What happened to baseball cards in the 1920's?

[seanofjapan]

Is it possible that kids had better toys to play with in the 20s? It kind of makes sense that Goudey cards came out in the depression years since pieces of cardboard are a very cheap gift for a kid whose parents are down on their luck. But during the twenties when families were more affluent they’d buy their kids better stuff, so there wasn’t much of a market?

I live in Japan and there is a similar explanation offered for the development of cards over time here too. In the years right after WW2 the country was dirt poor and most kids were only given cardboard or paper toys (including baseball cards, menko) because that was all anyone could afford to buy for their kids. By the 1960s the economy had recovered and better toys were available, so baseball card production almost completely ceased for about a decade from the mid 60s to early 70s, after which the biggest modern maker, Calbee, began putting them in bags of chips which is where Japan’s modern hobby was born.