Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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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.