Sportscards and Inflation

[Exhibitman]

I started collecting as a little boy in 1970-1971. About the only influence my childhood collecting has on my collecting now is that I am happy picking up cards from that era even though they aren't rare or expensive (I mostly buy them raw at the National and try to stay under $2 a card). I haven't bought a pack in years and don't even bother with modern (post-1980) cards except the occasional autographed insert I find on the cheap for a player I like, such as the Pride of New York series of cards covering Yankees from the 1970s and thereafter. My real collecting effort is in cards that predate my existence by decades and that effort did not really take off until about 20 years ago when I got out of school and finally had disposable income to devote to it.

Nostalgia is a funny thing; it doesn't necessarily spring from a direct association with the items as a child. Nostalgia can be for a perception of America in "simpler" times, or of baseball when the grass was green, or of baseball when the athletes were working slobs like everyone else, or pre-drugs and steroids (I know...), or before the DH, or before postwar expansion diluted the game. Or it can be based on the perceived beauty of the items in question. Or you can simply have a collecting "gene" that leads you into all sorts of hobbies (visit a postcard show and see the crap (from our POV) that people collect; they've got the same bug we do). My point is that whether a kid buys packs today doesn't necessarily predict whether he spends thousands of dollars on vintage cards later. I think a lifelong love of baseball is far more likely an indicator of future interest and I see little leagues booming and attendance at MLB games at over 75 million people a year. As for other sports, if they lead that kid to later collect football or hockey or boxing cards, hey, great, to me they are the "gateway drugs" to baseball cards.

[barrysloate]

Adam nailed it. Maybe our love of baseball cards began when we were kids opening packs. The next generation may not get their first taste of collecting until they are adults. It doesn't matter when you start, as long as the passion is there.

[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.

[ChiefBenderForever]

I think for many who collect you just can't put a price on the entertainment and enjoyment you get working on an impossible puzzle. I think prices will remain where they are or drop a little. But if a new group of collectors come along they could go up a little. I hope they drop so I can add some nice pieces to the puzzle. Right now rare backs in the T206 are very hot, but this could be the result of a small handful of collectors all going after the same cards but I think the set is so popular the trend will continue. The issues outside of T206 are much tougher to find but at the sametime a little tougher to sell for a premium. Unless some of the T206 collectors step outside and start collecting the other issues like Caramel, Cracker Jack,ect, the prices realized on these issues will continue to slowly decline which is great for the collector but no so good for the seller.

[Boccabella]

One major difference about cards today is that they seem to be available in fewer and fewer outlets. Yes, you can get them at Target and Wal-Mart and some drug store chains carry them.

Even 20 years ago, though, you could still find them in supermarkets and other chains where they were often impulse buys.

When I was a kid in the early 70s, bakeries and liquor stores had them. I don't know how many card packs I would have bought had they only been available at K-Mart because we just didn't go there very often. I don't know where small town kids have access to them anymore.

It's sort of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing for a lot of people--younger and adults-- who might consider buying some cheaper packs if they just saw them more often.

Vintage card prices have stayed relatively steady except for the rare or high grade items and I would expect that to continue because of the availability online.

[Brian-Chidester]

I mean, what are you going to buy of today's icons? A 2007 Topps Pujols is worth a few bucks, if you even know what a regular 2007 Topps Pujols looks like. There's probably 400 Pujols cards from 2007 alone... officially issued by the major card companies. I wouldn't know what I was looking for. Not like with Mantle, where a 1950s card of his is iconic as they come.

[teetwoohsix]

Great point Brian.I feel the same way about the modern cards-there are just way too many types/series with hundreds of different cards of the same player,it's just too confusing to keep up with.I actually wonder if this saturation is one of the things that makes the kids of today lose interest in collecting baseball cards?