Sportscards and Inflation

[Brian-Chidester]

I stopped collecting in 1996, because I didn't like the designs anymore. The packs were more expensive. You got less and spent more. Way more. Collecting holograms and gold trimmed font cards and all that crap. It seemed pointless.

I remember going to a card show in 2000, and normally I didn't care about new cards by that time, but I couldn't believe the prices the dealers were charging for a new player. Remember when a hot rookie might cost you ten or fifteen bucks, and then plummet the next year? How about a $100 rookie, because it's a numbered card?

If you manufacture rarity, how can anyone hope to care about that card? Hardly anyone even knows about it!!! There's no story. And instead of there being a great, rare card every few years, there's a thousand rare cards each year, if not more. Then, the whole thing of cutting up uniforms and whatnot... I mean, it's not necessarily that kids aren't into baseball or even into sports card collecting. They buy hero cards and comic cards because they are cheap. New baseball cards are not. But it seems to me that each generation, when they come to that period where they start having disposable income, invariably enjoys collecting cards, and especially older cards.