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Posted By: barrysloate

Leon and I were talking about this this morning, and I pointed out one significant trend that makes today's hobby much different than the one of 25 years ago. Perhaps old timers have always bemoaned rising prices, but the fact is if you wanted to buy vintage cards in the early years of the hobby, you could do it. You just had to get over the psychological hurdle that cards that were once 50 cents were now $5. But with today's high prices, and with the trend the market is taking, the hobby is slowly (and perhaps quickly) becoming a pastime of the very rich. Complaining about high prices today isn't just a matter of voluntarily not participating; the rare material is simply out of reach of most collectors. That is why PSA-1's and ungraded cards with ten crease and a corner missing have become popular today; that is all some collectors can afford. There is nothing wrong with this, and it is the natural order of things, but like fine art, rare coins, classic cars, etc. soon only the rich will be trading the better quality cards among themselves, and everyone else will be left to pick up the scraps. Look, we can't all own Picassos and Van Goghs, that's just the way it is.