The art will always be available in digital form regardless of how many exist in physical form. No future generations will be deprived of seeing it, I can assure you.
Would that be like a 20 year old person throwing paint, tinned soup or even fuel/petrol/paint thinner on the Mona Lisa and saying it's okay because we have a photograph to remind us of it?
One last suggestion to anyone contemplating giving away their cards in bulk - get a padded mailing bag - put the cards inside along with a note to yourself explaining a few things such as how much the cards and packs cost and their bitcoin equivalent along with your user name here in the forum and a short message about what was being proposed in the short term to bump up the prices of the cards.
Seal the jiffy bag ensuring the cards won't move about inside the bag and write "do not open until 2035" or some arbitrary date more than ten years into the future (20+ years if you're a long way from retirement) then put the bag in a quiet corner of the attic, closet or basement (where it won't get water/infestation damage) then open at that later date and sell the cards in bulk or one at a time.
Timelord - I agree with you that destroying things can be counterproductive and harmful in many ways. However, I think we are talking about apples and oranges here.
Destroying the Mona Lisa? Thats a one of a kind, priceless piece of art history. Of course a photo is not the same.
I have multiple full base sets of these Cardsmiths Currency cards and I know others do as well, so not quite the same as a single rare painting.
I will be doing exactly what you suggest . . . and more.
I will keep unopened boxes/packs.
I will keep full sets protected. (I'll even do exactly as you say, seal some up until 2035 AND 20 years from now).
I will burn full sets and keep the redemption reward protected.
I agree with you that if there was only ONE set of base cards, destroying it would be criminal. But the truth is there are thousands of these base cards and by burning a small percent of them the remaining cards become more valuable.
I think a better analogy is Bitcoin. Think of it like the several million bitcoin lost to missing keys, boating accidents, and burner addresses. People don't seem to mind that their BTC has more value because the supply is now less than 21M. Do I hate to see those BTC gone, sure. But there are many still left (like base sets) and they are now more prized. Furthermore we always say "you get bitcoin at the price you deserve". Simply put, early entry has higher risk. Same thing here. You buy cards now, you take a risk they aren't worth anything later, but maybe they will be. I liken it to early OG collectors who "burned" some of their Bitcoin for now treasured tokens like a Casascius coin (I get that the BTC was not actually burned for this). Cas coins are no longer made, harder to get now, but still available for a price (like a card burn prize). What's more valuable, the Cas coin or the BTC; the burn prize or the base set? I know it's not a perfect analogy, but simply an attempt to show how I think about this dilemma/opportunity.
We can agree to disagree, no hard feelings, but honestly I am glad that there may be an option for my extra base cards that could have value or be more rare than an actual base set in the future.
Geo