Tuff Stuff and SCD
 

Sad news out today.

Tuff Stuff will be closing down and SCD will be going to an every other week publishing schedule.

I also believe TS O'Connell is leaving SCD. I have had some intense debates with him regarding his role regarding Coach's Corner and his magazine but want to wish him well and say I am sorry that he is leaving.

Yes, I realize a lot of this has to do with the internet and the way we get our news and hobby content have changed forever, yet I worry about our hobby. Looking around at the shows, the collectors are getting older and I feel there are less young people getting involved in the hobby.

Everything is fine
 

You've got Ebay and probably 50 plus auction house selling daily, and prices are sometimes insane if u ask me. I see a PSA 7 card selling for 10,000+ and the very same card but has rounded corners selling for $500. It's the same friggin' card.

The bizness is insane and doing fine!

No worries here.

The problem with the modern industry isn't that the cards are worthless, but rather that they are overpriced. The key reason we all have craploads of stuff from the 70's, 80's and 90's is that it was affordable...Yes, we wanted them, but parents were more than happy to give up some pocket change once or twice a week. Nowadays we're looking at $2-3 for the most undesirable sets out there. Am I gonna give my kid $3 for a random pack of cards while in line at the grocery store? Probably not. Maybe $5 for a team set, because then at least I know they're gonna get the players they like.

Back in the day there wasn't much financial advantage to collecting the current issues of any given year....Adults had the same chance of getting a desired card as a kid did. Hell, nowadays the hot card always seems to be some ridiculously overpriced junk that some dealer cracks and some lawyer in bumf*ck, nebraska ends up buying for a couple hundred thousand, while the kids rarely ever luck into them.***The key word there is luck***Back in the day the hot cards were the hot rookies or guys having great years, or just simply your favorite players. In 1990 if you wanted a Frank Thomas card, you just bought some packs and you "would" eventually get it. Yes, imagine a card industry where you could actually get what you wanted in packs.. As a kid, did I buy '87 Topps because I wanted a piece of George Washington's hair or a piece of Madonna's bra? No. I bought it because I liked guys like Bo Jackson, Wally Joyner, and Cory Snyder. Let the people pay for what they want and will get, rather than what they could possibly get. It's basically what's happened to the modern industry, and why the vintage stuff is still doing well, because we CAN get what we want eventually.

The card industry has basically turned into the lottery. Would every last person in this country like to win the lottery? Definitely. If so, then why only does a small percentage buy tickets? It's simple, When odds are so ridiculous, most people just don't bother trying, and look for something else to spend that buck on.

I believe the editors has little to know influence over who were the advertisers.

Hmmm, this is what it says on the SCD website: For those of you who have subscriptions running into the future, your duration of your SCD subscription will be the same going forward. So if you have a year left on your subscription, that same time frame will carry over.
I wonder if that means we get screwed out of half of our issues?

David, I do agree with many of your points on modern cards.

It is disturbing, frankly, that the manufacturers are taking a nice diversion and making it into a gambling operation. I'm not sure they had any other choice, though, from a business perspective. I was readng through the Standard Catalog the other day at lunch and decided to look at the 3/4 of the book I never bother with, the post-1981 cards. I was astounded how far so many of the values on the 'key' issues of the 1980s-1990s had fallen over the years. Anyone who bought 1989 Upper Deck cards, for example, has to be disgusted at the way it has lost value. A few years of that happening year in and year out and you have to figure--as a collector--why bother with new cards at all when I can wait a year or two and pick up a set for 10% of their current price? If enough people figured that out--and it seems they did--sales would collapse. Hence the need for the lotto gimmicks.

I was also amazed at how many non-autographed, non-relic insert sets there were and how hard they were to find (the listings publish the odds of a pull in the intro paragraph). Given how little the vast majority of them are worth, they too would have ticked me off big time if I'd bought at the time of issue and they too would have led me to swear off new cards.

You are absolutely right on the price points and casual purchasers: the business model has evolved right past them. None of the manufacturers are looking for the 99 cent sale to the kid at the 7/11 now. I think they tried it a few years ago (Upper Deck had a 'collector' level issue at that price point with no inserts or other lotto prizes) and it flopped. Seems that the kids are aware (probably more intuitively than the adults) that shiny crap that isn't signed, cut-out or a manufactured scarcity is worthless junk.

Thanks Exhibit.

I can agree to an extent that the lotto gimmick became a necessity at some point, but at the same time it ended up negating the same product that the idea had set out to save. The baseball cards themselves became simply filler, or at best a consolation prize. Now "the product", despite obvious advancements in printing, have remained the same, BUT the mentality behind them has obviously changed. Standard, base cards are now treated as a sign of failure by the typical modern collector. At least to some extent sub-consciously.

I sent an e-mail to Tom Bartsch asking that very question. He responded within a matter of minutes:

Gary,

Thank you for your-mail. I don’t think I was clear in my editorial. I believe it is on an issue-to-issue basis, but will confirm and make clear to all readers. Thank you.

Tom