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

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Hi Rich- a few thoughts about what you said.

I think there will be somebody somewhere buying newer cards, but there will still be many future collectors who will go straight to vintage. Every baseball fan has heard of Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson so that is not a stretch at all.

I'd think you be saddened by how few baseball fans have heard of Christy Mathewsonl, I think Cobb is better known but only because of that wretched movie of the 1990's. And it took his passing for anyone to remember Stan Musial outside of St. Louis, Kids today are not into baseball history the way our generation was-- for them baseball history is Mike Schmidt and Dwight Gooden and Reggie Jackson and those people who we have video of.


Of the dwindling number of new card buyers, how many are buying to piecemeal complete sets together, and how many are buying only for the chase cards? I don't consider the latter to be a form of collecting, but more akin to buying a quick-pick lottery ticket.

More than you think, however base sets are cheap enough the ways to buy the last cards you need for a set are so varied (Beckett Marketplace, COMC and tons of internet outlets, that the old school way of shows and stores to finsih sets is much less than in the past

How many stories have you heard about people buying packs, opening them up at the counter, and then throwing away the cards after they discover they didn't get any valuable ones? That's not collecting either.

Barry -- that was true about the cards beikng left on the counters in the 1980's - my late friends who ran H&H Hobbies, a truly local 1980's card store would have people come in, buy their 1985 packs and if the "rookies" were not hit, the cards were left on the counter. And I wager the kids in the 1930's if they did not hit a Babe Ruth card gave their Willie Kamm cards away.

Of course as long as new cards are being issued, some people will be buying them. But the number of buyers will be tiny compared to what we might consider the golden age of baseball cards (of which our definition may vary).

Barry -- I think you are severly underestmiating the new card market --- I do agree the new card market is no where near where it was in the early 1990's (we were bigger than detrifice (toothpaste) but come to Texas, come to this local show I set up at and see how active the new card world is