Actually, if I recall correctly, I recently read an online article somewhere in which a recent poll suggested that the number of households that contained an adolescent that collected sports cards rose from something like 8% at the turn of the century to around 65% in 2008. While my 12 year old brother enjoys nothing more than video games, my 11 year old brother in-law has a quite decent collection of modern stuff. He also has several friends, that also have several well-to-do fathers, that all get together and wipe out a local card shop. It's amazing because the place is unbelievably marked up. If you also collect modern imagine paying $150 for a box of Topps Chrome.
Do I think collecting is dying? Not yet. Brick and mortar card shops along with local large scale shows might be drying up, but I think that is attributed to the rise of online sales and ebay. Yeah the mass produced cards of the late eighties and early nineties are a joke, but like it or not I think the card companies have something going with the ultra-high end/ultra-short printed sets they are currently producing. The basic sets are still there for those on a budget and quality sets like Allen & Ginter can be had at any Wal-Mart or Target.
As for vintage I think it will be just as popular in the future. I didn't even get into it until last summer when I was 24.
Oh yeah and ESPN... Albert Puljos's Topps Chrome Auto Rookie. Look it up. He doesn't play for the Yanks or the Sox so I understand your oversight.
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