Who will be the buyer of our vintage cards in 20 years?

[mdschulze]

There is still money being made in the sports card industry, otherwise Topp's and Upper Deck would either file bankruptcy or request a government bailout.

As for the demographics of current baseball card purchasers.... I have no clue! My guess is that you'll see more "etopps" type cards in the future and the continuation of #'d cards to maintain the interest level amongst collectors. As long as there is a slim chance of pulling a 1/1 card, I think people will continue to buy the new packs (like lottery scratch tickets).

Pre war cards will always be collected by future generations, if for nothing more than the history or age of the cards. It's hard to beat holding a 100+ year old card in your hand and wonder where it's been and how many hands it passed through to now be in your possession.

[smtjoy]

Real good thread.

I think many have mentioned the collecting gene a lot and I also believe in it. Because of that while we can have no idea what kids today will collect when they are older we do know that many of them will collect something. So they very well may collect cards when older just because they remember the game and the memories it gives them. I think baseballs popularity has a lot more to do with collecting cards later on than if you did as a kid or not.

I never saw the Ruths and Cobbs play much less the Clementes and Jackie Robinsons but I stongly collect them and I dont really see any less demand for the real greats in the future.

This got me thinking, how have the prices of vintage boxing cards done over the years. To me its a sport thats seen a huge decline in fans in the last 30-50 years or so and I wonder how the vintage cards are doing? Did they peak years ago? The only boxing cards I have purchased have been Dempsey, Louis and Ali exhibits, how have the top fighters cards done over the last 30 years or so vs all the other boxing cards? I wonder did most of the people collecting vintage boxing today, collect them as a kid or not?


While I loved the card shows and stores of the 80's, if it was not for the internet I would not be collecting today.

[rman444]

Originally Posted by PolarBear

Kids today are rarely interested in anything not video game related. Not good for the future of traditional collectables.

Not good for the future in general.

[prewarsports]

I used to worry about this a little but I dont anymore. 10 years ago my Brother Rhett and I (at 23 and 22 years old) were by far the youngest guys on the Fullcount board and someone asked the same type question. Here 10 years later we are bit older in our early 30's but there are new younger guys that are getting into it or coming back into it. As long as there is a fascination with Baseball and Sports History, there will be demand for related Antiques. Areas of collectibles will fluctuate with modern trends but I would be more worried about stamps and coins than something that kids always have and always will participate in like sports.

Rhys Yeakley

[barrysloate]

Bob- I remember him telling me about that Hubbell trophy, but he did not have it with him so I didn't get to see it.

[slidekellyslide]

My son (8 years old) has almost no interest in baseball collectibles even though he has played for 4 years, begs me to play catch 9 months out of the year (my arm is still sore), and is surrounded by it all over our house. I used to take him with me to the local card store hoping he would buy some baseball cards, but he always bought a pack or two of Pokemon or Magic cards...I tried to convince him that he could buy an entire box of 1990 Fleer baseball cards for the same price as two packs of Magic cards and he never would go for it. I take him to minor league games and he has no interest in getting autographs of the players. I had been buying him a Topps baseball factory set every year since he was born..this year was the first year I didn't do that. I didn't think he'd notice but he did which made me a smile.

I agree with Jim that there is a collector gene...both my mother and father had it and passed it on to me. My wife doesn't collect anything, and I tried in the past to get her interested in a hobby, but she just doesn't care...I think she passed her genes on to my son, which is good in the looks department so he has that going for him.

[ChiefBenderForever]

I like to watch the tv show 'Hoarders' but some episodes are to depressing to watch, but I think the whole hoard mentality is part of the collecting process. On one of the episodes they said that a 'hoarder' or 'collecter' has something different on the 14th gene.

[bbcard1]

My cards are my wife's problem. She has to decide what to do with them when I die.

[iggyman]

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”

Lovely Day...

[matthew]

Hopefully, no one will be buying my vintage cards. I hope I am still around, but if not, my 6 year old already loves them. I give him a new pack to open on occasion, but he also loves T206s. I show them to him & tell him stories of the player. He probably does not remember most of it, but he has his favorite cards. He thinks T202s are cool.

[Kenny Cole]

Ditto what Dan said. My experience is almost identical with my 8 year old.

[judsonhamlin]

I do wonder what I'll be doing with my cards down the line (41 now). If my daughters don't show an interest - which right now is mild, at best, there will come a point where I will stop buying and start unloading. I am reasonably certain that my pre-war(s) cards and my 50's and 60's cards will retain value and be an asset to my estate; now about my 1988 Topps...
Bob - Where do you have your shop? I'm in central Jersey and always like to find a new place.

[mark evans]

Originally Posted by bbeck

Barry- he was a huge giants fan. Before he passed away he bought Carl Hubbell's 200th win trophy presented by Horace Stoneham and the N.Y. Giants, I have it now. When I had Bobby Thomson in the store as a guest he was in his glory. Barry Halper came that day with Bobby Thomson's high school yearbook for him to sign.

Great story.

And a terrific thread. Hope to see all in Baltimore.

Mark

[sportscardtheory]

Here's a key; stay away from everything but all-time greats. It's just like investing, stick with something that has the most potential to, at the very least, hold value. There is a reason I am stock-piling Derek Jeter cards and not Christian Guzman and buying up Hall of Famer rookie cards and not spending that money on wax boxes of new products. If you want to last in this hobby, you have to be smart.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by bbeck

Back in 1976 I purchased my 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth with my dad at my side for $35 at the hotel Roosevelt in NYC. We could not believe we had spent that much on a card

Holy crap! In 1976 my father and I went to the ASCCA Thanksgiving show at the Roosevelt in NYC and I borrowed $25 above my savings to close on 1952 Topps and 1953 Topps Willie Mays cards. We also could not believe what we'd spent (and my mother was seriously ticked off at him for letting me do it). Talk about coincidences...And it turned out to be one of the best investments I have ever made. I sold the cards a few years later for 20x what I paid for them.

As far as 20 years from now, my responses are:

1. I plan to be around and actively collecting, so the cards will be just where they are now--gathering dust, like me.

2. If I happen to be gone, who cares? I will have had my fun and will not be in a position to do anything about it anyhow.

3. If the card market crashes to oblivion tomorrow I have still had a great time of it and will still collect--just with a lot more cards for the buck. Profit or losses are just numbers on an insurance valuation form if you do not plan to sell your cards. I don't. "Collecto ergo sum"--I collect therefore I am.

Scott, as far as boxing cards go (and I think I have a bit of cred on this issue), prices have declined over the last two years on all but the best stuff, which I love BTW, but I don't think we have reached the potential on the issues. Same with nonsports. Baseball cards have become the province of the really well off and wealthy. When I started out I could realistically promise myself that I could afford a Wagner some day. Now it is just a fantasy. The same is true of many other marquee vintage baseball cards. Boxing, I can still afford even the most expensive cards.

One other general observation on something that I think we often miss: fan bases for sports overlap with but are by no means congruent with collectors of cards from those sports. I know a lot of card collectors who do not follow the current versions of the sports in which they collect. I feel you either have the collecting bug or you don't. Case in point is one of my friends from the "outside" who is a huge sports fan but who could not care less about collecting anything from the sports he follows. He has a few pieces displayed in his rec room for atmosphere but that's it. He'd rather go to an insurance seminar than to a card convention and he thinks what we do is nuts. I haven't followed football since the Raiders left town and I haven't followed hockey since Gretzky retired but I collect cards from those sports from the 1960s and 1970s.

[bbeck]

judsonhamlin-I am in Livingston, New Jersey. I have a website which will post directions. I do not know if I am allowed to post a website address on these boards so I will not.

Exhibitman-The Thanksgiving 1976 show is the exact same show we purchased the Ruth card. What an incredible show, no price guides and $10 could buy you a t206 Cobb. We both got great deals, I held onto my Ruth and it will stay in its raw state forever.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by bbeck

judsonhamlin-I am in Livingston, New Jersey. I have a website which will post directions. I do not know if I am allowed to post a website address on these boards so I will not.

Exhibitman-The Thanksgiving 1976 show is the exact same show we purchased the Ruth card. What an incredible show, no price guides and $10 could buy you a t206 Cobb. We both got great deals, I held onto my Ruth and it will stay in its raw state forever.

Bob- Thanks for your courtesy in showing restraint. A true gentleman you are. That being said we don't really want links to other chatboards as that is what we are. Every once in a while a Collectors Universe link gets posted, or our friends at SGC have their link posted, and that is ok to an extent. You are welcome to post a link to your website if you would like to. Thanks again for your courtesy.

To what Adam said right above- I am in the vast minority and am exactly opposite of what you said. I could care less about today's pro sports, for the most part, but I love collecting old baseball cards. best regards

[bbeck]

Leon thank you - I joined the board because its a great pool of knowledge with some fantastic one liners -Bob

[birdman42]

Originally Posted by mark evans

It's hard to imagine adults, who never collected as kids, picking up an interest in cards of any vintage. Certainly there will be exceptions....

Mark,

You can count me as one of those exceptions. As a kid I never got beyond cutting the cards off the back of my mom's Raisin Bran boxes. It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I really got going on collecting.

I think I've told this story here before, but what flipped the switch for me was working in a coin shop where Wayne Miller had a card concession.

I will say that I have been a fan of the game itself for as long as I can remember. The connection was always there, I had just never gone the card route before then.

There are still plenty of fans of the game, even students of the game, who will want the deeper connection they can get from this old cardboard.

Bill

[Rich Klein]

I believe we also had a thread earlier in which we were gathering store names; street addresses; etc.

Please feel free to post your Store Name and address in that thread (or in here) to join the Net 54 list of stores

Regards
Rich Klein

[donmuth]

Originally Posted by sportscardtheory

Here's a key; stay away from everything but all-time greats. It's just like investing, stick with something that has the most potential to, at the very least, hold value. There is a reason I am stock-piling Derek Jeter cards and not Christian Guzman and buying up Hall of Famer rookie cards and not spending that money on wax boxes of new products. If you want to last in this hobby, you have to be smart.

investment point of view maybe, but not from a collector's point of view. There is now, and I believe always be, a very strong want by collectors to have complete sets. Even including those players who pitched only 3 games their entire careers or had a .154 batting average.

Cards shouldn't be about getting your money back or making enough to retire or fund your kids' college education. At least not in my opinion. I think most people buy and sell cards because they are collectors and enjoy the cards and their history, regardless of whether or not their collections rise in value over time. For example, I'm still working on completing hand collated sets from the 80's and 90's that have dramatically dropped in value. It's about cards and players that I started collecting when I was a kid, not return on investment... for me at least.

[mcap100176]

For the two or three posts that mentioned buying a card in 1976, I was just being conceived. My birthday is October 1, 1976.

It is also nice to see NJ represented well as I grew up in Summit and now live in Bedminster.