Do you worry about our hobby dying?

[ajjohnsonsoxfan]

I don't think it's a secret that baseball continues to lose fans to the NFL, NBA and Soccer. Is there a possibility that long term card prices decline as there are less and less people interested in the sport and as a result card collecting as a hobby. Is the finite supply of pre-war cards a blessing or a curse in attracting new collectors? Would love to see some data on the health of the hobby over the last 20-30 years and future projections....

[Louieman]

I'd hold off on baseball's obituary because of the problems the NFL has, as well as the ref problem in basketball. Baseball was so weak in 1994, and its bounced back big time since then. America is a football nation, don't get me wrong. But I think baseball has been around for too long to fade into nonexistence. It's part of our cultural identity at this point. I think the memorabilia that goes with it will hang around just fine, even if the country itself falls down. Cards and other stuff like that are already treated like museum pieces, imagine what it will be like tens or hundreds of years down the road.

[Econteachert205]

I wonder about collectors outside the us, baseball being a global game and all.

[insccollectibles]

According to the players contracts, which in part is a reflection of advertising dollars the game is doing fine.

[ksabet]

Not sure about what will happen to baseball...but I don't worry about it.

[ATP]

I wouldn't have any worry at all about the next thirty or forty years at least. There are a lot of folks in their twenties and thirties who collect...and finally now have the expendable income. They grew up collecting in the eighties and nineties...likely got out of the hobby for a little while around high school and college age, then come back to it when life settles down a little more.

A lot of people I talk to are in their thirties and they assume they must be part of the younger group, but that group is actually quite large.

Collectors typically collect until life no longer allows them to, so there are quite a few good decades left from that group alone. There are also a lot of people in their teens who collect modern, and occasionally drift to vintage. Beyond fifty years or so who know what people will be doing, but I don't think most of us here will have to worry about it dying out during our lifetime.

[Sean]

I'm a lot more worried about me dying than I am about the hobby dying.

Baseball games televised nationally have been steadily losing ratings, but ratings for local broadcasts and attendance are up over the last 20 years.
I don't know which specific sets will do well, but vintage cards in general should continue to be popular, IMO.

[Ladder7]

Don't worry. ARod'son the way back!

[bigtrain]

Are you a baseball fan to the exclusion of all other sports?
I am not and I am guessing that few are. Considering the growth
Of the US population, I would guess that there are
more baseball fans today than ever. I have no concerns about
baseball or the hobby going away.

[Al C.risafulli]

Not at all.

More than 73 million MLB tickets were sold in 2014. Just north of 30 million were sold in 1974. This past season, the team ranked lowest in attendance - Tampa Bay - drew 1,446,000 fans. That would have ranked them 7th in 1974. This past season, 11 teams outdrew the #1 ranked team in 1974.

None of that factors in all the heavy cable TV contracts, 24-hour sports news networks, sports talk radio, and big money transactions in our hobby that make news on a regular basis. I think there's more awareness, exposure, an interest in our hobby than ever before, and as people get older and want to reconnect with nostalgia, I think that's only going upward.

-Al

[JollyElm]

I certainly see the death knell coming. Whereas in my youth (during the 70's) we collected like crazy, always buying more cards with whatever nickels and dime we could rustle up. After we got our cards home and sorted everything into teams, the very first thing we'd do is trade with our friends, trying to get our favorite players and complete that year's set. Flipping cards was also the norm and yes, you'd put the scrubby players into your bicycle spokes to make that great noise. This is what summers were about and nobody, I mean NOBODY, cared about condition or centering. We would wrap our cards in rubber bands or put bunches of them in our back pockets.

Fast forward to today. A kid goes into a baseball card store, spends the money his mom or dad gave him on a ridiculously overpriced pack of cards. When he finds the ubiquitous insert, he immediately tilts it in the light, checking out the corners and what not and says to his friends, "This is definitely a 9, maybe a 9.5. Hand me that Beckett over there." Does he trade, flip or do anything else but care about the value of the card?? No frickin' way. And before anyone else even has a chance to touch that card, he has it in a soft sleeve and a top loader.

So it's tough to see how these kids will, as they grow older, develop an actual appreciation for the cards themselves. How they tie into the great game of baseball and the wonderment of their youth. They might as well just spend their money on gold instead, like William Devane is always yapping about in those commercials. :rolleyes:

[Mountaineer1999]

I certainly see the death knell coming. Whereas in my youth (during the 70's) we collected like crazy, always buying more cards with whatever nickels and dime we could rustle up. After we got our cards home and sorted everything into teams, the very first thing we'd do is trade with our friends, trying to get our favorite players and complete that year's set. Flipping cards was also the norm and yes, you'd put the scrubby players into your bicycle spokes to make that great noise. This is what summers were about and nobody, I mean NOBODY, cared about condition or centering. We would wrap our cards in rubber bands or put bunches of them in our back pockets.

Fast forward to today. A kid goes into a baseball card store, spends the money his mom or dad gave him on a ridiculously overpriced pack of cards. When he finds the ubiquitous insert, he immediately tilts it in the light, checking out the corners and what not and says to his friends, "This is definitely a 9, maybe a 9.5. Hand me that Beckett over there." Does he trade, flip or do anything else but care about the value of the card?? No frickin' way. And before anyone else even has a chance to touch that card, he has it in a soft sleeve and a top loader.

So it's tough to see how these kids will, as they grow older, develop an actual appreciation for the cards themselves. How they tie into the great game of baseball and the wonderment of their youth. They might as well just spend their money on gold instead, like William Devane is always yapping about in those commercials. :rolleyes:

+1 spot on

[Brian Van Horn]

Just perusing the comments.

If we are talking about baseball, no problem.

If we are talking about card collecting, and in particular before WWII card collecting, there is a problem.

For the hobby of Pre-WWII card collecting to continue-not so much flourish-you need new blood. You also need a combination of historically curious combined with baseball enthusiast. That mindset has been shrinking and to an extent dying. It's not a large group these days. Just hoping for some new fans of old collecting.

[bnorth]

I certainly see the death knell coming. Whereas in my youth (during the 70's) we collected like crazy, always buying more cards with whatever nickels and dime we could rustle up. After we got our cards home and sorted everything into teams, the very first thing we'd do is trade with our friends, trying to get our favorite players and complete that year's set. Flipping cards was also the norm and yes, you'd put the scrubby players into your bicycle spokes to make that great noise. This is what summers were about and nobody, I mean NOBODY, cared about condition or centering. We would wrap our cards in rubber bands or put bunches of them in our back pockets.

Fast forward to today. A kid goes into a baseball card store, spends the money his mom or dad gave him on a ridiculously overpriced pack of cards. When he finds the ubiquitous insert, he immediately tilts it in the light, checking out the corners and what not and says to his friends, "This is definitely a 9, maybe a 9.5. Hand me that Beckett over there." Does he trade, flip or do anything else but care about the value of the card?? No frickin' way. And before anyone else even has a chance to touch that card, he has it in a soft sleeve and a top loader.

So it's tough to see how these kids will, as they grow older, develop an actual appreciation for the cards themselves. How they tie into the great game of baseball and the wonderment of their youth. They might as well just spend their money on gold instead, like William Devane is always yapping about in those commercials. :rolleyes:

+1

Then all the scammers are getting much better at what they do. I do not think it will be long before even the grading companies can not tell the difference between real and fake. Even graded cards now are a crap shoot, SGC and old PSA slabs are super easy to crack and put in a reprint, trimmed, or lower end card and then you have the guy in Mexico from the PSA scam.

[tschock]

I think it also depends on what is meant by the hobby dying. The only way it will guarantee to die of is if NO new blood comes into the hobby. None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

Even if the new blood is only 1% of what it is now, I seriously doubt that pre-war cards will just "disappear". Someone will buy them up. Now that could mean that you might only get $100 for a card you spent $10K on years ago, but it won't mean the hobby of COLLECTING cards will die off. Unless your heirs plan on burning the cards for fuel rather than getting $0.01 on the dollar.

So if you mean the hobby as card COLLECTING, then no. If you mean the hobby as a business or means to make money, then maybe.

[Section103]

If it would hurry up and die, then I'll be able to buy a lot more cards for a lot less money.

[sbfinley]

The hobby isn't going anywhere. I was talking with an old dealer a couple weeks ago and he complaining about the falling sky and how the hobby would be dead in 50 years. The whole "90's Bubble/Remember When/We're all dying off" story.

Sorry, but the hobby isn't dying. It's changing. Just because show attendance and brick n' mortar sells are down doesn't mean the hobby is. Pre-War and vintage cards are at an all time high and something is always pumping value wise. In modern issues companies push and sell anything from $1 packs to $800 boxes and they are all popular in some respect. Heck, a card shop out in California buys up graded cards and memorabilia and repackages it as mystery product and charges up to $8,000 a box for the stuff and it sells out almost instantly. The hobby is as strong as it ever has been. It's just different.

Is baseball the most popular sport in America now? Nope, and it likely won't be a long while at the least, but attendance remains strong in most baseball cities and from a earnings standpoint the franchises are exceptionally well off. It has become a regional sport with loyal fan bases who will sustain it for the immediate future. Importantly to MLB, the popularity of college baseball continues to grow incrementally it seems each year, which will increase MLB popularity in the future as fans with college allegiances will follow alumni in the pros. The length of time spent in the minors will dampen this fascination somewhat, but more and more prospects are MLB ready faster then in the past. Plenty of kids in baseball cities, and outside baseball cities, collect and more and more often adults are driven to the hobby even if they didn't collect in their youth. Many of these collectors start with modern issues and work their way back to vintage issues.

[Centauri]

I agree with whoever said the next 30-40 years are solid. I worry about the kids who are 10-15 years old right now.

I started collecting in 1986 because everyone else I knew also collected. We would get together and trade, discuss, try to build sets, etc. I think much of the hobby today is made up of my generation still buying the new cards, but now it is like buying scratch off lotto tickets - open a pack not aiming for the set, but the inserts, and the REALLY RARE inserts (hurl).

My son is 12, plays 4 sports, and I haven't heard or seen him or any of his friends talk about cards. Right now the hobby has leveled off from a steep decline, led by people like me who collected as a kid but now have some disposable income to chase their dreams from childhood. I plan to collect for a long time yet. But 40 years from now, who will be the buyers?

[mrvster]

+1...

baseball here to stay .

I see the future of card collecting to go toward vintage once the younger population develop....they will realize the actual "history" of these cards...

just will be evolution...

[chipperhank44]

I certainly see the death knell coming. Whereas in my youth (during the 70's) we collected like crazy, always buying more cards with whatever nickels and dime we could rustle up. After we got our cards home and sorted everything into teams, the very first thing we'd do is trade with our friends, trying to get our favorite players and complete that year's set. Flipping cards was also the norm and yes, you'd put the scrubby players into your bicycle spokes to make that great noise. This is what summers were about and nobody, I mean NOBODY, cared about condition or centering. We would wrap our cards in rubber bands or put bunches of them in our back pockets.

Fast forward to today. A kid goes into a baseball card store, spends the money his mom or dad gave him on a ridiculously overpriced pack of cards. When he finds the ubiquitous insert, he immediately tilts it in the light, checking out the corners and what not and says to his friends, "This is definitely a 9, maybe a 9.5. Hand me that Beckett over there." Does he trade, flip or do anything else but care about the value of the card?? No frickin' way. And before anyone else even has a chance to touch that card, he has it in a soft sleeve and a top loader.

So it's tough to see how these kids will, as they grow older, develop an actual appreciation for the cards themselves. How they tie into the great game of baseball and the wonderment of their youth. They might as well just spend their money on gold instead, like William Devane is always yapping about in those commercials. :rolleyes:

I think there are a number of younger collectors on this board (myself included) who obsessed over perfect corners, serial numbers, shiny refractors, and strong sub-grades. But sooner or later the allure of owning something that is actually rare and not just manufactured to create the appearance of rarity takes over and vintage collecting is the next step. Also, getting burned by a few can't miss prospects or dealing with the inevitable depreciation of modern cards eventually turns collectors eyes to the appealing predictability of the vintage market. Then, once you buy your first vintage card, you experience the history and the work of art you are holding and it's hook line and sinker. IMO, as long as there is a modern card market, there is a pipeline of new vintage collectors.

[T206Collector]

If it would hurry up and die, then I'll be able to buy a lot more cards for a lot less money.

+1 Hopefully I can outlive the hobby. But I doubt it.

[the 'stache]

Are you a baseball fan to the exclusion of all other sports?
I am not and I am guessing that few are. Considering the growth
Of the US population, I would guess that there are
more baseball fans today than ever. I have no concerns about
baseball or the hobby going away.

This. Tom nails it. The idea that baseball is losing fans to football, hockey, basketball, soccer, etc is flawed. I love football, though I do admit that I've lost interest somewhat recently because of rule changes, and the scandals going on with some of the players. I also think the NFL Commissioner is an idiot that needs to step down. But, I've been a die hard Green Bay Packers fan pretty much since birth. I think my first word was Lombardi. I will love the Packers until the day I drop dead, and therefore, I will support the NFL, too. But I have loved the game of baseball, and the Brewers, for nearly as long. I love going to baseball games. I love watching it on television. I love reading about it, watching documentaries about it. Seeing old clips. And, of course, I love collecting baseball cards.

Baseball attendance in 2014 was about 74 million people. That's the seventh highest in the history of the game. Viewership of baseball might be down, but I think it's because there are so many more choices now. The game itself is not hurting at all. In fact, I would say that it's thriving.

I'm not worried about the hobby, either. I see new people joining the forum, and a good portion of them are much younger. That's encouraging. They're not only getting into the hobby, they're expressing an interest in the history of the game, and the vintage and pre-war periods. And if these new members are having fun, they're telling their friends, and some of them will join, too. When they come here, I will welcome them. I will offer to do whatever I can to help them. If I can provide advice, or education to help them make smart decisions, I will do that. I encourage people to send me messages with questions they might have. I will spend all the time needed to help them, and if I don't know an answer, I will work with them to find that answer.

Life is too short to worry about something that is beyond my control. I will enjoy the hobby as much as humanly possible while I am here. I will do everything I can to help my fellow hobbyists of all ages do the same. For my part, I will treat the people I meet with respect. I will deal with them honestly. I will do everything I can to set a good example, and I will report people I see that are trying to cheat, or steal from other hobbyists. That is all I can do. If everybody on this forum pledges to do the same, then I think our hobby will continue on for a long time. Baseball is always going to have a following. And naturally, there will always be people who want to learn about the game's history. And as long as there are baseball fans interested in the game's history, our hobby will continue on.

[MattyC]

I agree the whole "losing fans to NFL" logic is specious. They are not mutually exclusive. Not to mention the problems plaguing the NFL at the moment. In fact, my broader circle of friends and I have grown disinterested in the NFL in our 30's and more interested in MLB and NBA.

The "hobby future" thread seems to surface every few months in one form or another. There are enough passionate collectors out there to sustain it for many, many years. America's pastime, its fans, and the collectors of its historic memorabilia will be doing just fine in the decades to come.

And as someone else above said so well, our own health and well-being is much more likely to encounter problems-- so we better enjoy our cards while the getting's good.

[dru724]

Here's an interesting article on ESPN about how the decline/ death of baseball has been written about for about as long as the game itself:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-dead-ball-century-mlb-baseball-playoffs-john-thorn-mlb-historian-baseball-decline-articles/

[BearBailey]

Not really, I think there has been an uptick in the last 5 years, I know it will never be what it once was with shows every weekend and shops in every town but the shows I do go to Philly and the National seem to be better than they had been since the mid to late 90s.

[ValKehl]

"IMO, as long as there is a modern card market, there is a pipeline of new vintage collectors."

Trey, I think you hit the nail on the head!
Val

[the 'stache]

I agree the whole "losing fans to NFL" logic is specious. They are not mutually exclusive. Not to mention the problems plaguing the NFL at the moment. In fact, my broader circle of friends and I have grown disinterested in the NFL in our 30's and more interested in MLB and NBA.

The "hobby future" thread seems to surface every few months in one form or another. There are enough passionate collectors out there to sustain it for many, many years. America's pastime, its fans, and the collectors of its historic memorabilia will be doing just fine in the decades to come.

And as someone else above said so well, our own health and well-being is much more likely to encounter problems-- so we better enjoy our cards while the getting's good.

Well said as usual, Matt. Funny, I almost used the same mutually exclusive wording, but I reworked my post.

When I was a kid, I loved basketball. I used to go see the Bucks at the old Mecca Arena in Milwaukee. The Bucks were really good then. But they always seemed to get knocked out by the Celtics in the playoffs. But now the game just isn't as good as it used to be. It's like fundamentals are a thing of the past.

With football, the rule changes are ruining the game. You can't even fart around the quarterback without a penalty being called. And on a deep ball, the cornerback has no room for error whatsoever. The refs call defensive pass interference at the drop of a hat. I know the league wants higher scoring games, but it's ridiculous right now.

I've decided to start watching hockey again. I've always loved it, and I need something else to get into. So, I'll follow the Penguins again, and I guess the Stars.

[EvilKing00]

I don't worry about that at all. Although most here love the game, some here do not, and just love collecting. And as far as the game relating to collecting im not sure it does. Im a huge met fan....sadly. I haven't been to a game now in a few years as the ownership is depressing. Even though I even get free season tix from the wifes job. Though I do read a met blog all the time.

But, in the last few few years I have bought more cards then I ever have, found net54, started collecting prewar & babe ruth cards amongst other things. So even though im not paying the attention to the game as I once did, im more into the hobby then ever.

I also think its more about collecting "old stuff", owning rare pieces of history if you will.

I know the main question is, will the 15-20 year olds now get older and start collecting? My answer would be yes. When I was that age I was in school, paying attention to girls and getting into trouble, the money I had was spent on that not a $500 piece of cardboard. but once a collector settles down, stops the fooling around hes got to collect something!

[Leon]

I don't worry about that at all. Although most here love the game, some here do not, and just love collecting. And as far as the game relating to collecting im not sure it does. Im a huge met fan....sadly. I haven't been to a game now in a few years as the ownership is depressing. Even though I even get free season tix from the wifes job. Though I do read a met blog all the time.

But, in the last few few years I have bought more cards then I ever have, found net54, started collecting prewar & babe ruth cards amongst other things. So even though im not paying the attention to the game as I once did, im more into the hobby then ever.

I also think its more about collecting "old stuff", owning rare pieces of history if you will.

I know the main question is, will the 15-20 year olds now get older and start collecting? My answer would be yes. When I was that age I was in school, paying attention to girls and getting into trouble, the money I had was spent on that not a $500 piece of cardboard. but once a collector settles down, stops the fooling around hes got to collect something!

I agree with this. I don't care for MLB whatsoever but I love the game (and play softball this evening, in a weekly league). I think our hobby is fine. With the advent of the internet I think it actually grew exponentially. I also equate it more to collecting antiques, but with more purpose, than I do collecting cards like we (us old guys) did as a kid. Today's new card collecting is pretty much nothing like what we did. (as far as I remember :)).

[z28jd]

If you want to help, buy some cheap box of cards and hand out packs during Halloween. You can buy a box of Donruss on ebay for as low as $10 and I'm sure other stuff from that era can be found around that same price or less. Give the kid cards that are 25+ years old, maybe you get them hooked on the hobby or their dad sees it and remembers collecting and gets back into it. Do your part. By reading this far, you agree to do this and if you don't, the penalty is a crease on your favorite card(non-negotiable).

[ATP]

That reminds me, a few years ago I gave away Ken Griffey Jr. Bobbleheads at Halloween. The nice, full size ones that you bought at the stadium (I had hundreds left over from when the All Star Game was in Seattle and they were just taking up space in my garage). For the first hundred or so kids, I gave them the choice of a piece of candy or a bobblehead. I only gave away one bobblehead for every ten pieces of candy approximately, less than a dozen total. The kids only cared about candy. Next time if I try it with cards I won't give them the option :-)

[EvilKing00]

If you want to help, buy some cheap box of cards and hand out packs during Halloween. You can buy a box of Donruss on ebay for as low as $10 and I'm sure other stuff from that era can be found around that same price or less. Give the kid cards that are 25+ years old, maybe you get them hooked on the hobby or their dad sees it and remembers collecting and gets back into it. Do your part. By reading this far, you agree to do this and if you don't, the penalty is a crease on your favorite card(non-negotiable).

Actually a great idea!

[insccollectibles]

If you want to help, buy some cheap box of cards and hand out packs during Halloween. You can buy a box of Donruss on ebay for as low as $10 and I'm sure other stuff from that era can be found around that same price or less. Give the kid cards that are 25+ years old, maybe you get them hooked on the hobby or their dad sees it and remembers collecting and gets back into it. Do your part. By reading this far, you agree to do this and if you don't, the penalty is a crease on your favorite card(non-negotiable).

Great idea! I'm handing out packs along with candy.

[Bosox Blair]

Every month or two somebody starts a post wondering about the future of the hobby. These posts usually start with some assumed premise that we are all meant to accept. My problem is that most of these are untrue.

The 2014 MLB season had the 7th highest attendance of all time. The last 10 years have been among the best attended seasons in history.

So by this measure baseball is not losing fans.

Then we get the "card collectors are all old guys" premise for the hobby dying. Yet every poll on Net54 shows that pre-war collectors average only about 40 years of age.

Based on the actual facts, there is nothing wrong with the health of baseball or the hobby.

Cheers,
Blair

[Gobucsmagic74]

You don't have to be an avid modern day baseball fan to rampantly collect vintage baseball cards. The two things do not necessarily go hand in hand and are not dependent on one another. I loved the game as kid and am a casual fan now, but I love collecting vintage cards.

[darwinbulldog]

I agree that being a fan of MLB and of the NFL or NBA are not mutually exclusive, but I'm not sure that makes the rise in popularity of other sports relative to baseball irrelevant. I have roughly equal interest in following MLB, NFL, and NCAA football, somewhat less in NCAA basketball and professional tennis, and very little in any other sports -- but over 95% of my sports cards are baseball cards.

If I were slightly more interested in the NFL and/or slightly less in MLB, that could perhaps tip my collection to 95% NFL instead, even though I would still be a baseball fan. Baseball has the advantage of having much more pre-war material to collect than the other sports, so the question I would want to ask is how much of our collecting interest is accounted for by interest in history/antiques/lithography and how much is accounted for by interest in baseball itself. If it's mostly the former I would expect the hobby to remain strong for the next several decades; if it's mostly the latter I wouldn't expect there to be a similarly large group of us 50 years from now, even if there are a hundred million people still around at that time who consider themselves baseball (or beisbol or yakyu or...) fans.

[auggiedoggy]

I'm a lot more worried about me dying than I am about the hobby dying.

Baseball games televised nationally have been steadily losing ratings, but ratings for local broadcasts and attendance are up over the last 20 years.
I don't know which specific sets will do well, but vintage cards in general should continue to be popular, IMO.

I don't worry about the hobby or myself dying. My wife might worry about me dying or at least, she's putting on a convincing act that she's concerned. :D

[The Nasty Nati]

I think the concern for the hobby is less in whether people are interested in baseball and more whether people are interested in collecting sports memorabilia, particularly cards.

I'm 28 and I'm definitely on the cusp age-wise where kids just stopped collecting cards. When I was young I collected baseball and basketball cards and that was in the mid to late 90's. Even then there wasn't a whole lot of kids in the neighborhood collecting. Then come around the early 2000's, no one was collecting cards. I have a younger brother and he collected because of me, but none of his friends did. If they did collect cards they were Pokemon.

I think to get people hooked on collecting you have to get them while they're young. And I just don't think hardly any kids born say after 1997 ever collected cards as a kid.

I may be wrong in this assumption though. But I'd be curious to see the age study in about 10 years. There's a fair amount of people in their 20's collecting because we are literally the last generation that collected when we were kids. Kids any younger just never grew up collecting cards, they grew up collecting Pokemon on their Gameboys. Card stores still use to be everywhere when I was a kid, now they're nowhere.

[tschock]

The 2014 MLB season had the 7th highest attendance of all time. The last 10 years have been among the best attended seasons in history.

So by this measure baseball is not losing fans.

Not to mention record setting minor league attendances as well.

[bn2cardz]

I know my kids are interested. My 20month came in my room and woke me up this past Saturday saying "b-ball b-ball" he says this for both baseball and basketball. He was pointing at an auction catalog on my dresser. So I got it for him and he flipped the pages very happily. Since the catalog never got put back my 2 year old started looking through it.

Yet they are kids of a collector and they are too young to know if it will stick.

I do also teach Sunday School to the youth at my Church and 3 kids have mentioned being collectors (and are sure they have more than me and their collections are worth more, I just laugh).

[drcy]

Also realize that the demand for 'past it' collectable genres such as Civil War, WWII, Presidential and political, Nobel Prize winners, history et al is very high now and will be for a long time. The Civil War ended almost 150 years ago and its ephemera is avidly collected today. Most of the veterans of WWII are dead now, but its as big a collectible area as it has ever been. Being historical (antiques) can make things more collectible with time and bring renewed interest.

People often ponder the future of baseball card collecting, wondering who in the future will be interested in collecting memorabilia of dead guys. Babe Ruth died before most of us were born and quit playing before my dad was born-- and his collectibles are as hot as ever. There might be higher demand for Babe Ruth memorabilia today than when he was playing-- and there certainly is you measure demand by prices.

Also, collecting areas are specialty areas-- niches, often far removed from the mainstream television going public. 1800s baseball is a specialty, historical area, a niche market and most people on the street of any age haven't heard of King Kelly or Kid Nichols. Yet, prices for the cards are (obviously) high. So it can be errant to compare a collecting area to mainstream public sentiments. Science Nobel Prize winner autographs, Civil War generals, rare books, Francis Bacon paintings are all small esoteric niche areas that most people don't know or care about about, yet their stuff sells for top dollar.

[vintagetoppsguy]

I certainly see the death knell coming. Whereas in my youth (during the 70's) we collected like crazy, always buying more cards with whatever nickels and dime we could rustle up. After we got our cards home and sorted everything into teams, the very first thing we'd do is trade with our friends, trying to get our favorite players and complete that year's set. Flipping cards was also the norm and yes, you'd put the scrubby players into your bicycle spokes to make that great noise. This is what summers were about and nobody, I mean NOBODY, cared about condition or centering. We would wrap our cards in rubber bands or put bunches of them in our back pockets.

Fast forward to today. A kid goes into a baseball card store, spends the money his mom or dad gave him on a ridiculously overpriced pack of cards. When he finds the ubiquitous insert, he immediately tilts it in the light, checking out the corners and what not and says to his friends, "This is definitely a 9, maybe a 9.5. Hand me that Beckett over there." Does he trade, flip or do anything else but care about the value of the card?? No frickin' way. And before anyone else even has a chance to touch that card, he has it in a soft sleeve and a top loader.

So it's tough to see how these kids will, as they grow older, develop an actual appreciation for the cards themselves. How they tie into the great game of baseball and the wonderment of their youth. They might as well just spend their money on gold instead, like William Devane is always yapping about in those commercials. :rolleyes:


And another +1


I don't care for MLB whatsoever but I love the game.

Agreed. I hate what MLB has evolved into. I would much rather watch paint dry than watch a MLB game.


If you want to help, buy some cheap box of cards and hand out packs during Halloween. You can buy a box of Donruss on ebay for as low as $10 and I'm sure other stuff from that era can be found around that same price or less. Give the kid cards that are 25+ years old, maybe you get them hooked on the hobby or their dad sees it and remembers collecting and gets back into it. Do your part. By reading this far, you agree to do this and if you don't, the penalty is a crease on your favorite card(non-negotiable).

Until you have some angry mom come knocking at your door wondering why you gave her kid 25 year old gum that made him/her sick :D

[bigfanNY]

First to stay OT Baseball card Collecting as a hobby is definitely here to stay and has always and will continue to change and evolve. My son was born in 1986 and both my Dad and I put away stuff from that year when he was born. He started coming to shows around 1990 and was a full participant on both sides of the table by 1996. When he got to high school that participation dropped like a Rock.
But both he and My daughter two years younger really liked going to live games. They both have lots of friends who are big sport fans. Many of those friends see my stacks of cards and are drawn to them "Got any Griffey Rookies" is a common first sentence. Because 1989 UD was a big moment in baseball cards and that shockwave is still felt by a generation that has not yet fully embraced card collecting.
Will it be different for my grandkids YES... Will I like it as much NO but everything changes and when I am open I find enjoyment.
I did give away wax packs for Halloween a couple of times. First time in 1988 I gave away that years Topps wax packs and was the hero of the neighborhood. last time I had to include a piece of candy or I got a frown from kids. But their Dad's liked it and they will pass their love of cards along to those kids so we are OK.
PS 1986 Fleer Basketball and Topps football made up for worthless baseball vending and he made it through college just fine.

[Eric72]

Until you have some angry mom come knocking at your door wondering why you gave her kid 25 year old gum that made him/her sick :D

Unfortunately, I can see that happening. So, I guess the trick is to only give out packs of cards without gum. The good news here is that many products from the overproduction era were issued without gum, including the Donruss offerings of the late '80s.

Best regards,

Eric

[Econteachert205]

Unfortunately, I can see that happening. So, I guess the trick is to only give out packs of cards without gum. The good news here is that many products from the overproduction era were issued without gum, including the Donruss offerings of the late '80s.

Best regards,

Eric


I had a 1986 topps wax break in my collectibles club at school last year. I explicitly told the 17 year olds not to eat the gum. They still did and I'm happy to report they did not get sick.

[kamikidEFFL]

From my experience I basically started my collecting in the 90's. It basically was a bunch of 99cent packs of cards and looking for the hot rookie card 89 UD Griffey oh was that the card to have. Anyway I watched the hobby change from looking to collecting the sets n hot rookie cards or inserts to trade with friends. Then it went to game used memorabilia cards and autographs. Very tough cards to pull, something like 1:150,000 packs haha. It was fun but now seeing the new hobby all people care about are the 3 color patch autograph rc #'d to 5 to be worth something. I could see the new stuff pricing themselves out. My opinion obviously.

Anyway, I wish I listened to my uncle when I was real young and focus on the vintage stuff nope I was a stupid kid. what I'm trying to say is I changed my train of thought and figured go back to where things were simple and easy. I think we may see the same thing. Plus I have been to a few shows and see a bunch of young kids interested in the 50's stuff and even earlier. If you have a small amount of young ones interested and fathers/mothers showing their own kids the hobby it will continue to move forward. We can only hope.

[rhettyeakley]

Also realize that the demand for 'past it' collectable genres such as Civil War, WWII, Presidential and political, Nobel Prize winners, history et al is very high now and will be for a long time. The Civil War ended almost 150 years ago and its ephemera is avidly collected today. Most of the veterans of WWII are dead now, but its as big a collectible area as it has ever been. Being historical (antiques) can make things more collectible with time and bring renewed interest.

People often ponder the future of baseball card collecting, wondering who in the future will be interested in collecting memorabilia of dead guys. Babe Ruth died before most of us were born and quit playing before my dad was born-- and his collectibles are as hot as ever. There might be higher demand for Babe Ruth memorabilia today than when he was playing-- and there certainly is you measure demand by prices.

Also, collecting areas are specialty areas-- niches, often far removed from the mainstream television going public. 1800s baseball is a specialty, historical area, a niche market and most people on the street of any age haven't heard of King Kelly or Kid Nichols. Yet, prices for the cards are (obviously) high. So it can be errant to compare a collecting area to mainstream public sentiments. Science Nobel Prize winner autographs, Civil War generals, rare books, Francis Bacon paintings are all small esoteric niche areas that most people don't know or care about about, yet their stuff sells for top dollar.

This is exactly what I tell people when they talk about the demise of baseball as a sport and it's popularity going forward.

As vintage baseball card/memorabilia collectors we are both collecting things related to a sport (baseball) and antiques. Not many niches in the antique market have direct correlation to modern times... which actually makes sports antiques unique in that there is a "built-in" gateway to potential future collectors. What we collect IMO has a brighter future than most areas of antiques and of all sports baseball is by far the most tied into its past as most sports have changed sooooooo much since their infancy that they barely resemble each other, then there is baseball.

[HalChaseCollector]

I am 16 and think I can say in confidence that we have no interest in baseball cards. I do but I have never met a single other kid who collects modern or vintage. Also most kids don't even care about anyone who played because 1950 unless their name is Babe Ruth or Ted Williams. None of my friends know who Tris Speaker is or Walter Johnson! They think why have a baseball card when you can look up everything on the Internet? Also modern cards are kind of seen as a little kid thing. 6 and 7 year olds collect but give up when they get older. I'm starting to ramble but here is my general message- my generation doesn't appreciate cards and that is bad for the future of the hobby.

[Goudey]

If you want to help, buy some cheap box of cards and hand out packs during Halloween. You can buy a box of Donruss on ebay for as low as $10 and I'm sure other stuff from that era can be found around that same price or less. Give the kid cards that are 25+ years old, maybe you get them hooked on the hobby or their dad sees it and remembers collecting and gets back into it. Do your part. By reading this far, you agree to do this and if you don't, the penalty is a crease on your favorite card(non-negotiable).

As probably the youngest collector on this forum I think that I can speak for the amount of collecting at my age (High School). The hobby is fine right now, but in the future I can't agree and say it will be popular or even still around. I can think of maybe 3 kids in my school of 1500 that collect memorabilia. Maybe 2 of those kids collect cards and both like only new stuff. Vintage isnt interesting to them because they dont know the players.

[Rollingstone206]

...

[freakhappy]

Do I worry about our hobby dying...not at all. What I do believe is that it will probably change with time, like a lot of things do. When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, collecting baseball cards wasn't something you did because you thought about the amount of money a card was worth or resell necessarily, you did it because you loved baseball and being able to collect your favorite players and team made it worth your while. It's a lot different nowadays...a great deal of people are solely in it for the money. There are people on this site that don't give a lick about baseball...couldn't tell you much history about the game throughout any decade, but they have stellar card collections...this is what worries me. Card collecting has become a money thing more than collecting, but I can't blame anyone as this is how the hobby has shifted for the most part. Card collecting used to be simple and enjoyable, now it's mostly about money and a card collector that actually does so for enjoyment is a rarity.

Me, personally...I don't think much about the state of the hobby, I'm just enjoying the ride. I will attempt to get my boys to like sports and possibly ball cards, but this isn't something I will try to force them to do. They are growing up in a different era and looking back, it was a whole lot different than thirty years ago...cards were easy to collect, a lot of kids collected them, they were relatively cheap to buy and you could do anything with them and have fun! Today everything is so condition sensitive, it drives me nuts! :p

I still collect modern cards, mainly a few players that I enjoyed when I was a kid...nothing like turning back the clock or obtaining the cards that you never thought you would be able to when you were a kid...priceless!

[the 'stache]

There is a romanticism to the game's early years that today's game will never have. You'll still have people that closely identify with the players they grew up watching, but Mike Trout will never have the mystique that Babe Ruth or Willie Mays had, and still have.

[barrysloate]

The hobby might get a little smaller, and prices certainly can soften a bit, but there will always be a market for baseball memorabilia, and there will always be people collecting cards, photographs, autographs, etc. It might not even be such a bad thing if there was a little retrenchment in the future. Prices for some things are incredibly high, and many collectors are priced out. A softening of the market might even make the hobby a little more accessible.

But the hobby won't die. It will merely seek its own level.

[mrvster]

T206 as a whole to be the major driving force of the future collecting of vintage baseball cards since they are so recognizable to the historians and layman thanks to wagner.........


T206 Rare backs, printer's scraps, rare variations, proofs, freaks, the Wagners, Planks, Doyles, Magies, rare combos will be the future of vintage collecting and will continue to appreciate over time in relative fashion as wagz:)...

and ojs, mayo's 19th cent. stuff will stay fairly consistent my predictions:)

[ValKehl]

I believe the sports card and memorabilia hobby/business will be just fine as long as:
(1) A significant % of people continue to be born with the "collecting gene", and
(2) A significant % of people continue to become keenly interested in the major team sports (and even more so for such folks who also have an interest in history).
Val

[Fred]

I wonder how many ball players follow the history of the game. I have to figure that not too many are avid collectors of cards and vintage memorabilia.

God bless David Wells. He bought a real Babe Ruth worn hat and wore (or attempted to wear it) in a real game. :p

[YankeeCollector]

Old soldiers never die, they just fade away!

[MattyC]

I think it'll be just fine; here's a pic of my son and I have little cousins just like him-- if I can get it to load up... Basically he's holding some Mantles. He also occasionally wakes me up to do an in house card show and sell me cards (and toy guns, an interesting mix) And I gotta think where there's a few there's more.

The kids in my extended family just love baseball and cards. My boy's first word was "Mi-Ma" for Mickey Mantle, I guess because he heard me and my brother and cousins talking baseball so much. He even insists on calling Don Mattingly, Mantle, and Shoeless Joe on his toy cell phone before T-ball class.

[glynparson]

It is in a school district with a pretty good baseball history. But she often has a student or two that are pretty rabid card collectors. She has even more that collect gaming cards of some type. I think the hobby is fine. It is changing but it is not dying.

[z28jd]

If there wasn't a market for cards, I don't think multiple companies would continue to put out cards each year. Topps has at least five different sets they put out. Someone must be buying them.

I know I always go to the local minor league team when they give out their team sets(limited to 2000) and last year I sold two of them for $15 apiece and this year they are selling for the same amount. Minor league baseball is as popular as ever and every team at the upper levels puts out team sets.

I think a good thing that these companies do for the future is include cards of old stars. You could find at least ten different cards of Ty Cobb from 2014 sets. That gets kids interested in Cobb and when they have enough money, maybe they go out and buy one of his T206 cards

[SteveMitchell]

My concern is not about the hobby dying. It has definitely changed since the days of 300+ page SCD's and 100,000 National Convention attendees. I'm more concerned about the economic outlook for the United States in particular and the world generally.

[bobbyw8469]

My concern is not about the hobby dying. It has definitely changed since the days of 300+ page SCD's and 100,000 National Convention attendees. I'm more concerned about the economic outlook for the United States in particular and the world generally.

Amen brother.

[alaskapaul3]

My two cents :There is no immediate concern, but

For those of us that still have brick and mortar card stores to go to.....when you stop in , do you see a lot of kids in the store ? Of the kids that are in the store, how many of them are going through baseball cards versus football and basketball and Pokemon cards. The young posters on this thread made some very valid points.

Coin collecting had a serious upturn in the past 15 years with the production of the state quarters. It caught the kid's interest and cost next to nothing for them to start. My guess is some of those kids will be buying slabbed coins 20 years from now, and not just 21st century coins , but also 18th,19th and 20th century coins as they have more of a budget to do so. Cheap packs of cards from the card companies would be a good way of ensuring future collectors in the hobby.

-Paul

[packs]

I don't think this has been brought up in the thread yet.

For all of you who think the hobby will be fine, what do you think about the emergence of card museums and the same dealers at every show?

I've been going to White Plains shows for years. I rarely ever see a new vintage dealer. It is always the same five or six guys with the same material with the same stickers on them.

If the hobby is going to be fine and new blood will always pour in, how come there aren't any new dealers? Maybe this is just a product of White Plains. But I get the feeling there is stale blood at all the shows based on the post-show reports I read for other areas.

[ullmandds]

I have voiced my skepticism regarding the future of the hobby numerous times...ask archive! I think the rarities and hobby icons should be ok for the foreseeable future...although I DO feel that down the road...maybe 20-40 yrs from now there will be a glut of vintage...especially the common/not so desirable stuff which may drag down values across the board.

The hobby needs something new and exciting to drag youngsters with the collecting gene into the hobby.

Like at the very least all ballparks should give away cards to the kids atleast one time/yr(giveaway day). Or offer a card to every kid upon entering every or select home games with some form of lottery/raffle/prize/interactive activity at stake.

I think a "grassroots" movement at the ballparks could help.

[packs]

I think the T206 is a time bomb. By now nearly everyone who wants a monster must have made a significant dent. And even if they haven't, I feel like they're out numbered by people who have. Once those sets hit the market 5 to 10 years from now, expect T206's to tank. Once the premier vintage set tanks, I'd expect all other vintage sets to tank too.

I think it would be really cool if they found some way to imitate the success of early sets. Perhaps they could create a set of cards distributed in something children buy. Maybe MLB teams up with Mead or some other school supplies manufacturer and distributes a set during back to school season.

[glenv]

I agree with those that posted that we need cards that kids can afford. But it's hard for a kid to be happy with a 99 cent pack of plain cardboard when they see the shiny $5 pack. And what happened to the days of finding baseball cards in cereal boxes, on Hostess boxes, getting them from police officers, etc.? Are any national products still using cards as a promotion?

Like Pete said - : "Like at the very least all ballparks should give away cards to the kids at least one time/yr(giveaway day)."

[AMBST95]

The hobby will probably take a hit as the 20 and 30 somethings age and the older population dies off. Card collecting is less popular among kids for the last 10-20 years.

It will become more of a niche market but the market will be there. As mentioned earlier, card show attendance, brick and mortars, are all falling to the wayside. The business model just isn't good.

To judge the growth of the hobby though, how many new online venues are there for buying cards (ebay, auction houses, etc). There is definitely a market and that won't go away. It just is different now and the way to do business is different and will continue to change in the future.

Prices will probably hold steady but value will drop due to inflation. That's my prediction.

[frankbmd]

I think the T206 is a time bomb. By now nearly everyone who wants a monster must have made a significant dent. And even if they haven't, I feel like they're out numbered by people who have. Once those sets hit the market 5 to 10 years from now, expect T206's to tank. Once the premier vintage set tanks, I'd expect all other vintage sets to tank too.

I think it would be really cool if they found some way to imitate the success of early sets. Perhaps they could create a set of cards distributed in something children buy. Maybe MLB teams up with Mead or some other school supplies manufacturer and distributes a set during back to school season.

Not so sure about this. The Monster Number Thread was initially populated with a lot of old sets (~old money). In three years the number of new collectors have increased year over year. Some sets have been sold and quickly absorbed by the young and the restless (and you know who you are).

The internet has changed the hobby, but I think for the better. TPGs have changed the hobby and facilitate the internet market despite their shortcomings. Old cards are antiques. I never saw a prewar card when I was a kid growing up in 50s. Babe Ruth et al seemed like ancient history then. Now I seem like ancient history. The vintage card market will survive into the foreseeable future.

What folks will be paying for Bowman Chrome RCs from 2012 one hundred years from now is another completely different topic.:eek:

[packs]

I don't know. I've been collecting pre-war for a long time though I'm relatively young for the Board. Ten years ago I knew guys who collected T206s but none that were monster hunters in the sense that we see today, where a guy might buy 60 cards in a month.

Precisely because the internet has made everything easier, people are putting this set together easier. More finished sets mean less people buying. Add to that the number of people who are racing to finish their set and the inevitable: you get bored with it and want to liquidate. I think 5 to 10 years from now you're going to see a sell off en masse of monsters.

[mark evans]

I'm not worried about the hobby dying because I'm 65 years old.

But, if I were 35, I think I might be concerned about the potential for a reduction in values in the foreseeable future due to the passing on of the baby boomers, possibly coupled with a general downturn in the economy. On the first point, I believe there are simply too many diversions for today's youth (and have been since the 70s) to create the demand necessary to maintain current values, especially as adjusted for inflation. I also think that rarities will hold their value longer than readily available cards.

[campyfan39]

I will be extremely interested to see what happens in about 20-30 years if I am still around (I'm 41) as many second generation collector's private collections may hit the market.
A lot of us are children of the father's who got into this thing back in the 80's in part to recapture their childhood. Who knows what our kids will do with all we have amassed?

[packs]

I think video game systems are the modern investment to make. Working Nintendo's, Genesis, N64's and the most popular games for them.

It's the same principal: connecting with your youth. The majority of people from my generation spent a ridiculous amount of time playing video games during their childhood.

[1952boyntoncollector]

There are many people who say in 20 years there could be a problem in terms of keeping any value...noone will ever say 5 years..when its a point where people say 5 years then they would be selling asap like it was tomorrow....massive run to the bank

so basically like all worries....its either 20 years down the line or immediate.....i think we are all good for 20 years...

[Texxxx]

I am more worried about me being put under than the hobby getting buried. If the cards tank before I go then it just means I can buy a lot more. ;)

[ooo-ribay]

I think it will die, but I don't really care, as I collect for enjoyment, not for investment.

[exitmusicgreen]

Very interesting thread. I'm a 31-year-old collector who returned to the hobby late last year after about a 21-year hiatus. I know I'm not the only one.. in particular, many "born again" collectors stumble upon the world of modern cards via searching for collectibles of their favorite players via ebay, then finding it odd that modern cards are selling at unimagined prices, then doing research. That moment when things make sense opens up a whole new world.

So I think modern collecting has a role in producing + sustaining future interest.

As some have pointed out, the allure of vintage can emerge given the oft-maddening unpredictability of modern cards. I still collect modern due to the excitement factor plus feeling very connected to the game's current crop of players. But my (tiny yet growing) vintage collection gives me equal, if not more pride.

[bravesfan22]

Modern card collecting is very popular. Prospects are what people collect the most now, well invest in i should say. However even the "investors" usually have a player or team that they collect as well. The prospect buy and sell usually is what funds their personal collection pieces.

If you get on the blowout cards board or just look at ebay at modern topps or panini certified autograph card prices then you will see the hobby is alive in kicking and this side of the hobby holds a wide age group. Also a big bonus is I see a lot of parents that are involved with the hobby sharing it with their kids and doing the hobby together. Which is great!

I'm 26 and i mainly dabble in modern cards but my love for the history of baseball brought me to this board and started to get me into vintage cards as well. I think as people around my age learn more about the modern cards they end up looking into the vintage cards and wanting to learn and maybe collect them as well so I would say as long as card collecting on some aspect is happening then people will always end up supporting vintage cards as well.

I think the biggest movement we may see is people getting into vintage football cards instead of baseball due to the popularity of the NFL and modern football cards but who knows.

Between topps, bowman, panini and leaf there are well over 20 baseball products out per year. Same with football and basketball probably has atleast 10 products if not more and people open these by the case not just the box. I actually think the hobby is getting more popular in recent years thanks to things like case breaks. So again I guess to sum it up I think as long as modern card collecting is doing well their will be a steady flow of new vintage collecters as well. Just like most things, you start with the new stuff but you always go back to the roots.

-Adam

[mrvster]

great perspective:)

[yankees23]

I'm 36 and like others, just started collecting again about 3 years ago. I don't think cards will ever in my lifetime become completely irrelevant. As long as there are a few collectors prices will always at least hold. Look at the prices nowadays compared to 20 years ago when there was so many more collectors...not a huge difference. Collecting of anything is booming now partly IMO because of the ease of buying online. I watched a collectors show recently featuring Corbin Bernsen and his snow globe collection. They valued his collection at like $600k. How many snow globe collectors are out there? If snow globes can keep their value baseball cards will be fine.

[SAllen2556]

The hobby won't die. Ever. There's way too many geeky people like all of us too enamored in the history of baseball and history itself. And that will never change. People like old stuff - they always have and they always will. Hell, people collect old barbed wire for crying out loud!

The big advantage kids have today is the internet and the instant access to learning. The history of the Detroit Tigers is a click away. And that allure is powerful. I can learn how Gehringer, Cochrane, and Greenberg brought Detroit its first world championship and soon enough the thought of owning a card, or a photo, or an autograph of that player will lure me in. In short, there will always be new collectors of old stuff.

And with the technology of today I can buy a card from a guy in Florida after examining it in a hi-res scan and then have it shipped right to my door, all at a competitive price.

The internet with ebay and sites like this have put virtual museums right in front of our eyes - expert opinions and access to research all included. And the technology will only get better. I suspect that one day in the future we will be able to accurately date cards and detect alterations as well as absolutely verify autographs, all for cheap.

Think about it, 25 years ago if you wanted to buy a '34 Charlie Gehringer Goudey card or a Mantle signed baseball, how exactly would you have gone about it? And how risky would the venture have been? Go to a show? Mail order?

Parting thought: I wouldn't worry (or care) if every card company went out of business tomorrow. I don't think it would have any negative effect on the value of someone's collection.

[packs]

Funny you should mention barbed wire. I'm reading "Inherent Vice" by Thomas Pynchon right now and there's a detective character in it that brags about the pristine barbed wire he just bought for his collection.

[tschock]

I watched a collectors show recently featuring Corbin Bernsen and his snow globe collection. They valued his collection at like $600k. How many snow globe collectors are out there? If snow globes can keep their value baseball cards will be fine.

These "appraisals" always have to be taken with a grain of salt and understand what they are really saying here. There is a HUGE difference between sale value and replacement value. In this instance as an example, I doubt he would get close to $600K if he sold his collection, but it could easily cost him $600K to put this collection together should he need to replace it.

I think many times the amount seems high because those touting the value are referring to replacement (intentional or not).

[1880nonsports]

and prices dropping while sharing common elements and dependencies are two different things. Price fluctuations and availabilty are each a function of the other after the imact of an economy. I think the hobby as a tangent of all collectibles will go on forever as beyond being a commodity cards are a somwhat tangible piece of the past. I doubt card collecting will ever approach the levels of the cash rich 1980's and 1990's nor the level of interest it received as a new investment concept. It was an explosive time - selling was about the sizzle AND the steak. Enough time and a few reality checks have precipitated in the OVERALL decline of the prices we are experiencing in all but the finest material and whatever specific issues are "hot" at the moment.
Lower prices at some point restricts cards from coming to the market so it's a good thing/ bad thing for me as a collector. As a dealer - at least in theory - one's buying is dictated by the availabilty of the product their customers will pay for.
The hobby isn't dying - just experiencing a correction. I do see it becoming a smaller hobby - perhaps mirroring the journey of stamps and coins. Cards, coins, bottle-caps, and similar things from pre-hyper-technological times were more of an activity for the participants - more relevent as well.
Please feel free to provide me with details when and if the end comes as I'll want to let the person holding my N167 Buffalo Bill know. In any event I suppose I'll continue to collect until the question of my demise is broached. Hopefully not on a thread in a chat board:) The best thing about having a lot of people doing the same thing you are is you feel less stupid but it also makes the room crowded.

[yankees23]

These "appraisals" always have to be taken with a grain of salt and understand what they are really saying here. There is a HUGE difference between sale value and replacement value. In this instance as an example, I doubt he would get close to $600K if he sold his collection, but it could easily cost him $600K to put this collection together should he need to replace it.

I think many times the amount seems high because those touting the value are referring to replacement (intentional or not).

I agree these appraisals are usually inflated but I was just illustrating the point that other collectibles that are not anywhere near as popular as baseball cards still seem to hold their value. On that same show there was a guy who collected vintage phones and his collection was appraised at like $200k. Seems like anything that is "vintage" is being collected these days.

[Bosox Blair]

I doubt card collecting will ever approach the levels of the cash rich 1980's and 1990's nor the level of interest it received as a new investment concept. It was an explosive time - selling was about the sizzle AND the steak. Enough time and a few reality checks have precipitated in the OVERALL decline of the prices we are experiencing in all but the finest material and whatever specific issues are "hot" at the moment.


Since the question was posted on the Pre-War forum, I'm assuming the "hobby" refers to collecting Pre-War cards.

If this is the case, I don't understand the quote above at all. I was collecting these cards in the 1980s and 1990s. I can't think of any baseball card made between 1887 and 1930 that could be had for less today than it could have been in the 1980s or 1990s. The prices continued to explode through until about the Fall of 2008. Even when the market for these cards "crashed" in 2008, the prices were still a heck of a lot higher than they were back in the 1980s and 1990s. And today a lot of those cards are way up from 2008-2009 again.

Cards from the major sets of the 1930s did soften when people realized they were not that scarce. In truth, I think some 1933 Goudey and 1934-36 Diamond Stars actually sold for more in the late 1990s then they would fetch today - especially commons and low-level stars and HOFers.

The part of the "hobby" that died in the 1990s was largely comprised of thousands of speculators trading case quantities of 1989 Upper Deck, 1987 Donruss and the like. When that garbage pile collapsed, those people left. So what? Good riddance.

The value of Pre-War cards was not hurt a bit by any of that.

Cheers,
Blair