baseball's falling popularity and its affect on our hobby

[mrvster]

All great points!.. Mike, you will collect these forever

[Shouldabeena10]

Lots of different points of view, and certainly a topic we've all thought about many times.

I lean towards the "there will always be collectors of old stuff", and the fact that sports cards have well defined numbered sets, lots of history, and popular iconic figures, will help keep card collecting alive ... at least through our lifetime.

Although, I do worry that the hobby could see a premature death due to simple corruption and greed.

As much as everyone likes to think that the hobby only has a fairly small percentage of fakes and altered cards in it now ... how many more scandals and "bad press" can it absorb, before the smart money starts to walk away in disgust?

The fact of the matter is that we're all dealing with vary cheaply printed pieces of old cardboard, that really aren't that old, and can be easily reproduced ... by someone with the means to do it.

The U.S. Treasury has been scurrying about for the past 15 years, changing the way our money is printed, because the quality of the forgeries reached a point where no one could tell the difference. The only salvation of our current paper monetary system, is the fact that someone was smart enough, many years ago, to make it almost impossible to acquire the exact paper we used to print our money on. Those little pens that all the cashiers use to see if our $20's, $50's and $100's are bogus, are a slowly failing "last line of defense" because the counterfeiters are that good. The odds are that our grandchildren will not be using any form of paper money.

There's absolutely nothing in our hobby today that could stop a few "quality" forgery rings from slowly slipping bogus cards into the hobby.

The cardboard, ink, printing process, and cutting methods that were used to originally create our cards, can all be reproduced today ... and if done correctly, no one can tell the difference. Not on a new card, and not on a 100 year old card. I don't care how good you think you know cards and cardboard ... it can be done by the right people, with the right equipment.

If I were in the forgery business, and I was looking for a low risk / high reward way to make a living ... I'd get out of the counterfeit money printing business and move into sports cards .. where the only line of defense is a few grading companies and guys with opinions, that can neither prove or disprove their opinions.

Now with that said .... imagine that tomorrow, a story breaks on the news that a forgery print shop was raided over the weekend, and in it they found sheets of freshly printed T206's, lots of Mantles, Ruths, Jordans, and all kinds of new and old valuable cards. The cards had been slowly (and very calculatedly)trickled into the hobby over the past decade or so, in an effort not to flood the market or raise suspension. Investigators have determined that the forgery ring was responsible for tens of millions of dollars worth of fake cards, and estimating that as much as 20% of the higher priced cards in the hobby today may actually be nothing but fake reproductions.

What would a story like that do to the health of our hobby?

- Mike

PS - Sorry if that's too much doom and gloom and conspiracy theory, but I was in the printing industry for years, and it's a possibility that's always fascinated me.

[Cardboard Junkie]

Technology cannot duplicate the half lives of elements. All ""normal matter" particles radiate away at predictable rates. Bottom line is, you can imitate age, but you can't duplicate it.

[marcdelpercio]

I think that with any well-established collectibles market, there will be natural ebbs and flows in interest over an extended time. Was baseball huge in 1890? Not tremendously, but there were still lots of people who collected the cards. Then there was probably something of a lull in the hobby for 20 years as there was little supply of new material. But then a new generation of collectors emerged with the next "golden age" of collecting. Various factors will always divert attention...wars, depressions, changing tastes and technology, etc. But the card collecting market overall has weathered these changes for almost a century and a half and is stronger than ever.

I think that the popularity of baseball as a sport will not have more than a negligible effect on the card market. I am no die-hard baseball fan. I am 36 years old. I live in a major league city (well, technically...I'm a Royals fan ) and have attended maybe 10-15 games in the past 20 years. But I have been a passionate card collector for my entire life and imagine that I will continue to be. Of course, that's not to say that there will not be another 10, 15, 20 year lull in collecting as tastes change, but why would anybody be certain that tastes would not shift again in a decade or two and baseball would be right back in the forefront? Or the next cycle of card collecting popularity is born for whatever reason? I don't think that anything special happened in 1997 (or in 1989 or 1981 or 1952 or 1909) that caused a massive increase in interest in the game of baseball, but new and interesting card releases got many (kids AND adults) into the hobby. I see no reason why such a thing could not happen again and the cycle will continue as it has for generations.

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Not only has football eroded baseball's popularity, but so has soccer as far as a child's participation as a sport. I started my son playing T-Ball and Coaches' Pitch Baseball and he decided to play soccer in the off season when he was 7 and from that point on didn't want to play baseball again and he's now 12 and still playing organized soccer and he's not in a minority.

Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby

Not only has football eroded baseball's popularity, but so has soccer as far as a child's participation as a sport. I started my son playing T-Ball and Coaches' Pitch Baseball and he decided to play soccer in the off season when he was 7 and from that point on didn't want to play baseball again and he's now 12 and still playing organized soccer and he's not in a minority.

Soccer sucks. I can't stand watching it and am going to be so pissed if my son goes that route.

[packs]

Soccer is a nice sport but I have trouble understanding why some people think it will begin to occupy a major space in America. The same reasons people trot out to say baseball is dying are the same obstacles someone has to overcome to play soccer. Both sports have a similar amount of players on the field at one time. Both sports require a large amount of space and equipment.

But why is it that 9 players is too many to field a baseball team and purchasing equipment and needing an outdoor space are detriments when all of these requirements apply to soccer too. As well as football, which is even more specialized than baseball.

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Originally Posted by Gobucsmagic74

Soccer sucks. I can't stand watching it and am going to be so pissed if my son goes that route.

Growing up I thought that soccer was a stupid game. When I got to college my friends had a team and invited me to play. I was surprised by how much fun it is. The best thing about the game is that you can play it throughout your life, unlike baseball.

Does anyone play in any baseball leagues? (obviously not HS or college)