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Originally Posted by Huysmans
To gauge the comparison between memorabilia and card sales/values, you have to first a) contemplate what type of "memorabilia" you're considering - game-used items will of course always maintain higher values compared to "generic" memorabilia, and b) recognize cards as simply what they are - pieces of cardboard that are an industry onto themselves.
Those stating that memorabilia prices traditionally trend closely with cards are with all due respect, completely wrong. While game-used items, just like vintage cards, continue to rise in value, and are currently now reaching appropriate value in the market, generic memorabilia values are arbitrary, with numerous examples of items actually selling for less now than 10 and even 20 years ago. Many memorabilia item values are cyclical, with some areas burgeoning (as Scott mentioned with ticket collecting), while others are extremely lagging (19th century items such as Heubach figurines, figural napkin rings, ceramic mugs/plates, etc have monotone values and have not risen over time).
Also, as mentioned previously, card collecting is an industry onto itself. There are numerous collectors who just love cards and card collecting and have very little to no reverence for baseball or sports in general, including any "memorabilia", game-used or otherwise. This is how as Mark stated, we have a hobby where generic pieces of cardboard that just happen to have a player's image sell for more than any item that player actually used. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE cards, but this is the only way to rationalize their exorbitant values compared to actual historical memorabilia items.
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Although I feel a bit silly even pursuing this matter, which is something like arguing the number of angels on the head of a pin, with all due respect, most of what you just said is ridiculous. I will certainly agree that the game-used area generates the really big numbers like the best cards, but the original proposition specified only "rare and unique" memorabilia trends vs. card trends. Awards do pretty well, too, should they be in a separate category, also? But your main point, that generic memorabilia hasn't gone anywhere while cards were rising in value must have taken place in a different universe than the one I have lived in. I'm not a 19th century collector, but even those items you mentioned, do they really go for what they did 35 or 40 years ago when cards started to take off? And please cite some of the other "numerous examples of items that sell for less than they did 20 years ago." Everything I can think of in the memorabilia realm I've collected and dealt in since then now sells for multiples--in some areas many multiples--of what it did back then. Photos? Ad pieces? Pennants? Pins? Tickets? Player notebooks? How do you think Negro League stuff has done compared to cards, percentage-wise, over that period? I'll give you bobbin head dolls--not that they're not still in great demand, I just think it turned out everyone had a box of them in the closet. Of course, cards are the 800-pound gorilla in the hobby, and why shouldn't they be? There were billions printed, they were every kid's first collecting passion, and they lend themselves to formal organization, cataloguing, and grading like the other gigantic collecting arenas of stamps and coins. Autographs would come second for many of the same reasons. But memorabilia some kind of neglected stepchild compared to those? No way, it's huge in its own right, and growing in popularity, just about every area of it. In my opinion, it will continue to hold up with those others just fine.