I think that those of us who collect memorabilia over cards might sometimes marvel at the differences in price. I've mentioned this in the past, but I am blown away by the fact that I was able to buy Roy Campanella's 1st Dodgers Minor League contract (which is literally the paper that connected Campanella to the Dodgers as the 4th black player to sign after decades of no black players in baseball. And I got it for less than a high-grade Campanella rookie would cost.
But the reality is that these market function almost completely independently. People who collect cards mostly don't even look at game-used items or programs or tickets etc. There are of course some cross-over collectors, but they are a rare minority.
And the same way that a sports collector might have played video games as a child in the 80's and think the retro games are cool, but not ever feel the need to pay money to collect them, card collectors can appreciate game-used items and never remotely look to buy them.
Even within a niche area, player collectors or set collectors or team collectors can focus on an area and ignore everything else.
Cards have a number of factors that make them incredibly good collectibles. They have a huge nostalgia factor (people had cards as kids, very few had GU jerseys as kids, so that requires more of a leap). Cards have checklists so there is a clear, discrete process to success and also knowing what there is to chase. There are registries and lots of others who collect so the community is large. They are small, so they store easily, display easily etc.
Also, entry into collecting cards is very simple for some of the same reasons.
Personally when it comes to a signed Jackie card vs a signed letter with random content, I would definitely take the card. But I would take a signed contract or something more historical over a card. I have a bunch of Jackie items pre-MLB debut (high-school signed yearbook, junior college signed yearbook, college signed team sheet etc) for me, items like that are much more interesting than cards (and thankfully way more affordable).
But I get that cards have a confluence of factors that make them incredibly popular.
(Also,the market for signed cards like these reminds me of the market for Type I photos of images that were later used for cards, because it has enormous crossover appeal and capitalized on the standard card collector market, even as it is a bit unique and different.
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