A Hell Of A Year!

[abothebear]

BobC, interesting thoughts. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did try something like that. But I would be surprised if it worked. Cards have to have at least a token connection to the traditional way of understanding cards. To completely break from that is going to fracture consumers’ acceptance or what a card is. It is a psychic bridge too far. The idea that these things can be found in the wild at random is part of what makes a card a card.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by abothebear

BobC, interesting thoughts. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did try something like that. But I would be surprised if it worked. Cards have to have at least a token connection to the traditional way of understanding cards. To completely break from that is going to fracture consumers’ acceptance or what a card is. It is a psychic bridge too far. The idea that these things can be found in the wild at random is part of what makes a card a card.

Oh I agree, but look at how these younger people, and the influx of flippers and investors with all of their new money, are already making big changes to the hobby. For example, NFT's look likw the new big thing coming along, yet for the life of me I could never see wanting to own one, especially not at what people are already paying for them. Heck, I can't afford any of them. Yet you watch them keep pushing them, especially to the younger generation. And the majority of new cards are already being sold online anyway, yet sales of sports cards seem stronger than ever. At least for the forseeable future we should still have cards shows and card shops to still go find cards in the wild, especially vintage and pre-war, at least on a secondary market basis. So that should be good for some time going forward at least. It is with the new, modern card market where I think the biggest changes to the hobby may come, at least initially.

I'm with you and like to actually be able to hold, touch, see, and even smell the cards, but we're more old school collectors. Now it is all about the internet, social media, and so on. The younger collectors are going to change things whether we like it or not. Only time will tell how much though.