Featured Hobby Blog: Sports Cards Uncensored
Without question, one of the most polarizing hobby blogs is Sports Cards Uncensored. Authored by Adam Gellman, SCU specializes in a no-holds-barred writing style that scrutinizes the trading card industry with an ever skeptical eye.
Taking it upon himself to serve as watchdog and educator on fraudulent patch cards in the market, SCU serves as a place to learn how to avoid getting ripped off, the telltale signs of counterfeit cards and sellers to avoid.
The always opinionated Gellman, never at a loss for words, provided us with a detailed Q&A.
How old is the blog and what was your main motivation for starting SCU?
SCU just turned three and a half, which is definitely a weird feeling as I never really intended it to become what it has become. My son is only a year and a half, which makes the blog seem like it was really my first baby. To tell you the truth, the amount of work it takes to do the site feels like raising a child.
When it comes to motivation, SCU was born out of two specific situations that spawned a need to make my voice heard. First was my love of writing and needing a vehicle to have fun doing it. I was an English major in college and creative writing was always a passion of mine. I wish I was better at it, but that is why blogging is such a perfect arena to accomplish my goals. Blogging gives me the unique opportunity to express pure opinion in a way that I can morph to fit my style, without repercussions.
This brings me to the second point, which was the lack of opinion available at the time SCU hit the net. Sports card blogs were barely established and hobby media sources, like Beckett and the like, refused to express anything but fluff and smoke blown up the butts of the companies that advertised in their magazine. They rarely covered topics that matter to people who want to learn and educate themselves, instead looking to further promote new products and services from their own catalog of available stuff. I felt there needed to be a flip side to the coin, a source people could read that never hesitated to pull back the curtain. I always look at things in this hobby with the most skeptical of eyes, and that is what I wanted to showcase on my site. I think people latched on to it, as has been shown.
What keeps you motivated to continue blogging?
First, I have to believe never-ending parade of stuff to talk about. I am a very opinionated person with many things I love to discuss, and I rarely sit down at my computer at the beginning of the day with nothing to write. There is always a new scam, a new product, or a new discussion to have. Luckily, people have embraced that my site is a great place to go to read for fun.
Second, has to be my love of cards. Although I really must seem like I dislike a good portion of what is available to collect, I really love a lot of facets of the business. I have built great relationships with other collectors and they inspire me to want to continue bettering my collection and my site. It's almost a competition of who can have the best this, or the best that, and my competitive nature drives me to always strive for growth.
What responsibility, if any, do bloggers have to the collecting community as a whole?
None, and that is exactly why they are so essential to the online collecting community. Whereas other places have advertisers or a board of directors they answer to, bloggers do it because they love to do it. For themselves, and themselves only.
I think when you have the freedom to do what you want to do, it creates opportunity to put a new perspective on things. Up until 2008, when the blogging community really got started, there weren't many new perspectives. Now, it seems like voices are coming from every corner of the population, and that could not be a better thing. When you have manufacturers seeking out feedback in very new ways, and the same hobby media sources that once loathed the blogs' existence, now embracing their own social media presence, it's refreshing to see what has been accomplished. It's a completely different hobby these days, and we only have ourselves to thank.
As a direct result of the blogs' growth, there is no longer a place to hide when something bombs and there is no limit to the happiness exclaimed when something succeeds. I can't tell you how important that is.
Examples of Recent Posts:
- 2011 Topps Marquee Baseball- High End Patches Selling Like They Used To
- Dealing With Questionable Patches Is Very Tough On Collectors
Rating: NC-17 for frequent cursing and lewd language.
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