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

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

I think future hobbyists will go directly to collecting vintage cards, and bypass the current ones altogether. Opening wax packs to put a current set together is dying, but collecting vintage is popular and will continue to attract new collectors.

I don't believe this is true at all...most people start collecting current cards and as they learn the history of the game become attracted to vintage cards. I agree that putting together sets may be at an all time low but I also tend to think there are many more people out there in search of a Mike Trout or Yasiel Puig card than a Ty Cobb card...we may not recognize that as fact though because most of us here don't venture outside of the vintage hobby.

[queencitysportscards]

Thanks to a Net54 board member for making the connection, but Ryan Ludwick, came in today and signed a career home run ball and ticket that a friend of mine, Ryan King, caught...Ryan suddenly passed away recently. Our staff offered the ball to Ryan and instead he offered to sign it for us too keep it in memory of Ryan. Super Nice guy and even better to talk about collecting...you never know who is going to walk in the door...

[BruceWayne]

Originally Posted by queencitysportscards

Thanks to a Net54 board member for making the connection, but Ryan Ludwick, came in today and signed a career home run ball and ticket that a friend of mine, Ryan King, caught...Ryan suddenly passed away recently. Our staff offered the ball to Ryan and instead he offered to sign it for us too keep it in memory of Ryan. Super Nice guy and even better to talk about collecting...you never know who is going to walk in the door...

Very nice to hear that Ryan Ludwick would do something so classy.

Also, my condolences regarding your friend Ryan.

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I don't believe this is true at all...most people start collecting current cards and as they learn the history of the game become attracted to vintage cards. I agree that putting together sets may be at an all time low but I also tend to think there are many more people out there in search of a Mike Trout or Yasiel Puig card than a Ty Cobb card...we may not recognize that as fact though because most of us here don't venture outside of the vintage hobby.

I don't think kids are buying packs of new cards anymore. Maybe adults are, but not kids.

[wonkaticket]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

I don't think kids are buying packs of new cards anymore. Maybe adults are, but not kids.

+1

The front end trading card business of the big boys i.e. Wal-Mart, Target, Toys-R-US is getting smaller and smaller each year. I know this for a fact. This isn’t being cut and reduced because business is good…or just a bit down.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by wonkaticket

+1

The front end trading card business of the big boys i.e. Wal-Mart, Target, Toys-R-US is getting smaller and smaller each year. I know this for a fact. This isn’t being cut and reduced because business is good…or just a bit down.

Well I don't really believe that business is good for the baseball card industry, I just don't feel that Barry's statement that people are forgoing new card collecting and heading straight to vintage is exactly true. I would bet most new vintage collectors headed to vintage because of products like Topps Heritage and Allen & Ginter. And I do believe there are more people searching out the newer baseball stars than there are people looking for a T206 Cobb.

I do agree though that kids just aren't buying cards anymore...it's all a gambling racket with new product and has been for more than a decade. Who drops $5,000 on a card of a guy who has only been in the big leagues for a month?? That card might not be worth more than a buck ten years from now. Smart people are putting that $5,000 down on a guy already in the hall of fame that's been dead for 50 years.

[wonkaticket]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

Well I don't really believe that business is good for the baseball card industry,.

Not sure I follow Dan, having cards in department stores has been a part of the American landscape for some time. Anyone have the image of all the 52 Topps on the table at the Woolworth handy?

Bottom line if mainstream retailers are cutting back and local card shops are disappearing from the landscape choices for impressions via new cards will be less. This has been coming for years and years no reason card packs needed to get to the prices they went to.

The scratch off ticket mentality was the downfall of the modern card collecting business. Quite simply it priced out the casual collector who wasn’t interested in paying big bucks for the chance to rip packs and find chase cards.

Less and less young people are buying trading cards & stickers this is a fact, sad but true and the current retail landscape echoes this.

[slidekellyslide]

I agree with everything you've written...I said that business is NOT good for card companies. I still believe there are far more people looking for modern player cards than there are Ty Cobb collectors. I don't even think this is disputable.

[barrysloate]

Dan- you're probably correct that more people today are looking for a Steve Trout than a Ty Cobb. But that is not the discussion. I am saying that the number of young people buying packs today is a miniscule fraction of what it was when I was growing up, in the late 50's and early 60's. Back then buyng baseball cards was a rite of passage, done by almost every kid of my generation. Today virtually no young people buy them.

So if there is a future for the vintage card market, and I believe there is, it will start with people collecting their first baseball cards as adults, and it will be the older cards. It may be early Topps and Bowman, it may be Goudey or tobacco, but these future collectors will have no childhood memories of collecting them.