One thing i enjoy about it is being able to go on holiday and find a club shop or just a football shirt shop in general and pick one up just as a souvenir of the holiday, picked up some lovely napoli, venezia and sorrento shirts on my trips round italy. Looking at them at home takes me back to the holiday and nice memories i made.
Incredible video Phil! Perhaps not the coolest video for many but it should be without a doubt. Suffered burn out this year and haven't purchased a shirt since the end of February, mainly through to the financial side and wanting to actually visit the places and clubs of the shirts I own rather than it all being a hollow hobby. The value aspect is interesting as I think everything is geared towards that 90s sweet spot. Like you say that's where people believe there's value not only financially but in some kind of personal status too. Every point here is bang on and agree 100% on the community aspect too, it's one of the best things to come from me collecting shirts. I speak more to people through my collecting account on social media than I do with family and friends on the same platform. Mad but amazing at the same time.
Love so much about this mate. Thank you especially for the kind words on the video topic. I'm always conscious of not just wanting to church out content for the sake of content, but instead to cover things which are important to me and which I hope are helpful to others. To hear things like this is a huge encouragement. And I'm exactly the same! Can't say how much all the connections I've made have meant to me, and even small interactions like this remind me of what's so special about it all :)
@@PhilsCorner no worries at all, its timely but hugely important too given the things you outline from yourself. The connection element is so important and shows how even in a world full of online presence we still want to feel part of a community. Embracing that and interacting / sharing others thoughts, opinions and work is of massive value.
I can only “speak” for myself… I’m 48, I’ve been collecting since 1993, when a couple of shops in my city (Thessaloniki, Greece) started selling authentic shirts, I currently have a bit more than 900, and there ARE three things, shirt-related things, that do tire me. 1st) Out of necessity, but also out of principle, I have never paid more than 50 euros for a shirt. That happened recently, and before that, I had never paid more than 40 euros. Mind you, the vast majority of my shirts are still with tags. Somehow, I always found ways to buy new shirts at low prices. What “tires” me, psychologically, is that 95 out of 100 times, I cannot have a shirt I really like, because of the cost, and it DOES get tiring, when you find yourself continuously deprived of something you really want. “Oh boohoo, instead of buying five shirts at 20 euros each, buy ONE that you really want, for 100”, someone could say. That’s where the “principle” element comes in. I just refuse to accept that a - new - shirt can cost 80, 90, 100+ euros, I would feel as being part of the problem if I paid such money for ONE - new - shirt, so I either buy shirts I like IF I find them at a reasonable price, or I don’t buy them at all, I can easily live with that. 2nd) Storing, and generally taking care of the shirts. I’m lucky enough to have 70% of my shirts hanging and most - now - in anti-dust covers, but… realistically, it’s a lot of work :-). Totally worth it, but a lot of work nonetheless. 3rd) I travel all the time, and since late 2018 I have hugely enjoyed visiting second-hand shops as well, in every country I visit. In some countries I find more, in others less, but we’ve reached the point of visiting dozens of shops in 2-3 days, and ending up with ZERO shirts, not because the shops don’t bring them, but because in certain countries (Bulgaria, Ukraine - despite the war - Poland, just to name three), dozens of people, literally whole families, kids included, storm stores on the first day they bring new stuff, and in a matter of hours everything is gone, you are left with fakes, or authentic ones but in deplorable condition. I get it, people do actually make a living this way, I have to respect it, but imagine visiting 73 shops (yes, 7!3!) over three days in Sofia, shops where you used to find… at least SOMETHING, only this time to find ONE shirt :-):-):-), and that was Aarhus, GK, 3rd :-):-):-). Psychologically, I find this tiring as well. You don’t expect to find something in every second shop, not even in every… fifth, but… heck, you expect to find SOMETHING if you visit DOZENS of shops. I don’t have FOMO, I don’t overspend, I do appreciate my collection every day (when I’m at home), I do enjoy talking about shirts on the rare occasion that I find someone who shares the same passion, so what causes “fatigue” to me are things you didn’t mention. Just like every collector has his own collecting focus, I guess every collector has different things tiring him as well. :-) Cheers
Really good to get your thoughts here!! Full credit to you for sticking to your principles. I admire you for your conviction, and I think that's ultimately the best thing you can be doing for yourself long term. Buying one shirt for 100 instead of 5 for 20 makes sense for some collectors, but not for others, and you've explained exactly why here.
Fantastic video Phil! My own personal shirt journey has been a rollercoaster. When eBay was first around, it kick started my serious collecting, but that then morphed into buying pretty much any kit I liked…and being on Twitter and having a decent audience via our old blog, I got a addicted to the thrill of sharing shirts. After a while I decided to focus my collecting on the weirder shirts around, which then led to getting a book published…and that’s when the fatigue really set in… Now I buy when something really captivates me. I’m a lot happier…as is my bank balance. Would love to chat more on this 👍🏻
So good to get your thoughts Rich! This sort of journey really hights the highs and lows of it all. To ultimately land at the place you are at now is really good though. I'm interested to know, when you started to pivot towards collecting weirder shirts did you also begin to sell, trade, phase out some shirts in your wider collection that didn't fit into the 'weird' category? Or was the change more of a future perspective, rather than something to be retrospectively applied?
@@PhilsCorner I did end up selling a load of shirts I’d collected in the early days and I don’t regret it. Shift towards the weird ones was when I wanted to do another “book” on my collection, but only if it had a theme and I’d always loved the wackier shirts. This would make a great subject for a podcast (recently started a new one)…think we could really go into a lot of depth on it.
