What era of card collecting is more popular 1909-20s or 30s-40s???

[mintacular]

The Years 1909-1920s or 1930-40s. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, seems like the 30s-40s crowd is more "niche" but maybe I'm wrong about that...

[Leon]

My guess is 1900s-1920s because of the sets in the era. I think they are just more widely collected. It would be interesting to know which is more collected, 1933 - 1934 Goudey or T206?

[sreader3]

172 T206 collections registered with PSA.

90 '33 Goudey collections registered with PSA.

Does not tell the whole story, for sure, but an interesting data point.

[Big Ben]

Interesting thread. Basically I collect pre-war cards mainly from the 30's and 40's but will dabble in the 1909-1920's cards. I am fairly new here, but my guess from reading some posts here is that most people on this board collect the 1909-1920's cards.

[glchen]

I think there are many more 1909-1920 collectors, but 1930's aren't a niche. There are several very popular 1930s sets led by the 33 Goudey. 34 Goudey, 32 Caramel, 33 Sport Kings, George Miller, Delong, and Diamond Stars are also popular.

[rhettyeakley]

It's funny because if you had asked this question 20 years ago it probably would have been a vehement 1930's-40's as the answer. Today it is the 1900-1920's that seems to be the most active era. It helps that that this era seems to have the most types, variety, etc. for the "type" collector. For years the Caramel cards were the red-headed-stepchild of the T206 and more mainstream sets.

On the non-sports side it is without a doubt that the 1930's to 1960's are king (The "R-card" or "Gum Card" era). The T-cards/E-cards are only somewhat collected, while the N-card era is collected a bit more ravenously than the T/E era.

I expect that in 20 years we could have an even different answer.

-Rhett

[ls7plus]

That's the way its been in coins, Rhett, with different series becoming the most popular over the passage of time, and that hobby has been pretty organized since the 1850's.

As a hall-of-fame or star player collector, my focus has been on 1900 through the '20's for some time, although it had been on the '30's and early
'40's previously (actually up through 1947, with some of the key rookies in the Tip Top Bread set), and on '50's and '60's cards during the early to mid '90's (I know, I know--I bought the wrong stuff then. I've got a 1995 price guide that values a T210 Joe Jackson in VG at $1500 or so. The only trick might have been finding one at that time).

I think we might see a lot of the key cards of 1900-1929 hall-of-famers, as well as sets or rare type cards from that time period appreciate in value subtantially, with a lot of the focus remaining there for awhile, until keys from other eras begin to look quite reasonably priced in comparison. But in light of the rarity of some cards from the pre-1930 era, I don't know if the post 1930 era will ever catch up.

Seems like this post has been pretty rambling--sorry about that; it's late.

Larry