Baseball Cards Magazine vs Beckett
 

Seeing Ted Z's article on 1953 Bowman cards really took me back. I was a long time subscriber to that magazine. My friends all thought Beckett was better. I loved BBC magazine and would hear none of it. Does anyone have the inside scoop on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two? Know why one folded? I still have all of my old ones. Need to dig them out.
Kevin

It's a real simple explanation. Beckett appealed to the younger audience and more modern cards and had an emphasis on accurate pricing. The other magazine had features (good ones obviously) but did not relfect what the majority of collectors wanted.

We wanted price guides in the 1980's (and this was before I came to Beckett) and not as many people wanted magazines so Beckett survived when the induistry retrenched.

Yes. it's a little more complicated then that, but Beckett had a great network of stores and show dealers and on the simplest terms people always want to know more about how miuth their cards are worth rather than the background behind them. Still true to this day

Rich

Mags
 

That is very accurate

Rich- thanks for the explanation. It reflects what I remember feeling was the case any time I read a friend's Beckett and compared to my BBC. I really liked knowing the back story on older cards. I didn't care much what mine were worth. I was also the weirdo in my group of buddies. It is a shame that there wasn't room for both. Thanks for the reply.

When I worked at a baseball card store in the late 80's, the owner wouldn't sell or use Beckett, he used Current Card Prices. Nobody ever bought them.

I loved BCM as a kid. I preferred the articles on cards more than the price guide stuff.

I think Rich nailed it. As the years went by and more magazines flooded the market, they were all fragmenting the Baseball Cards Magazine audience, but not so much the Beckett audience. Sadly, Beckett's audience had to grow up and as they did, the market seriously began to change, and so did Beckett. As I've picked up back issues of both, the Krause publications definitely had the more in-depth and interesting articles, but now I'm looking at them with completely different eyes than I did back in 1987-1990. I think the first issue of Beckett I ever bought (from 1987, with Mark McGwire on the cover) confused me. One of the main articles was about card flipping (card what? wouldn't that ruin the corners? why would I want to win some other kid's dinged up cards?), and one of the photos accompanying the piece was a kid holding a handful of 1985 Topps McGwire cards fanned out. Seriously, in an issue with McGwire on the cover during his rookie year, there's an article about flinging McGwire Olympic cards against a wall. I never really got "hooked" on Beckett because of that.

I was a Baseball Card Magazine guy all the way.

The classic first issue cover:

http://www.paul-n-paul.com/x1921.jpg

$1,100.00 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles? Sign me up!

Ah, if I could go back to 1981...

The thing that turned me off to Beckett in the 90's,(just my perception at the time, and I'm weird) was that it seemed to have endless articles on modern players, their popularity, etc. It was like reading a Sports Illustrated magazine. I wanted more indept knowledge of the hobby itself,especially vintage.

I loved BBC magazine. Still have some old issues. I had the 1st issue, but it met its demise years ago.
I turned my back on Beckett when they decided to grade the cards.






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See my previous comment -- that was what the majority of our readers wanted. As I said, pricing and the interest in new cards trump the detailed articles on old cards

Understood Rich, wasn't denigrating the Beckett business plan, just stating what led me from being a subscriber to buying 1 issue every three/four months for the pricing. I like Beckett.

NO i understand totally and I bet if there was a way to popularize articles on older cards and players we would have done that. Trust me, we always wanted to add items about older cards and players and those usually ranked so low on our ratings.

Of course, with hinsight, 20 years later those articles would be the favorites of the readers but you have to live in the moment.

I still wish there was a way to have an online archive of all those old magazines. There is an enormous wealth of information buried in there that a whole generation of collectors will likely never have access to without buying old back issues.

Who owns the copyright to all of the BBC stuff? I still have several years of them in boxes. Would be happy to scan some but don't want to run afoul of anyone's rights.

I would presume F&W has updated thier copyrights and thus still has all of those.

Rich

BBC articles
 

I really loved some of the articles and would enjoy reading them again....the college professor building his 1967 Topps set was a favorite...the guy who hung out with an elderly Ty Cobb when he was a kid...the interview with Ted Williams... Great stuff.

beckett
 

Those late 1970s'-1980s days of racing to the card shop to get the latest Beckett ( and the CCP,or CPU)..it was fun.... staring at those + and - signs, .. even buying a card based on the plus sign you just looked at !

I did enjoy reading those other magazines...but couldn't always 'connect" with some of the articles...Salada Coins, Remar, skip numbered 48 Leaf...,just seemed like a lot of weird stuff that didnt appeal to me at the time.....it was much more fun to carry that price guide with you....sometimes I didnt even take into account the values were meant for NM cards..didnt matter... look up that 64T Kaline.... wow $ 18.....then looked at my dog eared Kaline and say.."nice,that went up from last month " ! LOL

I loved BaseBall Cards magazine because of the articles and color pictures.

Beckett always seemed to have crappy articles and I was never interested in the price guides.