Posted By:
Al CrisafulliHere's the bottom line for me. I took my ten-year-old son to the East Coast National a few weeks ago. He loves basketball, and has a few hundred cards from various years - he's very casual about his collection. Walking the floor of the show, I was SHOCKED - four separate times, adults on the floor used the "f" word in conversation with other adults, right in front of my son - then, turned to me and apologized for the language. My son became pretty timid around all these grown-ups, using truck driver language and standing around, poking fun of all the shiny cards.
We walked the floor three or four times, and finally came across a table in the back of the room that had some shiny baseketball stuff. There was a box of cards with a "10 for $15" sign on it. As soon as my son started looking through the cards, the seller walked up to him and quietly said "Hi, buddy. See that sign on the box? That's for grownups only. For kids, it's 15 cards for $15. Shhh - don't tell any grownups."
THAT guy had the right idea. My son spent half an hour going through that box, and was absolutely thrilled to get his 15 shiny basketball cards. One of them was some sort of weird Bill Russell tribute card, and on the way home, the Bill Russell card got him asking me about older players - baseball and basketball - and suddenly he's interested in more vintage cards.
Basically, I think if we want this to be a kids' hobby, we should probably pay attention to the kids when they're at shows or in card shops, instead of blowing them off because they're not going to buy a 52 Mantle. I'd be willing to bet there are more than a few people on this board that started their collections at a young age, and I'll bet they all remember how bad it felt to be ignored by a card seller simply because you were a kid. I sure do.
-Al