The Last Iconic Baseball Card

[Cat]

As a kid I liked cards because I could memorize the stats - both career stats and how they did the previous year. Now, kids can get that stuff each and every day off the internet.

One thing that has changed for the better towards the future of baseball cards is that every kid now has his own baseball card - if the parent wants to pay $15 for a stack of 10. Kids love those things. I think it makes them feel important in the baseball world. Does that mean that at some point in the future they will grow to love vintage cards. Who knows? My kid really likes my cards, but not as much as I do.

[chaddurbin]

kids don't collect cards anymore, and they don't watch tv as much. not sure how they'll bridge the gap to collecting old cards if they don't collect new cards first...but on the bright side YAY just less competition for me when i'm 80 and most of you have died and i can buy yum yums and ramlys and dog heads for pennies on the dollar.

[calvindog]

Quan is right. We're a dying breed; and what does this mean for the value of our collections in 40 years?

[barrysloate]

The very old vintage cards will still be valuable because they will be antiques. Even a generation who didn't collect baseball cards when they were kids will still find them fascinating and desirable.

[sbfinley]

Actually, if I recall correctly, I recently read an online article somewhere in which a recent poll suggested that the number of households that contained an adolescent that collected sports cards rose from something like 8% at the turn of the century to around 65% in 2008. While my 12 year old brother enjoys nothing more than video games, my 11 year old brother in-law has a quite decent collection of modern stuff. He also has several friends, that also have several well-to-do fathers, that all get together and wipe out a local card shop. It's amazing because the place is unbelievably marked up. If you also collect modern imagine paying $150 for a box of Topps Chrome.

Do I think collecting is dying? Not yet. Brick and mortar card shops along with local large scale shows might be drying up, but I think that is attributed to the rise of online sales and ebay. Yeah the mass produced cards of the late eighties and early nineties are a joke, but like it or not I think the card companies have something going with the ultra-high end/ultra-short printed sets they are currently producing. The basic sets are still there for those on a budget and quality sets like Allen & Ginter can be had at any Wal-Mart or Target.

As for vintage I think it will be just as popular in the future. I didn't even get into it until last summer when I was 24.

Oh yeah and ESPN... Albert Puljos's Topps Chrome Auto Rookie. Look it up. He doesn't play for the Yanks or the Sox so I understand your oversight.

[packs]

Collecting is obviously not dying because every year each company puts out 10-15 different sets of cards for the same sport. If collecting was drying up, why would Topps have so many different sets being released under its umbrella? And every year the products get more and more expensive and high end. In my opinion the companies are just now hitting their stride in terms of modern collecting and I see that evident in the eclectic choices of product collectors have now. There are the autograph sets, the memorabilia sets, the throw back sets, and the go-for-broke sets that feature either a big hit or a big miss.

In my opinion the last truly iconic baseball card was definitely the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey rookie. Still a great card.

[ScottFandango]

Good story about the UD card, but that is NOT the last Iconic Card.....

Its is clearly this card, which is pushing $5000 in PSA 9, and goes for about $3500 RAW......


reminds me of the 52 Mantle as far as not being able to get one for under $2000 anymore....

[Orioles1954]

The last inonic card, especially for modern collectors is the 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols Auto RC. Only 1000 cards were produced (I think) and they routinely SELL for $2000-2500.

J-

[Dustanh1]

I don't think the Pujols is an iconic card. Yeah, it's an important card, but the Griffey UD transcended the hobby. The first card of the first UD set, Griffey with his big smile and his great decade that followed. The card is affordable enough and widely available to anyone who wants one, as opposed to the Pujols only having 500 copies (and not all 500 were redeemed), some fakes out there, and a very high pricetag. Plus I think with many people viewing Griffey as one of the few clean players during the steroid era, I just think that there is no way you can compare Pujols to Griffey. I don't think the Pujols Bowman Chrome could ever hold a candle to the Griffey.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

The very old vintage cards will still be valuable because they will be antiques. Even a generation who didn't collect baseball cards when they were kids will still find them fascinating and desirable.

I sure hope so. It's scary enough when I can show someone my own age (28) a Ty Cobb card and have them ask "Who's that guy?". I can only imagine in another 20 years what it will be like when you have kids asking "What's a baseball card?".

[packs]

I hope the cards values do go down....way down. While I currently collect them both because I like them and because they're an investment, I'd rather just collect them because I like them. Let all the Cobbs of the world fall to $5.