Posted By:
steve kThere are probably millions of steve k's out there. Baby boomers (I'm 49) who like me are rediscovering the enjoyment of baseball cards. I have my many thousands of cards from the 50's and 60's that fortunately mom didn't throw away. But I didn't really start thoroughly enjoying them again until about 2 years ago when "discovering" ebay. I actually only got my first home computer 3 years ago. We can criticize ebay all we want, but before ebay, you were kinda stuck hoping the local card dealer had what you wanted and then him playing the usual game of trying to gouge you. Just for old time sake I recently stopped in to a local card dealer. I have a 1962 Mantle but his was a little higher grade. He wanted $600 firm - well I just laughed to myself knowing I can get this card any week on ebay for around $400. I attend card shows every few years but to me, while the selection is of course better, it still seems to be the same old type of dealer trying to gouge you. I am not insinuating that all dealers are like this, and I still enjoy card shows and do some buying. With ebay though, I can relax, find what I want, and bid the amount I want, and if I don't win, knowing for the most part that card will probably show up on ebay sometime in the future. This forum makes card collecting even more enjoyable as I just "discovered" it a few months ago and sometime in the future I'll probably take advantage of purchasing some cards from the Buy/Sell/Trade thread.
The point is that many more people such as myself are going to start "discovering" through ebay auctions and other means the extremely fascinating world of pre-1950's cards and especially the marvelous turn-of-the-century cards. Then occurs simple economics - greater demand of a fixed supply will result in higher prices. I think in 5 years or sooner, and it's happening now, prices for these pre-WW2 & WW1 cards will rise higher than anyone's, including my, imagination.