I am appalled

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

I had dinner last night with some family friends. Their 10 year old is into baseball cards, and my wife brought up my collecting. My issue is this: how does the "Hobby" do a better job of educating these kids on the history and lore of baseball? The boy started asking me about vintage cards I had, and his first question was "what's the most expensive card you have?" We then started talking about players and he was amazed to find out that Honus Wagner had more than one card. Also, despite having visited the Reagan Library and seen the PSA 8 Wagner there (I guess it was on display there, along with the one book that Ronnie ever read--nice pop-ups BTW--sorry, recall fever's got me all twisted up), the child had no idea that the cards were issued with tobacco. What he did know is that it sold for more than a million dollars.

At his age, I was well versed on the basics of collecting, including ACC designations, at a time when information was not there at all and there was no 'net to find it.

I think that as the "elite" collectors (perhaps self appointed), we should consider mentoring young collectors. Any ideas on how to encourage young collectors to focus on the beauty of the game and its history rather than on the almightly buck?