For the last several years I have opened the year end review, along with a state of the hobby poll. This year has been like no other and it's fair to say that everyone reading this has had their lives impacted by the pandemic to some degree. This has effected everything we did, including our hobby activities.

For that reason, there are no questions this year. Our collecting trends can't be compared to what we did in prior years because so many of us were restricted and virtually all shows and events were cancelled. Personal situations were altered and buying cards was not a priority for many, even if they wanted them. There can also be few predictions of what we will do next year. There can be hope, but no one can say when anything like normal gatherings and open events will return, especially in some areas.

So this thread is open for your hobby comments to say what you did or couldn't do this year or hope to do next year.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Most importantly Good Health to all.

I've been more active in collecting this year than I have in many years. That is likely partially due to not doing as much outside of the house due to the pandemic. It is also due to being more interested in some of the new release being created, and the return of Sadlittles.

For a while I was really active on ePack, but I'm taking a break from it. I really dislike the new interface, and many of the releases that I'm interested in -- like Chasing Amy -- just don't exist. I was buying Marvel stuff on ePack for a while just due to availability -- I've never been much of a Marvel collector. Trading has slowed quite a bit of ePack as well.

I haven't missed going to conventions at all. Sadly it seems that collectors are largely ignored at conventions in my area now as the cons have pivoted to providing experiences rather than marketplaces. A lot of the stuff I bought at conventions last year doesn't fit into my collection. I just bought stuff to buy something. I walked out of every convention I attended last year with at least half the money that I had budgeted to spend still in my pocket. Plus the cost of attending large conventions has increased. . . Overall I just question if it is even worth going to big cons anymore. Last year the smaller cons were ok as marketplaces, but few had any cards for sale. I walked out of several small conventions last year without spending any money at dealer booths. I'm sure there are cons in my future, but right now I don't even have any interest to go to them.

Oddly despite being pretty active collecting through the year my collecting activity is starting to wind down again -- I don't see much on the horizon that interests me.

I spent more on cards this year mainly because I could not spend any money on holidays and going out to pubs and the cinema !

These days I confine myself almost exclusively to sets focusing on sketch cards and this year was full of varied and high quality sets .

Perna as usual was top notch and Iconic Creations are also building a solid reputation . Marty Kuklinski's annual charity set is always good value and the welcome return of both Braiiinz and Bad Axe meant I pulled some brilliant artwork this year .

Being indoors meant I also spent a lot of time on Ebay probably paying too much for some cards but managing to fill in some gaps in sets I had not looked at in a while .

For me a few things have caused me to spend more. Covid-19 had me going back to my binders more and spotting cards I failed to get back in the day. I spent some time filling in some holes in the collection and add more to my want list.

This year is the first year my daughter wanted to work on a set. She and I worked on the Umbrella Academy together. We are down to a handful of the high dollar cards.

The early weeks of the shutdown in March were weird. A major intersection near here was almost deserted at commute time. One day, I picked up some burgers and got home in record time. Stores had shortages of different things but we never ran out of anything we needed.

I had to cut back on buying as work dipped to nothing for a couple of months. Like Triple-Frog and Barobehere, I got a little closer to completing a few older sets and picked up some cheap oddball promos.

It was great when Todd Jordan reappeared in the hobby this year. It's been great talking to him again.

I hope we can go to flea markets and collectibles shows next year. Few sellers bring cards but there are still good finds out there if you look.

I'm hopeful about 2021 overall.

Jess

This year I barely collected any cards at all. I got a few Xena variant cards that I didn't have. I got an Orville card or two, but other than that - nothing. I'm just not interested in anything out there right now.

Thankfully the Vaccine rollout has started in the UK and hopefully things will start to return to normal in the spring.

I continued to sell off my collection and this year saw a big increase in sales with a lot of the big ticket cards being sold. I now have very few cards left.

After buying almost no cards last year I actually bought quite a few this year, mainly due to ebays tokens for selling fees deal.

Generally I have been secondary market autograph collector guy.

This year I added 3 new set titles and actually purchased new sealed product.

So far there are no announcements for next year that have sparked my interest for set collecting.

For me it just boiled down to the two RA Game of Thrones sets, Season 8 and Complete. I didn't want to fall behind in the new signers, but I also wanted to support my local card store that had been shut down for nearly 4 months. In the end, as a result of buying multiple sealed boxes from the store and ordering numerous individual autograph cards from my long time dealer, I bought more GoT cards this year than in any other single year. But except for a handful of Doctor Who autos, that was my only title.

There were a few new sets that had some nice autograph cards in them, but I think I just preferred the familiar when everything else had changed. Next year should bring at least one more set, but I haven't decided about anything else yet. Please support your favorite small businesses or many will close for good before things get better.

Looking farther back to February, which was before the "blank" hit the fan, I realize that I got a nice selection of Star Trek Inflections autograph cards from Lynn and was able to join Ed's Treasure Chest. Still have 3 more GoT boxes under the tree. So the sum of the year for me was and will be better than I thought.

I didn't buy as many cards this year, but I did pick up some higher end cards, mostly stuff from 5-10 years ago. Also doing more vintage cards lately, since those are a great slice of history and bring back memories of my childhood. Trying to make sets of Addams Family, Munsters, Dark Shadows, and the various Beatles releases. These are a little bit of a challenge, since conditions vary all over the place with the cards I can find. I figure that I'll find good ones when I find them. After all, they've been around for 50 years in some cases, so a few more months won't hurt anything.

Hoping 2021 is a better year all around, not just in the card collecting arena.

My purchasing this year was similar to prior years, a mix of new releases and singles. My favorite release of 2020 was The Umbrella Academy Season 1.

I hope that we get at least one Philly Show in 2021.