[Rich Klein]

The hobby is evolving but as you mentioned many of the interpersonal relationships (show, stores) are disappearing and yes when you got a normal show or a store, many of the dealers will be older men who are used to that millieu.

However, look at a site such as Net 54, we skew older than most baseball card hobby web sites yet we are younger then what you describe and other sites (such as Blowout cards or freedom card board) are much younger. If you look at Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites, the average skews younger and when I set up at the local Dallas area show in July, a young man was telling me about a network used by even younger collectors.

The pros, we will still have a hobby

The cons, many of the things we grew up with including base cards being important. have gone away -- I think there is still a great deal of power in seeing cards of more than just the top 100 but thiat is just me.

I write about this topic fairly frequently in my Sports Collectors Daily column so please feel free to read and quote what is needed with proper citation

Rich