Speaking as a new T206 collector who has been completely out of baseball cards since the early 1990s, here is my personal take. I collected baseball cards as a kid starting around 1986. I couldn't get enough 1987 Topps. A 1989 UD Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card was going to pay for my retirement. Topps Stadium Club cards looked like the Mona Lisa. I knew of the T206 Wagner (who didn't!) but literally nothing more about the set nor where to get them nor did I care. It was all about the the next new thing!
Then the bottom dropped out and I stopped collecting and life went on. From school, to getting a job, to getting married and having kids, 30 years flew by in the blink of an eye. At some point, though, things settled down - job was steady, kids were a bit older and were at school all day and the desire for a hobby resurfaced as my son and I would watch more and more baseball games together.
New baseball cards were of no interest to me. They were now TOO premium, TOO gimmicky and everything was left to too much chance. To spend multiple hundreds of dollars or more on modern day card seemed insane. But to spend multiple hundreds of dollars on a card from 1909 seemed incredibly reasonable to me! Stuff I could never afford before (or I has assumed I could never afford) was all now within reach.
And if that was what I desired, how could I start anywhere other than with T206?
The final catch is this - given when I started collecting I had NO IDEA that prices has spiked. For all I knew it could have been a steady growth, flatline or decline over the last few decades. I am completely missing that part of history so paying $50 for a 100+ year old card of some guy nobody has ever heard of from a team that barely ever existed seemed exactly 0% crazy to me.
So for me the price increase is a result of two things:
- People of my age who collected in the 1980s/90s as kids who had to get through "life" first before getting back into collecting (including having the disposable income to do so)
- Those same people having absolutely no idea about what prices "should" be
Now I can't get enough. I love baseball cards again!
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