T206 Set...Minus the Big Four, and other Subsets...Will values keep climbing?

[BobC]

Some very interesting posts, and also some very misguided ones.

When the sports card, particularly the baseball card, hobby really started taking off in the 1980's, it was fueled pretty much entirely by the Baby Boomer generation starting to reach middle age, and the desire for cards those Baby Boomers used to buy and collect at the local corner store (and elsewhere) when they were kids. It was a return to childhood, and for many simpler times. And with the rise in that demand, our wonderful capitalistic society immediately saw the potential to make money off these reminiscing adults, and the card hobby as it has eventually come to be as we know it today, was born. Oddly though, no one in that Baby Boomer generation was around or ever collected T206 cards. When the hobby card surge started back in the '80s, T206 cards were already 70+ years old, and weren't the focus of the Baby Boomer collecting surge.

So, what is with those naysayer's claims, going on about how the current (and future) generations won't be as interested in collecting T206 cards, and thus because of high prices and diminishing demand, that they fully expect T206 prices to fall in the coming years? They point to other hobbies as the examples of this happening. A few questions to them then. Based on what some of you are saying, T206 cards never should have become such popular collectibles to begin with, so how the heck did that ever happen in the first place? And what exactly are these other hobbies you are pointing to as examples of how T206 cards will face diminishing demand/prices going forward? I'm wondering if you may not be over generalizing, or making your assumptions on facts and circumstances that may not be as similar between these other hobbies and T206 collecting as you may think.

Is it at all possible, or did you ever even consider that, regardless of collector's ages or generations, there is always going to be a percentage of people that like to collect things? And that just like the Baby Boomers that started looking for their childhood cards back in the '80s, a percentage of them with that collecting bug will eventually transition to older pre-war cards, such as the T206s, due to their combined love/interest in the game of baseball, their appreciation of history, as well as the artistic and other aspects these older cards and collectibles presented? Such as having something that no one else, or at least only a very few other people, ever had. Isn't that pretty much exactly why the modern collectors favor manufactured rarities, where they may have the only one known to exist for themselves? But then what happens when they finally realize that that 1-of-1 Ohtani card they lucked out and pulled from a pack eventually turns out to be one of literally hundreds (if not eventually thousands) of 1-of-1 Ohtani cards that will ultimately be produced over time? Same thing with a player's rookie card, especially during the prime of Topps early years. They was literally only one, completely agreed upon by the hobby community, Topps rookie card of their beloved HOFers. Nowadays, how many different cards of a player's "rookie" (or even pre-rookie) card get released among all the different sets put out yearly, with all the different subsets, variations, versions and so on? You want a Pete Rose rookie, everyone knows you go for his "63 Toops card. What card do you get for Ohtani's rookie card then? Or maybe a better question is how many different cards can be considered as his rookie card then from his MLB rookie season? Is it at all possible that the collecting bug in many people will eventually kick in and have at least a portion of those young, modern collectors start looking at the older, vintage and pre-war items that truly are rare and in small supply, and not just manufactured that way? I sure wouldn't bet against that happening.

And as for other hobbies as examples of diminishing demand and interest, and therefor pricing, are you talking about things like say stamp collecting or model trains? If so, it is true that younger people are not that into hobbies such as those, and thus collector interest (and resulting prices) has seen some down turns over the past several decades. But are those younger generation's declining interest due entirely to prices and availability, or was it maybe more because the younger generations started to experience a disconnect and loss of experience/interaction with those types of hobbies, and what was ultimately behind them? For example, we still have trains in use today, but are they still the major transportation venue they once were in this country? How many of you regularly as a kid rode on trains to get anywhere? Isn't the emphasis seemingly on cars, trucks and planes for transportation of people and goods anymore? When you see newer, modern TV shows and movies, how many of them now focus on train travel for transportation versus planes, trucks and cars? See the point, kids (ie: future collectors) haven't been seeing and hearing as much about trains as they used to. And in fact, with the recent issues with derailments and so on. the entire industry is being looked upon with an even more unfavorable light in today's thinking. And besides, it is so much easier (and cheaper) to create a video game with trains if someone really wants the experience, as opposed to buying and setting up a train set anymore. The kids are no longer into it. Same kind of thing with stamps. Tell anyone in the younger generations you still pay your bills by mailing a check WITH A STAMP, and they laugh at you. Also, in the older days, mail from foreign countries would be delivered, and thus those foreign stamps be much more accessible and available to kids for collecting. But nowadays, no one mails anything. They use email, text messages, Facebook, Tic-Toc, Twitter, and on and on, so no one is using stamps like they used to. Meanwhile, baseball, though not as popular a sport and played by virtually every kid as it once was in America, is still played, followed and loved by a huge portion of the population today, and from the looks of it, for the foreseeable future. In fact, with players like Ohtani, and the recent WBC tournament, baseball's declining popularity in the U.S. seems to be more than being made up by its increasing popularity in other parts of the world. Much like basketball seems to have taken off on a worldwide scale.

I would think that as long as baseball is a viable, well watched and followed sport in this country, younger generations will still be drawn to it and the cards that are produced of the players of their generation(s). And as such and knowing that many of these younger generation people will also invariably have that collecting bug/DNA in them, they will eventually pick up and become interested in the older vintage, pre-war cards as well. And as the population continues to rise, that means in all likelihood there would be even more future baseball collectors to be interested in the older vintage, pre-war cards. And of course, inflation will always be a part of our existence as well it seems. So, just by that fact alone, the cards you have today will likely go up in value just by holding onto them and due to that inflation factor alone. The time for the baseball card hobby to start failing is when the game of baseball itself becomes so unpopular or irrelevant that future generations of kids no longer follow, play or have any real interest in baseball or baseball games at all. But being that human males are by nature competitive and active in many sports, including and especially baseball, I don't see that big T206 hobby fall off happening anytime soon.