[rhettyeakley]

Is there a history of non-sport cards that diverges in some way from sports cards? (My basic understanding is they both went from tobacco to gum to modern day, but not sure that’s accurate)

Basically they followed the same pattern with the Non-Sports card dominating the 19th Century market for the most part, sports cards were not as popular in their day as the Actress/Pinup subjects into the early 20th Century (this changed with the frenzy around T206 cards in 1909) which saw a new generation of Tobacco cards and Candy cards at that time that shifted to Caramel cards in the 1920's into the Gum era from the 1930's on to modern cards today.

What are the most desirable vintage and modern sets?

For vintage--1930-40's Gum cards are the most colorful and probably the most highly collected followed closely by the N-cards (19th Century Tobacco) with T-cards being right behind (T-cards are great buys at current levels as you can often find singles for $1-3 each)

Are some franchises or subjects more popular than others? Which and why?

For 19th Century cards the non-actress series are always more popular, with cards depicting male subjects also tend to sell for more and are more highly collected in general, same goes for T-cards. For Gum cards the more popular the subject matter the more highly collected--Mickey Mouse, Superman, and Dick Tracy are going to sell for more than a set of Flags

Are there rough equivalents (in how they’re viewed, not necessarily in price) to baseball cards like T206 Wagner (holy grail), 52 Mantle (golden age storied card), 89 Griffey (common but iconic and popular), 11 Trout (ultra modern and expensive)?

Yes, there are some legendary rarities like the aforementioned N519 Marquis of Lorne, R114 US Caramel William McKinley, Strongman card from R72 Schutter-Johnson "I'm Gonna Be..." and the R172 Wild West Outfit card. For "modern-vintage" (1950-60's) graded Mars Attacks (especially the Checklist) are VERY popular, For even more modern cards there are huge markets for 1st Series Garbage Pail Kids, early Pokemon and Magic The Gathering cards

What cards have increased in value lately and what pushed that increase?

more modern Pokemon cards are incredibly popular right now, but most vintage cards are gaining in value and popularity as a lot of sports card collectors have begun to shift to the non-sports arena. In the T-card era for example instead of buying a single T206 HOFer in low/mid grade you can potentially purchase an entire set of 50 cards from 1910 depicting Native Americans (T73) or Cowboys (T53) which is therapeutic for the "set collector" types that can't afford to collect sets of T-card era cards.

Are there blue chip subjects the way Mantle, Clemente, Ruth, Trout, etc. are? As in, subjects that are seen as worthwhile investments at any point in the market?

As mentioned above the more popular subject matter are the ones that have the highest following... Comic Book Characters, Disney, War, Western, Mars Attacks, Historical People, etc will always be most popular