Hobby in General
 

The good thing about the hobby is you will meet a few people along the way that make the hobby fun. Just make sure you look for them because they are hard to find. As far as the fun of the hobby its all in what you make it and what your expectations are.

Other hobbies are based on skill and/or technique (where money is not a huge issue) such as gardening, cooking, computer gaming, playing sports, music, etc,...

The thing with this hobby is a lot of it is based on money (cost, prices, market values, investment, etc,...)

Sometimes you gotta say WTF and accept it. :D

The next year a card from a pack hit $120 and there were neighborhood millionaires!

I was just a working class stiff with a top card of $15 and the guy with the 86 Donruss Jose Canseco was the man.

I honestly think this experience was awesome because it exposed me to money and that it can grow.

The investment aspect of cards has always been there and always will be. I am happy when I hear about hobbyists that have had great success buying cards that have performed well. We all hope when we buy cards that they will go up. Even just a little.

I feel like I've seen more press on the hobby in the last year than I have in the last decade, so that's gotta say something right there.

Also, I can't really speak specifically to the flood of new collectors, but from what I have seen and heard, there seems to be an uptick in show attendance in a lot of places. Not only with the cost of shipping going through the roof, but now that more and more collectors are getting squeezed for sales tax, there's a ton of appeal to paying the price on the sticker and not a penny more.

I think it can be easy to undersell the skills in cards, most notably developing a keen eye for condition and the "people" skills (including negotiating). Both of these are also translatable into other areas of life.
Those other hobbies that you note have their skill components, but there are certainly financial considerations, too. Many plants are very expensive and require maintenance, while musical instruments and sports equipment price out a decent number of people, for instance.

I believe that most of the smart money invested in vintage baseball cards are sellers. Except for a few very specific names in higher grades. I’ve sold off a lot this year.. it’s been great.

If you have Trouts sell them all, they’re ridiculous right now.

IF we could time the stock market or the card market we would all be millionaires.

There are times when cards reach prices that feel unsustainable or hard to believe and in theory would be a good time to sell.

But if you actually like owning the card that is a tough call because so many can't easily be replaced.

I don't know how one times super low pop cards because unless a new one surfaces you probably will have to try and buy it back from the person you sold it to.

When it comes to cards in my view market timing is better with modern where so much is speculation. I went to high school with a guy that I know has done well playing the prospects and he puts in the time to study the players and make calculated bets.

One of the best barometers for the card market is the 1986 Jordan. PSA 9's are pressing back above 5k again so the market is definitely strong right now

Cards & $
 

So many people have $1,000,000...only so many people can have the best / scarcest cards. Many cards just aren't for sale / available. Must just kill those that are with resources and able to pay.

Ignoring mostly the investment aspect, my curiosity is around how many generations of true collectors can continue to be spawned if kids never get back into the hobby on the ground level (I don't believe they will). Folks my age (I'm 42) that collected in the 80's and early 90's have that nostalgia impulse to get back into it because of what we remember as kids. But what about increasing generations of kids who don't have that experience? Does it mean that the hobby continues to exist for those that latently find it as adults but that is just becomes smaller and more segmented? Everyone today who considers themselves a "collector", even those that spend investment type bucks on their collections - has a past rooted in the hobby at least to an extent before it became totally self-aware and pretty much ceased to exist for kids as it does today. That's just what I wonder - what happens to the cards a century from now when they are ONLY expensive things that you bought because of later interest, and not something people first remembered at the corner store for cents on the dollar?

I'm a little younger than you and agree that lots of what drives me now is my childhood experience. I was sort of casual back then, and that meant about 1000 cards in the collection. I think my generation will keep it going another 30 years anyway, but I also know my younger relatives (in their 20s) were into cards also. And I saw a bunch of kids last time I went to a card show. It might not be the mania it was in the late 80s, but I think as long as *baseball* is popular, the cards will be too.

+1 As stated above,

As long as baseball is popular there will be kids (young and old) collecting cards.

change is a beotch
 

Not necessarily true. You can buy low grade T206's for $10-20
And similarly other issues in low grade. Besides on entry level not sure if the kids want to collect vintage. They are identifying more with Brady and Jordan than Anson and Kelly. Change is a bitch.

It is what it is but we don't have to like it :). Long live vintage. Heck, a lot of us are vintage now, ourselves. Some more so than others.