Really good documentary on Baseball Card Collecting today

[Exhibitman]

Interesting video, well worth the watch.

The "demise" of the hobby is less a death than an evolution. What is dying for sure is the old-school way of doing the hobby, especially nasty old men in brick and mortar stores reluctantly selling stuff to those pesky kids. The stores that have moved with the market and add value that cannot be replaced on Ebay--like box breaks and contests--are doing OK.

If anything, the technological changes have made it easier to collect than ever before, and easier to be a dealer too. Just the other day when I returned from my vacation I had packages come in from Argentina, Australia, Canada and several states, all with cards. I am way more active now than I was 30 years ago simply because I can buy, sell, trade and talk cards 24/7/365.

Rosen and the others are absolutely right about the modern card makers shooting themselves in the foot. Their business model has taken a major hit for many good reasons that are articulated in the video. It did remind me of something I thought when I was walking around the show floor at the National and seeing all of those essentially interchangeable booths filled with shiny stuff: what is their business model and how do they make real money?

As for shows, well, I think there is a collector base out there that will support local shows because the one thing you cannot get online is the fun of hanging out talkin' cards with your fellow collectors. The National has become more about renewing connections with my friends and fellow collectors than about the stuff I find. I can't even recall the last National I went to where I left for home broke, and my bankroll the last few years has been 1/3 of what it was in 2006. I wish all collectors could attend the National but given the logistics and expense, it isn't realistic for more than a fraction of the collecting community to be there, which is a shame. Again, I think local and regional shows have to evolve or die. When the shows are expensive to attend and hard to be involved with, they will die because the stuff is available online--people are going to say the heck with it and stay home. I hope that the shows Anthony, Jason and I are promoting reflect our thinking on the evolution of the hobby. Believe it or not, before we undertook the first show we did a great deal of brainstorming about what was right and wrong with the hobby and what we thought we could do to improve on the show model. Our 2nd Culver City, California, show is October 5th and we are following the same formula as for the first one: one day, no expensive autograph guests, free admission and parking, $95 vendor tables so a weekend warrior can come down, set up, and go home with minimal time and expense commitment.