With a collection of about 115 albums and a little over 300 ‘Stray Kids’ photo cards along with trading for her collection, Junior Kaitlyn Lin has channeled her burning love for K-pop and buying albums into creating an Instagram photo card trading account with over 700 followers, as an outlet for her passion for the music.
Explaining why she has such a strong interest in collecting and trading these K-pop photo cards, Kaitlyn says, “I find it fun to collect photo cards, and the thrill of opening albums and seeing what photo card you get. And also just interacting with people who share the same interests.”
Kaitlyn started getting into K-pop in 2021 when one of her friends introduced her to a boy group called ‘Stray Kids’, instantly falling in love with their meaningful lyrics and unique music style. Kaitlyn then began exploring more of the group’s music and eventually buying one of their albums.
Within each album is a photo card of the group member or artist. As she purchased more of ‘Stray Kids’ albums, Kaitlyn started collecting the photo cards as a way to feel more connected to her favorite group. She says, “Collecting photo cards shows a person’s dedication to the group. I started after I got the urge to try and complete sets, but what makes it fun is the suspense of seeing which photo card you pull.”
Eventually, Kaitlyn realized that trading photocards was another effective way of collecting photocards and a way to get rid of duplicates. So she called upon her friend to create an Instagram trading account together for fun. So far, her Instagram account, ‘@kcberrytrades’ has helped her make a little over $200 through sales, and has added a substantial amount of photo cards to her collection.
Kaitlyn will usually look online to find what cards are available from different albums, and then will use her account to post photo cards she wants, and what she is willing to trade, and wait for other K-pop fans to message her.
She hopes to expand her collection more in support of her favorite group. Her goal is to collect a total of 700 ‘Stray Kids’ photocards over the next 5 years.
