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

[LEHR]

Two of the biggest thing are the internet like many have said, and the price paid for packs.

I bought my first computer in early 1997 and the world immediately opened up. Suddenly I had opportunities to buy things I'd only ready about, and certainly never seen for sale. Up until 1997 my collecting was limited to buying out of the SCD mags (which I did a lot), buying from one of the two "local" card shops I had within 30 miles of me, or buying at the 1-3 local/reginal shows I would go to. I didn't attend my first National until 2002.

The price of packs: I bought more packs in 1984 as a 10 year old than any other year. Between baseball and football I probably ripped through two cases of wax, and did so buying 3-20 packs at a time, never a full box. Packs were $0.30 each so for $1.00 I could get three packs, pay tax, and get a couple pennies back. In the last ten years I've paid as much as $500.00 for packs I've ripped. I never imagined doing that back in the day.

[judsonhamlin]

I think there are a few big changes that play a significant role:
-the relationship between players/teams and the kids who followed them as opposed to now is a big part of it. When I was growing up in the ‘70’s in central NJ, kids were either Yankees or Mets fans for the most part because that was what was on the radio and tv. If you wanted the score of a Twins-A’s game, you’d need to rely on the post-game show of the local game or wait until the paper the next day. And given that local favoritism, a pack with Chris Chambliss or Fred Stanley was better than a pack with Willie McCovey or Dave Concepcion. And,
-those packs were cheap and plentiful. Local deli had wax packs behind the counter. Woolworth/McCrorys/Two Guys/KayBee and Toys R Us always had rack packs and even a 12 year old could afford them. In part, that’s because there were no
-parallel sets, chase cards, intentional errors, autographs not to mention multiple releases every year which have rendered ‘base’ cards essentially worthless.

I think without exposing kids to baseball in that manner (and not even mentioning the relative rise in other sports), you don’t get kids interested in learning more about Goudeys, T206 or even Bowman.

[lumberjack]

Money, of course, but I've been in and out of this since I was a child. What I remember best about, say, 1958, is that you couldn't find people who did this.
Conrad Anderson, who sold autographs; George Husby, cards; and Goody Goldfadden, who sold EVERYTHING, advertised thru TSN and Baseball Digest, but that was it.

There were hobby papers, like The Sport Hobbyist (that was Charles Brooks in Detroit), but they mostly looked like they were printed on the grade school mimeograph machine and you never knew when they were going to come out.

You started having regional conventions in the mid 1970s and the hobby papers got better and actually came out on time.

And with big money, serious auction houses became involved.

I think about those weird old guys who started all of this 90 years ago and wonder how they ever found one another.

You can find more information from five minutes of looking at Net54 than you could have discovered in ten years of nosing around in 1965 or '70.