The Insider (A's)

A baseball-card(s)-fan accounts for a potential industry-matrix 'conspiracy' involving inflation/deflation of value(s)-ads for consumer depreciation.

An offbeat folklore/culture mystical whistleblower-tale inspired loosely by the searing film The Insider (Michael Mann). Signing off (today), 

----

----

====

My name's Amlan Satan (code-name: Storm-Shadow). I've been collecting A's (Topps) American-baseball cards since I was a boy. I was born in Algeria but moved to the United States in the '80s and grew up in Philadelphia and studied at the Ivy League (Dartmouth) before joining Interpol-relations work(s) involving blood-diamond (piracy-gems from 'conflict-zones') interceptions in Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) and British Columbia (North America). I retired early and at the young (retirement) age of 40-something. Now, I'm collecting A's (Topps) American-baseball cards again (as when I was a young boy!). My A's (Topps) collection is really sweet. It's been cumulating since I was a boy and I have thousands, literally, of A's (Topps) American-baseball cards in my East Coast home.

----

When I began collecting A's cards, the rates/value(s) of the cards were stock-listed in various collectors/industry assistance catalog books which detailed/priced every known produced/printed American baseball-card. These card-value catalog books were considered a rich resource for all collectors/fans of American baseball-cards. They're still considered so, but something has substantially changed in the quality of this industry/hobby. You see folks, when I was young, cards-values were presented as straightforward and upfront rational! However, in today's industry, the values of the cards seems in many cases strange, other-worldly, outlandish, awkward, and at times undesirable. What the heck changed the baseball-cards 'scene' in Western civilization that's made these 'diamonds' of sports fanfare suddenly somewhat (arguably) 'strange'?

----

When I was a young boy, you'd expect to see a Barry Bonds or Jose Canseco rookie-card (1986 Topps-Traded set(s)) marketed as somewhat predictable or anticipated. However, today, these very-same cards seem to be part of a cards-inflation 'matrix' rendering them more-or-less irreducible, awkward, strange, or even undesirable! My own A's (Topps) American-baseball cards collection suddenly seems (somehow) more (relatively) eschewed in value(s) charting(s). For example, I'd expect a $1000 valued Nolan Ryan (Topps) rookie-card to be marketed/presented in the niche-market it belongs in when I was a young boy, but today, that very-same Ryan card may be 'inflated' in markets/catalogs as valued at $800 (because Topps is no longer as 'sophisticated' as rival-company Upper-Deck!). I didn't know how to feel, so I started a cross-country road-trip, stopping at various American-baseball cards-stores and interviewing merchants/collectors/fans about this eerie shift in the consumer-fan market! 

----

I stopped in places like Detroit, Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Every baseball-card store I visited offered some nice/authentic baseball cards and boasted an ownership and clientele adequately 'representative' of the cards-fanfare market/industry in modern United States. The merchants/collectors/fans seemed to echo similar ideas (e.g., "We don't know who decided to 'tweak' the cards-market or why but it's certainly made collecting feel much more of a private monologue rather than a social experience!"). I decided at this point to start visiting the office headquarters of multiple baseball-card companies in the United States, including Topps and Donruss. I asked the executives of these companies what's the rationale behind shifting the market-indexes and making the card-market feel so darn wavy! The executives seemed to echo the same thing (e.g., "The market is wavy and we respond with wave-like tweaking of the consumer-activity system for 'enhanced' merchandising 'flavor(s)'."). 

----

My conclusion in this field research as an 'insider' of the baseball-cards 'world' is that the market for the hobby/fan-activity has been intentionally 'tweaked' by the merchants/managers of this consumer-activity to create more unpredictability and hence improve 'street-isolationism' for 'enhanced' private buying/notes. It's almost as if the cards-market has somehow become more...inhuman! That's why I had to conclude that this consumer-market, like other 'hot' markets/industries of great complexity (e.g., tobacco industry, water-bottle market, foreign foods sector, denim market, etc.), had become a 'diadem' of the emerging 'Babel' like features of modern capitalism reflective of a suddenly new and unpredictable 'face' of commercial traffic/vanities! Therefore, I decided that to remain the steadfast A's (Topps) American baseball-cards fan that I still am in this 40-something 'James Bond' retirement age, I'd simply continue to collect my A's cards...as a 'fan' of dollar(s). 

----

==== 

"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes) 

----