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

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Agreed. An intellectually lazy article not at all reflective of the reality of the hobby.

+1

Comical really, on the heels of an REA auction with around $10 million in sales, and more sports auction houses opening and thriving by the year.

That article was just like the Dave Justice rookies...not worth the paper wasted to print on.

I was at the 2011 Chicago National for 3 days. Absolutely no way baseball cards only made up 15% of the inventory or sales. No way. Don't know how these numbers are determined, but they are way too low. Maybe - just maybe - prewar cards were only 15-20% of what was at the show, but I was practically blinded by row after row of shiny new(ish) baseball cards everywhere I looked. I don't collect this stuff, so it was an annoyance to me how much of it was there...

Having said this, I'm not a defender of the B&M card shop in general. Most every one I've seen in the last 20 years should have been plowed under. Whenever I travelled to a new city 20 years ago I went to every card shop and bookstore I could find. Now I still buy as many (more in fact!) cards and books, but never, ever waste my time looking for a B&M shop. 95%+ of my purchasing is done online.


Cheers,
Blair

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by Bosox Blair

+1



I was at the 2011 Chicago National for 3 days. Absolutely no way baseball cards only made up 15% of the inventory or sales. No way. Don't know how these numbers are determined, but they are way too low. Maybe - just maybe - prewar cards were only 15-20% of what was at the show, but I was practically blinded by row after row of shiny new(ish) baseball cards everywhere I looked. I don't collect this stuff, so it was an annoyance to me how much of it was there...

I walked the entire show, and while there were fewer tables than when I last went to the National in Chicago in 05, and it seemed that I stopped at at least every other table simply because they were offering vintage. Not sure where the 15-20% estimate came from???

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by savedfrommyspokes

I walked the entire show, and while there were fewer tables than when I last went to the National in Chicago in 05, and it seemed that I stopped at at least every other table simply because they were offering vintage. Not sure where the 15-20% estimate came from???

I think you are saying what I'm saying...

The article that is the subject of this thread says that baseball cards - of every kind and age - comprise only 15% of "inventory" at the National now (quoting the organizer of the National).

I was saying (and I think you are also saying) that cannot be...it is way too low.

Cheers,
Blair

[Exhibitman]

The 15% figure could only be right by bulk/size, if you count all of the corporate display area, food court, bathrooms and aisles, Olympics/Euroweirdo zone, autograph area, VIP sitting area, and figure that each piece of crappy manufactured memorabilia can take up as much space as 10,000 baseball cards.

[tcdyess]

My thought is that the industry as a whole needs to succeed with new product in order to ever grow interest in vintage. How many of us collected cards from our local stores as kids (I remember going to the local Caldor with my parents hoping they would get me a few cello packs) and then expanded back into vintage as we grew through adulthood. Kids need to get into the hobby... period. Players like Trout, Harper, Strasburg, Machado, and now Puig have given the game a youth boost it hasn't seen in some time. Topps seems to be providing a lower priced avenue for kids to get in. Will they, who knows, but I have to say when I visit Wal-Mart or Target, I always see some kids checking out the card sections. If they do enjoy the hobby, those are hopefully the vintage collectors of the future as they leave college, start their family and look for their personal hobbies. MLB seems to be intent on cleaning up the game and focusing on marketing the new young talent. Over the next decade as the ARODs and other PED players retire, the game will hopefully enjoy and focus on some of the new and great true talents..... one can only hope....

As far as B&M, there isn't much left around me and although I miss going in and chatting about baseball and collecting, that's what NET54 is for!!!!

With rose colored glasses and glass half full....

Tim

[larrie804]

In the early 1990s there were 32 card shops in the Richmond Virginia area...today there are only three. The owner of the best is ill and planning to sell or close! Very sad!

[slidekellyslide]

There is only one card shop left in Lincoln and I think he's still doing pretty well for himself. His focus is new product with insert cards and local sports heroes like Alex Gordon and Ndamukong Suh. He has very few pre-war cards, and he still has a whole wall filled with Starting Lineups that don't appear to have been touched in a decade or two, but he's doing something right because he's still here and he almost always seems busy on the few days a year I come in to purchase supplies.

[Leon]

You guys can ask the author of the 15% number as he is set to speak at the Net54baseball Dinner again this year, Mike Berkus. In the next several days, or less, there will be an RSVP thread for said Dinner.