baseball's falling popularity and its affect on our hobby

[MyGuyTy]

Originally Posted by mrvster

Wonka ! That was perfectly stated!

Exactly what Mr. Wonka said......

I completely disagree with MyguyTy(sorry in all due respect)......

No disrespect at all, it's your opinion, you can disagree any time. However statistics among today's youth show what I've been saying. I would be an optimist too if I had hundreds of thousands in vintage cards in a collection hoping to recoup the money when I'm at retirement age. However smart money is on the opposite unfortunately.

[DerekMichael]

It is just my opinion, but based on MANY people whom I have actually spoken to in person, a lot of people feel they were driven away from the hobby, and I am not referring to Net54 board members.

Pretty much everyone I know constantly asks me questions about my card collecting, and a common theme which I have sadly come across during conversations on MANY different occasions with MANY different people is the following:

"I spent thousands and thousands of dollars in the 80's and 90's on new cards, and was told by many dealers that they were a terrific investment, and now they are literally worthless and I cannot give them away." ... or something along those lines.

I can recall going to card shops when I was younger, and I would hear dealers saying things to their customers like: "This Mark McGwire-Olympic rookie card (85 Topps) is only going to sky rocket in value, and I will give it to you for only $150 because it has (x) wrong with it etc.".

So, many of these people, when telling their story, which is usually more or less the exact same story, clearly feel hurt by the look in their eyes. Others tell me they have tried to resell the cards back to the very dealers they bought them from, only to be laughed at and offered pennies on the dollar. They do not get happy when they think of baseball cards. They think of a bunch of sleeze bags trying to rip them off.

I have heard the same story from different people over, and over, and over, and over, and it makes me angry, because so many people were ripped off by crooks in this hobby, they feel they can never return, or when they do return, they do so with great reservation, and are always looking over their shoulder.

For any dealer to ever have claimed that 80's or 90's were a great investment means either 1.) They were fools and actually bought into the absurdity, or 2.) They knew exactly what they were doing and that these cards were never, ever going to be worth anything, and that most likely, because of the massive amounts produced, which were obviously treated as a "collectible" from the day they hit the open market (the main problem with the logic of them maturing in value), were only going to collapse in the worst kind of way. They just did not care and were more than willing to keep lining their pockets while they ripped off the masses.

Naturally, their kids will not be getting that "warm and fuzzy" feeling when they think about baseball cards.

Again, these are not Net54 people I am talking about. They are the other hard working people whose attention and interests have gone a very different direction over the years, for what I consider to be very obvious and justified reasons.

Derek Hogue

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by DerekMichael

I can recall going to card shops when I was younger, and I would hear dealers saying things to their customers like: "This Mark McGwire-Olympic rookie card (85 Topps) is only going to sky rocket in value, and I will give it to you for only $150 because it has (x) wrong with it etc.".

So, many of these people, when telling their story, which is usually more or less the exact same story, clearly feel hurt by the look in their eyes. Others tell me they have tried to resell the cards back to the very dealers they bought them from, only to be laughed at and offered pennies on the dollar. They do not get happy when they think of baseball cards. They think of a bunch of sleeze bags trying to rip them off.

I think the above is far more of a problem for the hobby going forward than a general lack of interest in baseball. Obviously, there are a lot of honest and ethical people involved with the hobby. But IMO the general perception (and I don't think this perception is wrong) is that card collecting is filled with scammers and crooks looking to rip people off.

Leon and the posters on here do a great service to the hobby by exposing such scams, but the amount of crooks in the hobby seems never-ending.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by DerekMichael

It is just my opinion, but based on MANY people whom I have actually spoken to in person, a lot of people feel they were driven away from the hobby, and I am not referring to Net54 board members.

Pretty much everyone I know constantly asks me questions about my card collecting, and a common theme which I have sadly come across during conversations on MANY different occasions with MANY different people is the following:

"I spent thousands and thousands of dollars in the 80's and 90's on new cards, and was told by many dealers that they were a terrific investment, and now they are literally worthless and I cannot give them away." ... or something along those lines.

I can recall going to card shops when I was younger, and I would hear dealers saying things to their customers like: "This Mark McGwire-Olympic rookie card (85 Topps) is only going to sky rocket in value, and I will give it to you for only $150 because it has (x) wrong with it etc.".

So, many of these people, when telling their story, which is usually more or less the exact same story, clearly feel hurt by the look in their eyes. Others tell me they have tried to resell the cards back to the very dealers they bought them from, only to be laughed at and offered pennies on the dollar. They do not get happy when they think of baseball cards. They think of a bunch of sleeze bags trying to rip them off.

I have heard the same story from different people over, and over, and over, and over, and it makes me angry, because so many people were ripped off by crooks in this hobby, they feel they can never return, or when they do return, they do so with great reservation, and are always looking over their shoulder.

For any dealer to ever have claimed that 80's or 90's were a great investment means either 1.) They were fools and actually bought into the absurdity, or 2.) They knew exactly what they were doing and that these cards were never, ever going to be worth anything, and that most likely, because of the massive amounts produced, which were obviously treated as a "collectible" from the day they hit the open market (the main problem with the logic of them maturing in value), were only going to collapse in the worst kind of way. They just did not care and were more than willing to keep lining their pockets while they ripped off the masses.

Naturally, their kids will not be getting that "warm and fuzzy" feeling when they think about baseball cards.

Again, these are not Net54 people I am talking about. They are the other hard working people whose attention and interests have gone a very different direction over the years, for what I consider to be very obvious and justified reasons.

Derek Hogue

This overpaying and ending up with worthless rookie cards did not stop in the 90's. It is has been going strong since the mid 80's when I started and is still going strong now. Just look at the crazy prices people are paying for Puig and Harper cards. There is absolutely no way those cards will be worth 10% of what they are selling for now in a few years and then those collectors will leave the hobby feeling robbed also. I have seen this countless times in the last 25+ years.

[mrvster]

Ty Guy= they said the same thing about Wagner

30 years ago .... HA!!

btw....
the new shiny collectors, rookies will do what we did, collect T206...

I think we have a lot of T206 envy on board