So I walked into a card store today, and was puzzled by...

[yanks87]

Must be in Washington, if it isn't gold stamped, shiny and sparkly there are very few shops in Oregon that carry "the dying/dead stuff." That being said, the gruff comments sound very much like a couple guys here in Oregon, especially coupled with the over inflated "I've had offers" comment. One of my favorites.

[Throttlesteer]

Originally Posted by yanks87

the over inflated "I've had offers" comment. One of my favorites.

Yep, reminds me of Mr. Shotwell Ruth. Red flag!

[MCyganik]

I think if you have a brick and mortar card shop these days and you're not using it as a front for eBay or card breaks or have a verrrrrry loyal customer base, you may definitely be out of the loop on how people value vintage vs. modern.

Vintage collectors know what they want. There's no randomness to vintage. No pack-pulling hoping for a '52 Mantle and no hoping for some kind of '52 Mantle 1/1 Superfractor Auto. Most vintage collectors set a goal toward a player, a set, or a specific card and either save money to buy it via eBay or major auction house, or buy singles via eBay. Most of the time they want it graded. Occasionally if they are looking for commons to build a set, they'll go to a large card show (pre-Covid) but they know their specific needs are almost always never going to show up in some random picked over card store. Wandering into a brick and mortar store, they are more likely to find overpriced, ungraded singles that are "easier" to find on eBay.

Vintage collectors tend to be older yes, but I've seen many collectors my age (35) who have been around the hobby long enough get bored with the newer cards and start investing/chasing vintage. Who knows if vintage will increase forever, but it has shown to be a fairly safe investment vs. always chasing the next Trout on a SSSP card.

Card stores that don't stay up on the latest trends and cater to the modern clientele with breaks, high end new releases etc are the ones that tend to turn to comics, games, toys etc to make ends meet because their highest yielding clients at that point are parents who bring their kids in because they don't know what to buy online and the kids are too young/random to verbalize specific wants in the hobby for moms to find online. And kids certainly aren't looking for an overpriced, sun-faded 1960 Topps Wally Moon for their collection.

[cardsagain74]

Is there this lack of "in person" interest in vintage at card shows nowadays too?

All of this sounds the same as when I was setting up at shows while in high school during the junk wax era. If you had cards like a '59 Al Kaline in the case, they would sit forever (unless you marked it way down. People were only chasing after '87 Fleer Will Clark and all the '90 Kevin Maas cards.

With how strong and liquid the market is online for vintage, I assumed that this had changed some. Doesn't sound like it though

[conor912]

Originally Posted by MCyganik

So Occasionally if they are looking for commons to build a set, they'll go to a large card show (pre-Covid) but they know their specific needs are almost always never going to show up in some random picked over card store.

TBH, it’s gotten to the point where even walking into a vintage heavy show, I know finding the card I want in the grade I want for the price I want is highly unlikely.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by conor912

TBH, it’s gotten to the point where even walking into a vintage heavy show, I know finding the card I want in the grade I want for the price I want is highly unlikely.

^^^^ This ^^^^

[Mike D.]

Vintage makes so much more sense online...why buy the best value T206 or Mantle within 20 miles of you when you can buy the best value one anywhere in the country (or beyond)?

A LCS dealing in mostly unopened modern has more in common with a hardware store (order product from manufacturer or distributor, mark up, sell, pay rent, repeat) than with someone selling vintage on eBay.

I guess if they’re breaking boxes to sell singles the analogy breaks down...no randomly inserted “gold 1/1” nails mixed in with the regular ones.

[abothebear]

The three shops near where I used to live were similar to what you described in some ways. Having talked to the owners, I have a few theories, some have already been mentioned. Vintage cards are found in the full range of conditions (whereas modern cards are near the high end of the grade scale or else they aren't in the market). All three of the shop owners priced their vintage cards at HBV. No one was going to pay HBV for those cards. The one guy who I'd say was the most market knowledgeable had a sign with his to make an offer. But it is hard to make an offer 75% off the HBV with a straight face. So any vintage buyers are going to buy from ebay where they can get a real time market price aligned with the condition rather than these shops. If the knowledgeable guy had a card come in that was of a quality that would fetch HBV, he would sell it on ebay, not in his case. The other side of it is that if they did take the time to figure out what the market price of what they had was, they could probably move them, but they weren't the kind of shops that could spend the time to replenish their vintage supply at costs they could then profit from.

Now, the one thing that one of the shops had going for it was that he had a bid board, so collectors could bring in their stuff and put it on the bid board for a small consignment fee. That was fun to check out every week because you could get vintage stuff there at a good price. Very rarely anything pre-war. And nothing major, but I remember one week getting a bunch of 1968 Topps stars for $27.