First two years of Baseball Card Collecting

[Alaskanmade]

Hey everybody, I am a long time TCG (Trading Card Game) collector who made the jump in 2020 into vintage baseball card collecting. I played baseball growing up and try to go to as many M’s games as I can each year, but was never a baseball card collector.

I wish I could say I was inspired to make the jump by something profound, but if I’m being honest it was a very well targeted Ebay advertisement which made me think: “I can buy a 100 year old baseball card for how much?”.

I thought I would share some thoughts from a newbie, which may be interesting for people who have been in the hobby for decades.


New Stuff

First and foremost, its insane that I can buy the card from 1911 of a Hall of Fame player for less than the green foil version of a guy who has played 4 seasons. I am over two years into this hobby and I have yet to figure out exactly how that is possible. Other collectables I am familiar with do not have this phenomena.


Buying / Selling

Baseball card buying and selling is super oldschool. Looking at a store's excel sheet online and then emailing someone to make a purchase and ask for a card reminds me of buying TCG cards in 1995 from a company called Troll and Toad.

Also auction houses and Ebay are still king, while TCG’s have moved onto specialized sites which deal only with TCG’s (as well as Ebay).

I have been buying TCG cards for 25 years and have never had to issue a charge back on my CC or file an Paypal dispute. Two years into baseball card collecting and I have encountered multiple scammers, and had to do two Paypal disputes. Not sure if there are more baseball card scammers, or if they are just less intelligent (They had no idea a G&S purchase had buyer protection?). Never been ripped off, but have wasted a noticeable amount of time.


Graded

The love of graded cards is overwhelming with baseball cards. With TCG’s the only time I have ever purchase a graded card is when I planned to break it open. With baseball cards it seems like the slab is king, and unslabbed cards sell for 50% of the exact same slabbed card. I guess this might be a function of the relative prevalence of counterfeiters and scammers.


Community

The community for baseball cards is much friendlier than TCG’s. With TCG’s there is a division between players, collectors, and speculators, and there is a lot of animosity between the groups. With baseball cards since everybody is a collector of some kind, the footing is much more even. I have seen some jokes about new people entering the community, but believe that most people understand that all collectables need new entrants or else they end up like model trains.

Off topic, but I don't understand why the 1952 Topps Mantle is one of the pillars of the vintage baseball card community. It’s not his rookie card, its not super rare, and Mantel while an amazing player and a hero of the 50’s, does not make it into the top 5 of all time (probably not top 10). I could understand if the card checked at least one of those boxes, but it just doesn't as far as I understand.

I have met a lot of cool people, and what shines through is a love of history and baseball. That may seem like an obvious statement, but I think its worth remembering what you all love about it Thanks for being awesome!