Brent-
I like the idea of wrapping your interest in baseball cards into the doctoral dissertation. You're going to spend much of the next several years agonizing over this dissertation -- it helps to research and write about something you enjoy. It will help you get through it.
I've given some passing thought to weaving baseball card collecting into a dissertation. I think it is a good idea - especially since it sounds like you're working on a PhD in a business field. Dissertations have to be unique, so it is not a problem to focus on a potentially niche topic like baseball cards. But, academics can also be dismissive of "less serious" topics in dissertations so it has to be carefully constructed.
Maybe you could analyze the relationship between scarcity, luxury goods, and profit using baseball cards as just one example. Card companies are possibly unique in that they are driven to make a profit by increasing demand and, consequently, increasing supply. But increasing supply to meet demand ultimately decreases demand. Cards are a disposable, faddish commodity that have no intrinsic value -- therefore the maker is motivated to sell as many as possible to maximize profit. But flooding the market quickly diminishes demand because the perception of value evaporates (e.g., the early 90's). Baseball cards are neither a luxury good, nor a commodity, nor a purely market-driven product.
In fact, no one really knows why they have value.
Possibly analyzing perceived value trends over time will reveal some idea of why baseball cards have value and what businesses can do to maximize profit while cultivating the perception of value. I don't think our lay assumptions about why baseball cards have value is necessarily fully understood. Has anyone really ever statistically modeled it?
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