Ever wondered how many ACTIVE collectors there are in the United States?

[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

A few observations:
I think there are 10,000 registered accounts on this board and about 40,000 on BO’s forum. Not everyone is active, but that’s a good starting point.
I don’t run in a big collector’s circle, but from conversations at the local card show, there are many savvy and experienced collectors who surprisingly not are a part of these two boards.
The population of the US is 325,000,000, or so. If as few as one percent of the country collects, that’s more than 3 million. If only 60,000 people collect, that’s just .018 percent (if my math is right).
Just thinking about the massive sums of money in the hobby (auction houses, eBay, not to mention LCS, shows, etc), and I have a hard time imagining just 60,000 people fueling it.
My best wild guess is that it is in the low single digits for percentage of the population that collects, 2-3 perhaps, meaning about 9 million collectors at the top of the range.


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Thanks for opining. I do have a feeling my "40K to 60K" guess might be conservative. There must be some way to conclude a good ballpark number (pun intended ) using certain metrics...ahh the quest for that magic formula! I guess if we knew the total annual $$$ brought in between all the auction houses + ebay + card shows combined, we could divide that by what we think the average collector might spend in a year. So, for example -- just for some wildly speculative numbers, let's say:

$300,000,000 per year total from auction houses+ebay+card shows (U.S. buyers only, Postwar to 1980 only)

$2,500 per year (avg) spent by each collector

So.... 300,000,000 divided by 2,500 = [?] 120,000 [?] active U.S. collectors

Again, these are just random speculative numbers I'm throwing out there. I hope others can throw in some realistic metrics that we can use.

The way I came up with my original range was:

330,000,000 (approx. U.S. population),
divided by 2 (male/female, sports card collecting is male-dominated),
divided by 5 (mostly 40-60 age group, the U.S. population is generally aged 1-100 yrs old),
divided by 30 (assuming 1 in every 30 males aged 40-60 is an avid baseball fan)
divided by 20 (assuming 1 in 20 of those avid baseball fans is an active Postwar collector)

= [??] 55,000 [??] active Postwar collectors in the U.S.

Of course, without decent metrics to use, it leaves us with some pretty wide ranging guesstimation.

[JollyElm]

Active collectors are apt to go to local card shows and, of course, events like the National. Looking at (or getting a feel for) attendance numbers from various events across the country would probably help add some more insight to the subject at hand.

[Bigdaddy]

I've seen a similar question posed in job interviews - "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?"

The point of the question is to watch someone go through some type of logical cypherin' to come up with a defensible number.

TJ

[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

I've seen a similar question posed in job interviews - "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?"

The point of the question is to watch someone go through some type of logical cypherin' to come up with a defensible number.

TJ

I'm thinking that the most accurate route would be to divide total annual sales by average amount spent annually by each collector. Obviously, that goofy formula I used in my initial calculation leaves way too much room for speculation.

I think I read somewhere in the past year that PWCC alone does $50,000,000 in annual auction sales. Would it be safe to say that the majority of that $50 million is in Postwar-to-1980 baseball? And to narrow it down even more, there are a couple other auction houses that do lots of revenue. What, maybe $20-$30 million each? Then throw in, what, $10-$20 million total for the remaining smaller outfits? So, if these guesses were somewhat accurate, then the total annual revenues for the auction houses would be somewhere around $100,000,000, give or take.

Then add in ebay, outfits like COMC, card shows, and the few remaining card shops --- is anyone willing to guess how much that would add up to for Postwar to 1980 annual sales?

[Exhibitman]

The National attendance runs about 35,000 a year. It has been as high as over 100,000 (the infamous 1991 Anaheim show). That represents the hardest core collectors who want to and can afford to make the trip. There's another chunk of attendees every year who are not paid admissions: those who cadge badges from friends with booths. I think that probably offsets the repeat ticket buyers in terms of counting.

I'd say maybe 1 in 10 hardcore collectors I know in SoCal actually make it to the National. Then there are all the collectors who aren't as obsessed as we are but who are there nonetheless.

I really don't think that the massive product creation every season in every sport is absorbed by five figures or even six figures worth of collectors. If you drill down all the way to kids who collect this year's cards and work up from there to the whackos like me who go to every show where cards might be available and spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the net for cards, I'd guess the numbers are a lot larger than the 'census' of hardcore collectors who are active on boards and who attend the National.

[Leon]

The US population is about 326M. If 1 in 400 people collect baseball cards then the number of collectors would be approx. 815,000 ......so that is my guess though I think a round million sounds about right.

ps...I realize there are collectors in other countries but for baseball I am pretty sure the US is the major place they are collected.

[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by Leon

The US population is about 326M. If 1 in 400 people collect baseball cards then the number of collectors would be approx. 815,000 ......so that is my guess though I think a round million sounds about right.

ps...I realize there are collectors in other countries but for baseball I am pretty sure the US is the major place they are collected.

That total number sounds pretty reasonable, if not a little optimistic [IMO]. But then ask yourself, how many of those 800,000+ collectors collect Postwar to 1980 baseball?

If we exclude the guys who collect modern and Prewar baseball cards, then what number would we be left with?

[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

... I really don't think that the massive product creation every season in every sport is absorbed by five figures or even six figures worth of collectors. If you drill down all the way to kids who collect this year's cards and work up from there to the whackos like me who go to every show where cards might be available and spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the net for cards, I'd guess the numbers are a lot larger than the 'census' of hardcore collectors who are active on boards and who attend the National.

I agree, there are tons of younger collectors of modern cards. I'm sure there are even plenty of older modern collectors. And yes, there does seem to be a strong market for the newer cards.

As far as younger people who will eventually collect vintage cards years down the road --- that's a whole other conversation, and a whole other set of metrics. For now though, let's disregard the creation of new product, and also disregard cards from other sports, just for the sake of this specific topic.

So, focusing solely on current annual sales of Postwar-to-1980 baseball cards, how many of those show attendees do you think we can exclude (for now at least) as being modern card collectors?