What is the one thing that has changed most since you started collecting?

[Lobo Aullando]

I'm in with the crowd that says it's the explosion of accessibility and information. Without even knowing that something exists, how would I even know to look for the things I think are the most interesting? (I'll leave it to the practicing economists to talk about how information is integral to an increasingly efficient market.)

3PGs are nothing next to this. I like the encasement aspect, and it is somewhat nice to have a bit more level field as far as condition assessments when exchanging. Still, buy the card, not the holder.

[Bigdaddy]

I can relate to most all of the comments above, but I'd say #1 for me is the advent of the TPGs, specifically the non-linear price differences for high (8, 9, 10) grade cards. Paying 10X (or more) for one card over another because of some small issue that cannot be seen with the naked eye has priced me out of owning high grade vintage cards. It has made that end of the market very competitive.

[Beercan collector]

TPG “poor1” now covers a very large gamut of grades ,
In the early 80s a lot of vintage cards were accepted as vg-ex based on eye appeal but now fall into the poor category

[Exhibitman]

Access. When I started as a kid in the mid seventies there was no infrastructure to the hobby. You pounded the pavement at antique stores and junk stores to find cards and when you did find a honey hole you guarded the information like a state secret. I had one place sold cards twelve for a buck. I used to get twelve cards and flip them at school for $0.25 and up per card then reinvest my proceeds and do it again the next week.

[parkplace33]

Lots of great responses here.

Follow up question…. What is one card collecting thing that will change in the next 10-15 years?

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Lots of great responses here.

Follow up question…. What is one card collecting thing that will change in the next 10-15 years?

People will finally learn/comprehend that eBay sucks (especially for sellers), and it will die as a venue/exchange for buying and selling cards. It’s a shame bc eBay was once, hands down, the best market place for cards.

[glynparson]

Prices

[packs]

It’s gotten significantly harder to collect. I started as a 10 year spending $80 to $100 at a time and being able to buy a huge range of post war star cards and big time pre war. I bought my Matty white cap for $70. Even as late as graduate school I was still buying Ruth and Gehrig for $500. Now I have to sell to buy anything.

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

People will finally learn/comprehend that eBay sucks (especially for sellers), and it will die as a venue/exchange for buying and selling cards. It’s a shame bc eBay was once, hands down, the best market place for cards.

eBay sucks in many ways. But what’s the alternative? There is none. Seen people post alternative venues in the past and when I go there there is like 147 cards for sale.

[Snapolit1]

I’d say the proliferation of auctions. Now it’s non stop. Used to be a huge event when big auctions were coming. Now it’s mostly a yawn. Massive auctions, one after another. Monthly. Weekly. Pop up. Missed that green Cobb? Don’t sweat it …
…. There will be a few hundred more coming. Heritage does massive auctions no even comments on. Even the REA cheering section seems to be down to it’s hard core members.
The non stop dumping of collections should tell you something about the demographics of the hobby and where it’s heading.

[Rhotchkiss]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

eBay sucks in many ways. But what’s the alternative? There is none. Seen people post alternative venues in the past and when I go there there is like 147 cards for sale.

Your second post (and Adam’s earlier post), answers the question - auction houses. The relative savings that eBay provides a seller no longer outweighs the risk, work, and poor treatment that EBay affords sellers today. I would rather give up that extra 5% and know that my job ends the minute I send my package to the AH (using their account and insurance). And, I think this is exactly why there are so many auctions today - they are absorbing all of the sellers that eBay has lost.

[wagnerj03]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Lots of great responses here.

Follow up question…. What is one card collecting thing that will change in the next 10-15 years?

Someone overtakes PSA as the leader in grading. I hope it’s SGC.

[Seven]

I've been collecting since the early 2000s.

When I started, the Hobby had slowed down, or so I was told from many collectors and dealers, when I first started going to card shows with my father. It felt a little more insular, which I don't think was a bad thing. Card collecting was more niche really.

The Hobby is much more exposed now, for better and worse. More people are involved, more money is being thrown around. On one hand, I'm glad that there is so much renewed interest in cardboard, but on the other, I hate the gambling aspect that has seemed to taken over everything now. Breaker culture, the livestream opening of new card products, I don't think it's good for the youth that is trying to get involved in the hobby.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

What is one card collecting thing that will change in the next 10-15 years?

My suspicion is that we are on the road to developing a very stratified, two-tier, (or more) collecting system where an entire piece of the hobby infrastructure caters exclusively to the hobby upper class and has no meaning to the rest of the collectors, and an entirely different segment caters to everyone else. We already see the start of this stratification in a variety of ways:

--Walk a show and see how readily the groups of collectors self-differentiate by class. Not many vintage collectors hanging around the breaking pavilion, and very few card bros are unloading their Zion cases at mom and pop tables of vintage cards.

--The proliferation of vaults. No true collector in the classical sense would give a s*** about a vault; what's the point in owning a card you can't even hold in your hand? An investor, on the other hand, would rather not risk the loss of transporting or bear the cost of insurance on a valuable asset.

--I don’t think it is any accident that the rise of organized investment-collecting catering to the hobby 1% and modern speculators has resulted in a two-tiered auction system where there are expensive catalog auctions and internet only $10 starting point auctions. Now I also happen to think that much of the monthly auction business is stuff that used to go to eBay instead and represents a shift in sale venue rather than an expansion of material per se. The way eBay's fees have gone up (owing to the quirks of eBay's system, the spread between eBay and a typical BP is around 5.5%), and the hostility towards sellers, make the monthlies quite attractive. Do I consign a $300 card to a monthly at 20% or do I sell it via eBay at 14.5% and be responsible for shipping and potential losses? It is becoming a closer question. But the salient point for our analysis is that there is a secondary tier of auctions that are quite popular with less well-heeled collectors.

-- Walk the floor at the National now as compared to a decade ago and it is obvious that the total number of retail card dealer tables at the National has declined markedly, while the total floor area devoted to auctioneers, service providers, corporate booths, card breaks and manufactured memorabilia (e.g., autographs and related paraphernalia) has filled in the gap. I think we are in for more of this, perhaps even to the point where the vintage card dealer is no longer the backbone of the National, as is the case with Comicon’s show floor versus all of the other activities.

In sum, the tectonic shift is already under way. What we make of it depends on us. The move to vertically integrate in a way that most collectors do not like or value leaves an opening for businesses to cater to the mass of collectors, and I suspect that is one reason why local shows and modestly priced auctions are thriving while a venture like Collectable, which sought to securitize cards and create a card stock market that required mass participation, fell on its face. The clientele who likes the financialization of card collecting can buy the big cards directly rather than trading theoretical interests in them and ceding control over the asset and its sale to the promoter, and the group that cannot afford them doesn’t want to screw around with a share of a card they never actually touch and cannot control.

Of course, this is all just spitballing: if I knew the future I would be buying and selling, not screeding on a chat board

[bgar3]

Agree, grading prices, and internet.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

My suspicion is that we are on the road to developing a very stratified, two-tier, (or more) collecting system where an entire piece of the hobby infrastructure caters exclusively to the hobby upper class and has no meaning to the rest of the collectors, and an entirely different segment caters to everyone else. We already see the start of this stratification in a variety of ways:

--Walk a show and see how readily the groups of collectors self-differentiate by class. Not many vintage collectors hanging around the breaking pavilion, and very few card bros are unloading their Zion cases at mom and pop tables of vintage cards.

--The proliferation of vaults. No true collector in the classical sense would give a s*** about a vault; what's the point in owning a card you can't even hold in your hand? An investor, on the other hand, would rather not risk the loss of transporting or bear the cost of insurance on a valuable asset.

--I don’t think it is any accident that the rise of organized investment-collecting catering to the hobby 1% and modern speculators has resulted in a two-tiered auction system where there are expensive catalog auctions and internet only $10 starting point auctions. Now I also happen to think that much of the monthly auction business is stuff that used to go to eBay instead and represents a shift in sale venue rather than an expansion of material per se. The way eBay's fees have gone up (owing to the quirks of eBay's system, the spread between eBay and a typical BP is around 5.5%), and the hostility towards sellers, make the monthlies quite attractive. Do I consign a $300 card to a monthly at 20% or do I sell it via eBay at 14.5% and be responsible for shipping and potential losses? It is becoming a closer question. But the salient point for our analysis is that there is a secondary tier of auctions that are quite popular with less well-heeled collectors.

-- Walk the floor at the National now as compared to a decade ago and it is obvious that the total number of retail card dealer tables at the National has declined markedly, while the total floor area devoted to auctioneers, service providers, corporate booths, card breaks and manufactured memorabilia (e.g., autographs and related paraphernalia) has filled in the gap. I think we are in for more of this, perhaps even to the point where the vintage card dealer is no longer the backbone of the National, as is the case with Comicon’s show floor versus all of the other activities.

In sum, the tectonic shift is already under way. What we make of it depends on us. The move to vertically integrate in a way that most collectors do not like or value leaves an opening for businesses to cater to the mass of collectors, and I suspect that is one reason why local shows and modestly priced auctions are thriving while a venture like Collectable, which sought to securitize cards and create a card stock market that required mass participation, fell on its face. The clientele who likes the financialization of card collecting can buy the big cards directly rather than trading theoretical interests in them and ceding control over the asset and its sale to the promoter, and the group that cannot afford them doesn’t want to screw around with a share of a card they never actually touch and cannot control.

Of course, this is all just spitballing: if I knew the future I would be buying and selling, not screeding on a chat board

Well said Adam, I agree +1

[jakebeckleyoldeagleeye]

Digital cards. I just don't get it.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Section103

2) The internet greatly changed the marketplace. I'd venture to say that I would have never SEEN 70% of the cards in my collection, much less have a chance to own them.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

My suspicion is that we are on the road to developing a very stratified, two-tier, (or more) collecting system where an entire piece of the hobby infrastructure caters exclusively to the hobby upper class and has no meaning to the rest of the collectors, and an entirely different segment caters to everyone else. We already see the start of this stratification in a variety of ways:

Agree that all of the best pieces of my collection (minus 3) have come from ebay. Last year I found a 1990 KGJ Desert Shield at my LCS. That is the first vintage card I can remember buying locally in years.

What I most agree with Adam about is the vertical integration that we are seeing with Fanatics. It is going to bring about a tectonic shift into our hobby that will be unfathomable. Us vintage collectors will be looking at modern collecting and collectors and feel even more disconnected from them than ever.

I think Adams comment is insightful; and I agree "tiered levels of collecting" is already underway. But I think the stratification has existed for a decade or longer. I always thought I was too poor for auction houses when big ones would come along - like the Halper collection. Even now, I can realistically only get 1 or 2 nicer items per year ($1500 or less), which isn't enough to compete in auctions. I'm certain however that other collectors look at me and think I'm a big dog. Maybe I'm middle class? I choose to buy lesser HOF players because I feel I can compete and purchase items for them. I recently got a Barry Larkin GU Bat from 1990 because I sold items to pay for it. There is no way in Hades I could buy a comparable Babe Ruth bat from 1927 even if I sold every collectible I own. And think of the collectors on this board that routinely state they are looking for a "collector grade" version of a card. Even on this board we know who the Big Dogs are. But we small pups enjoy being here and when someone buys the T206 big three in less than a week (like occurred last year...or two years ago?) we yippy dogs feel fortunate enough to be able to say congrats and we are excited for the buyer....and I believe the feelings are true.

Here's another example: Babe Ruth has almost become unattainable to the lower end collector. In 2019, the entry level Ruth cards were Sanella, Churchmans, Butterfinger, Quaker Oats, and some strip cards. Look at those prices now! Older collectors still look at those cards and think...that much for Quaker Oats? Newer collectors don't know a difference. Think of all the posts, at least once per month, that ask "I have $$$, what should I buy?" That's stratification.


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[rjackson44]

folks at shows filming themselves interviewing themselves like their movie stars. YouTube channels telling you what to buy or and what not to buy . people taking huge and scary losses on the new stuff. miss going to the East Coast national Gloria show and just having a nice day.thx