where collecting ends and the chase begins.

When the structure itself keeps adding new moments of anticipation, it becomes easy to confuse momentum with meaning, and motion with fulfillment.

Another question worth sitting with is this. If you’re truly collecting with intention, buying cards for your PC to hold and enjoy, why grade at all?

There are plenty of ways to protect and display a card beautifully without turning it into another moment of suspense or validation. ALL-TOUCH, Slab Factory, M1NT, or even a standard Ultra PRO mag do the job just fine and in my opinion often look better than a plastic PSA slab.

When you strip it down, the main argument for grading in a PC context is encapsulation. And that’s valid. But if we’re intentionally collecting for ourselves, we don’t need a grading company to validate our cards by assigning them a subjective grade on a paper insert. The value of a PC piece isn’t in the grade reveal. It’s in the connection, the story, and the fact that you chose it intentionally in the first place.

Collecting doesn’t become unhealthy because of a single choice. It shifts when the chase starts to replace the reason you started collecting in the first place. When anticipation becomes the goal, fulfillment keeps getting pushed one step further out. Slowing down, opting out of unnecessary layers, and choosing intention over momentum isn’t about doing less. It’s about reclaiming ownership of the experience so the hobby serves you, not the other way around.

#CollectorsMD
When intention leads the way, the chase loses its grip and the collection finally feels like yours again.

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https://youtube.com/shorts/W07b1fZfR04?si=HUsJkmj77HaOYW6w

I know the human eye is the best judge on the gradability of a card, but are there any apps that you’ve used that seem to do a good job or a terrible job? There are a ton of apps out there, but I was just curious if anyone had any experience, good or bad, with a particular app or apps. I appreciate any feedback.