How will the impending lockout effect The Hobby?

[Leon]

A lockout would make no different at all to me. I never came back from the '94 one. I don't think it will affect vintage cards if there is one.

and a card...
.

[FrankWakefield]

A continued lockout will affect old card prices.


Stop and think about it... when you initially started collecting cards, what were they. I don't think any of us would answer T206s, Old Judge's or American Caramels. Most likely, we started with cards contemporary with when we starting. For me, I bought a very few packs of 1964 Topps... in 1964. In 1965, I bought a bunch of cards, all 1965 Topps. And in 1965, as I could bicycle over to a contemporary collector friend's house, I could then trade cards. And he had some cards handed down from his older brother... wow, there were ballcards from 1959. I traded for a very few 1963 cards. And it would be 20 years more before I collected anything old enough to be of interest here on this board.


The point is, the collectors of the old cards were initially young collectors of contemporary cards. Some stay with it and eventually get interested in the old cards. Some pause, then come back to the hobby, sometimes with several pauses. Some stop collecting and abandon the hobby.

The lockout will sour some of the potential new collectors of the old stuff. I'm not saying the lockout will be significant or disastrous for the vintage market; but to think there will be no effect seems naive to me.

The lockout will really screw up players who were looking for "one more year" (like Wainright and Molina), it'll screw up everyone: owners, players, retired players, future players, workers at ballparks, parking structures and the like, front office people, StubHub, and others.