How many card shops have become just like this......

[rhettyeakley]

Originally Posted by packs

I mean cards have only really been expensive for the past 10 years or 15 years. Before that they were worthless.

are you serious with this comment? So cards were worthless until 1998-2003?

I am much more optimistic about this hobby than most I guess based on the comments thus far. I think people are over analyzing things. As long as there are people that like both sports and history the future is probably fine. There are tons of hobbies out there that don't require one to have collected that item as a child to ensure that they collect as an adult. Heck, as a kid I was way more into Star Wars figures than I was baseball cards but only have a passive interest in them now. There is a portion of the population that likes to collect things, some couldn't care less. Those that have an interest in sports and like to collect things will be driven to this hobby. The overall limited supply of prewar sports cards actually IMO bodes well for this hobby. This is a hobby where a total population of under100 items is rather normal, a hobby such as coins and stamps any item with a total population in that range would be viewed as ultra rare and highly collected.

I think there will still be collectors they just might not follow the same path to the hobby as many of us did to get here. Again, I may be overly optimistic in the way I see it but only time will tell.