Today marks the three year anniversary of the Original Prop Blog. Three years ago today I published its first article, “The Hobby Without A Name…“
1,154 articles later, the website continues to grow, and I hope that collectors around the world find it to be a useful resource. With the statistics reported for the end of last month, to date the site has received over 5 million page views and over 50 million hits, averaging about 80,000 unique visitors per month.
Of course, publishing articles on the Original Prop Blog has been an incredible learning experience for me, and I’ve been in the unique position of being able to see first hand both the best and the worst the hobby has to offer.
I would say that the one thing that stands out to me the most is that the hobby at large does seem to be much more educated and discerning in navigating the marketplace compared with years ago. I think in part due to better communication across a number of discussion forums and other networking tools and perhaps in part due to a decrease in the number of new collectors coming into the hobby (both observations of which are entirely subjective and speculative on my part).
Having said that, there is no shortage of large quantities of fake and inconclusive pieces being introduced to and circulating within the marketplace, and rarely any consequence for trading in such goods.
Original Prop Blog Search
As a reminder, given that the OPB has a tremendous amount of content, it is helpful to know the best way to find and access it.
The easiest and most powerful way to find what you are looking for is to use the “Search” button in the top right hand corner of every screen:
The Year Ahead
As always, there are many plans in the works to offer more compelling content over the coming year and to continue to build on the “Original Prop Blog” brand with new features. Hopefully, one of these new regular features will debut in the next month or so.
Of course, the site is in many ways built upon the support, tips, and participation of fellow hobbyists and readers of the blog, so special thanks again to all of those who give the OPB purpose.
Jason De Bord