What Happened to Card Collecting That I Knew?

[Jayworld]

Great comments. Been fun reading the contributions.

I miss opening a pack and immediately knowing what team a player was from by the color of the cap and/or uniform. The tri-color cap and 1" red and blue stripes on the uni sides says Expos to me, as does the brown-gold (yellow, mustard yellow, etc.) of the Padres, with their distinctive "bell-shaped" front yellow panel, and the gold, white, or green jerseys of the Oakland A's. Nowadays, I open a pack, and the color is...navy. Of course, the Yankees stand out because they are the Yankees, but am I looking at the Cardinals, Twins, Padres, Brewers, etc.? And the team cards, too, were great. Do they even have them anymore?

Anyone besides me get excited to buy a box of Sugar Frosted Flakes and pull out the 3D baseball card? I never could get more than three cards before the prize in the box changed to something else; I did order the complete sets from Kelloggs in 1979 and 1981. Very, very cool, as was the cards I cut out of the bottoms of Ding Dongs or Cup Cakes by Hostess....

The last cards I bought were a box of the 2009 Topps Allen and Ginter, and I thought those pretty neat for various reasons: they did not look like the "typical" modern baseball card, they were thick, the artwork was eye-catching, and it was not just baseball players (video game players, track and field, pop stars, etc.).

Oh, I did buy several packs of 2009 O-Pee-Chee cards, as the cards LOOKED like baseball cards to me (from the 1970s). If I do buy a pack or two now, I always try to look for new issues featuring players from the 1970s-80s that I used to collect. Few and far between.