[ls7plus]

Sorry I got a little carried away, and didn't mean to offend anyone. But I am a devoted student of several collectible markets, including coins and cars, and the markers here clearly point away from one with limited staying power, and towards one that will indeed be here for a very, very long time, with regard to truly classic items (I did not state nor imply that everything will simply keep going up. There is a great deal of difference between collectibles of true rarity and significance, and those bearing the earmarks of only a fad, an interest here today and gone tomorrow--tulipmania, anyone?). Perhaps another marker of the enormous growth in the hobby, one indisputably reflective of the general population, may be seen in the evolution of REA's catalogs. Back in the early '90's, they were an insert in Sports Collector's Digest comprised of 4-8 pages of yellow news print quality paper. Now, they are made up of six to seven hundred pages of the best, glossiest stock available.

I made reference to the coin market because it became organized as a hobby 120 years before ours did, and it has gone through most or all of the same trends. There is, I believe, quite an analogy to be drawn between the two. Third-party grading came into coins in the mid to late '80's, then made its way to cards (PCGS in coins and PSA in cards are owned by the same entity). It took some time before die variations in coins were truly appreciated for their rarity, just as it has with different backs or other variations in cards (no one collected rare-back T206's in the late '80's or early '90's; or if they did, it certainly was an aspect of collecting which received little to no publicity whatsoever--a Cy Young portrait was a Cy Young portrait, period). In coins, even the different mint marks didn't matter until the 1860's. A coin of a particular date was valued just the same if created at the Philadelphia mint as the Denver mint, etc. Then collectors came to realize that issues of a given year from one mint were significantly rarer than those of another, and values rose accordingly. From there, other variations began to be appreciated, including die variations--perhaps one die featured a closed wreath on its reverse, while another was open, or one had more stars along the edges than the other, and if one variation between the two was extremely rare, its value came to reflect that fact. Now the rarest T206 backs are appreciated in just the same way as rare die variations or rare mint marks in coins. My point is that, like coin collecting, this is a market that has staying power (coin collecting in this country began in the early 1800's)--it's not going to magically disappear in 2070 or so. People collect HOF'ers now and they will continue to do so, as those players were and are reflective of the most significant parts of of the game's history. One point cannot be overstated: many people not only like history, but are quite passionate about the particular field of it that they are drawn to. Because they like it, because they are passionate about it, they will continue to collect it. That passion, in both the coin and car collecting field, is being passed down from generation to generation. Just because you are the only one of your childhood friends that has continued to collect, that doesn't mean the hobby is dying--it only reflects a very, very small sample size; a microscopic one in the larger picture.

Just as Leon put together a truly remarkable type collection (perhaps the greatest one the hobby will ever see), coin collectors put type collections together now and will continue to do so. Certainly card collectors will continue to form type collections in cards (although I doubt others will have the determination and drive to achieve success on the level Leon did--you'd have to literally live it and breathe it!).

I guess my main point is that this hobby is simply not going to bite the dust in the next decade, the one after that, or likely not even in the next century. As long as there is baseball, there will be those with a passionate interest in its history. And a card is the embodiment of that history. It is truly a two-dimensional moment in a player's life and career, created and preserved contemporaneously (for the most part) with that very real moment in his life. The most basic attraction of the vintage card is that it does in fact connect you to the player, and take you back to that time! In this sense, cards most definitely DO HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE, although it is intangible and psychological in nature. They have it in a way that pictures taken long ago, but published in a relatively new book, can never, ever have.

Just my $28.75 worth.

May collecting bring you the joy of holding the game's very history, right there in your hands. What you have is in fact a treasure of the past!

Larry