>>54187076>>54187236I make a distinction between scalpers and "investors"
Scalpers are an unnecessary middleman, buying product that would already be available people on store shelves only to sell them to those same people (who now cannot purchase any product) within the window of time that the product is still in production.
There is some arbitrary and nebulous amount of time (that I don't have an answer to) of when holding for a set amount of time makes one an "investor" rather than a scalper. But I think a good starting point is holding and not selling until at least the set is guaranteed to no longer be found in any released products anymore.
Scalpers don't increase the availability and longevity of the product for collectors. They sell the product while it is still being printed to people that would have been able to get it normally had the scalper not gotten it first. Whereas an investor holds the product past the point that a person could walk into a store and buy it off the shelf. One is completely unnecessary for product availability, and the other is one of the only ways to keep product available.
