Again, I disagree. Young people like myself are more and more getting passionate about these kinds of these. We're more selective about our tastes is all.
There are really two halves to the hobby: the REAL collectible, and the READY made crap. The REAL collectibles are the vintage stuff. Talking 40s and 50s and sixties. Some might go further, I frankly have no interested in stuff after the mid sixties. The artistry doesn't compare to the sheer artistry of the early to mid 50s stuff. With a few exceptions, yes, the stuff made the last 30 years or so will plummet. It's worthless crap to my eye, made to be hawked by obese dealers whose idea of vintage is stuff so beaten up it doesn't deserve to be called PO-1, yet is priced for a PSA 5 or 6. But the true, classic stuff will gain in its appreciation by a generation of which I include myself which is growing to appreciate the quality and artistry in American manufacturing before it all got outsourced and planned obsolescence became the modus operandi of big corporate manufacturers.
Also, realize that vintage baseball cards have appeal beyond baseball fans. There are also those who appreciate the artistry of the cards themselves, and the quality of the printing methods. Heck, that's what draws me to the 52s. I simply adore those hand coloured, flexichrome images. They are utterly gorgeous, candy colored works of real American ingenuity and craft. And then there are those who appreciate them for their place in Americana, what they represent: a far less cynical time, when cards were made for boys to trade and put in bicycle spokes, not to be transferred straight from the pack to the plastic. I love these cards because I know some kid held them in his hand and loved them, treasured them.
Lastly, I would not be so quick to compare them to stamps, speaking as someone who collected stamps, coins and now cards. There was no comparison to my eye. What killed my interest in stamps was all the fine detail. I couldn't have cared less how many perforations a stamp had, whether it was from a roll or a sheet. Didn't give a care about a slight difference in the cross hatching on the engraving between type 1 and type 2, the different watermarks, the size of the z-grill or the tint of blue.
I collected coins for a decade, but ultimately fell out of the hobby because there wasn't enough variety. I put together complete sets of just about every 20th century coin, yet the thrill faded because apart from the dates and the mint marks, they were all the same.
What thrills me about ball cards is each card is different, each card has it's own character, it's own challenges. I love that, in the 52 series, there are some cards, like the Mathews, that are damn near impossible to find well centered, or the Yvars, who always seems to come diamond cut.
I also think there is a different persona involved when you're talking about the collectors. What largely turned me off to stamps and coins were the collectors/dealers I came upon were largely assholes. Old curmudgeons who whipped out their graysheets and didn't seem to love the coins, so much as covet them and what price they would fetch. They were not particularly friendly or cheerful or enthusiastic, and not ones I'd want to hang with.
But ballcard dealers, the ones who deal in legit, quality vintage, have all been wonderful to do business with, wonderful to chat with, and do what they do because they never quite lost the kid in them. They really do adore the hobby. So many of the ones I encountered do it part time, or they've retired, and now they're revisiting something they love.
And that is the big lesson. You think the hobby is dying? Well with that attitude it will. It's all in the hands of the old guard, to work on their outreach. To smile and be cheerful and interact with the young and get them excited about the hobby. If you just grouse and make gross generalizations, grumbling about "Those kids these days, they just want to download everything and they don't care, and they're gonna let this hobby die," well of COURSE you're gonna prompt those kids to do just that, and go off to somewhere else, because who wants to be dismissed or lumped in with the rest of their generation.
I intend on building one of the finest baseball card sets ever. Going to finish the 52s, then the rest of the 50s Topps. Then the Bowmans. Leafs. Goudey's. The t205s, Crackers Jacks and, yes, the t206.
So the hobby will last at least as long as I do, if I have anything to say or do about it.
|