From Collectors MD to collectors everywhere, here’s to a New Year rooted in health, balance, and intention. 🎊

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Published December 25, 2025 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

The holidays have a way of softening the edges of time. Even when everything feels busy, there’s an undercurrent of reflection that shows up quietly—usually when the noise dies down and we’re finally left alone with our thoughts. It’s the one part of the year that almost asks us to pause. To look back. To take inventory of what this year asked of us, and what it gave in return.

For me, this season has carried a deeper kind of gratitude. Not the loud kind. Not the performative kind. The quieter kind that settles in when you realize something meaningful has taken shape—something you couldn’t have fully predicted when it began.

Collectors MD started as a question more than an answer. A recognition that something in the hobby had shifted, and that many people were navigating that shift in isolation. What followed over the past year wasn’t growth for growth’s sake. It was connection. Conversations that were overdue. Stories people had been holding onto for years. Moments of honesty that reminded me how many collectors were searching for language, support, or simply reassurance that they weren’t alone.

That’s what I find myself most grateful for this holiday season. Not milestones. Not metrics. But the people who showed up with openness. The ones who trusted this space before it had a name. The ones who spoke up when it would have been easier to stay silent.

This season has become a quiet reminder of what matters most: gratitude for the community that formed, growth in the way we’ve learned to engage more intentionally, and reflection that asks us not just to consume—but to consider.

What’s emerged over the last year is bigger than any single post, meeting, or moment. It’s a growing awareness that collecting can be joyful and meaningful without becoming overwhelming or harmful. That we can love our hobbies deeply while still questioning the systems around them. That reflection isn’t weakness—it’s responsibility.

The holidays naturally invite us to look back, but they also ask something quieter of us: to recognize what we’ve learned. To acknowledge the ways we’ve changed. To appreciate the communities that held us when things felt heavy. And to carry that awareness forward with intention.

Collectors MD is becoming something shaped by all of that. A space rooted in honesty. In care. In the belief that progress doesn’t come from perfection, but from people willing to pause, reflect, and choose differently when it matters most.

As this year comes to a close, I’m deeply grateful—for the trust, the conversations, the courage, and the reminder that this work matters because people matter. And that together, we’re building something that extends far beyond ourselves.

#CollectorsMD
Gratitude is what allows reflection to become growth—and growth to become something lasting.

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Published November 26, 2025 | By Alyx E, Founder of Collectors MD

On this Thanksgiving, I find myself overwhelmed with genuine gratitude—from the bottom of my heart—for this growing community and every single person who shows up inside it. The ones who speak gently. The ones who challenge us. The ones who support and share openly and honestly. And yes—even the trolls and keyboard warriors who found their way into tonight’s live stream with Professor Sports Cards. Every voice, every presence, every reaction reminds me that what we are building matters enough to be felt, debated, questioned, and witnessed.

There is something profoundly human about the good, the bad, and the ugly coexisting in the same space. It means people care. It means this movement is alive. It means Collectors MD is no longer just an idea—it is a living ecosystem of people navigating their relationships with collecting in real time. And for that, I am thankful beyond words.
Even when the comments sting or the energy shifts, I choose to see it as proof that we are touching something authentic—and authenticity doesn’t always arrive in a neatly wrapped package.

And somewhere in the middle of it all—the noise, the passion, the differing voices—there is still connection. Still humanity. Still a shared love for something that once brought us together and, when handled with care, can continue to do so.

I’m grateful for the ones who lean in with honesty. I’m grateful for the ones who quietly observe. I’m even grateful for the friction that reminds us growth isn’t always comfortable. Because at the heart of all of this is intention—over ego, over noise, over defensiveness. What we are creating together is a space rooted in awareness, accountability, and compassion—and that is worth celebrating.

So today, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I say this simply and sincerely: thank you. For your presence. For your energy. For your willingness to show up exactly as you are. Whether you join with encouragement, curiosity, critique, or even skepticism—you matter in that space. You help shape the conversation, the culture, and the heartbeat of what this community is becoming.

From Collectors MD, we are grateful for you—all of you. The supporters, the challengers, the quiet observers, the ones still finding their footing. Every voice is proof that this movement is alive, evolving, and deeply human. And for that, we don’t take a single moment for granted.

Collect With Intention. Heal With Support.

#CollectorsMD
Gratitude doesn’t require perfection—it recognizes every voice that reminds us this movement is alive.

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Follow us on Instagram: @collectorsmd
Subscribe to our Newsletter & Support Group
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