The Last Iconic Baseball Card

[packs]

I remember for a while the 92 Bowman Piazza was a slightly iconic card but it fell off quick. I'd say the 92 Bowman Mariano Rivera would have been an iconic card if the image wasn't so terrible.

[JLange]

Thanks for bringing this article to our attention. I started collecting as a boy in the 70s, and really don't have a lot of my early friends still into collecting right now. Still, I don't think the demise of baseball card collecting is upon us anytime soon. There are new fans of baseball every day. All it really takes is for your hometown team to do well (finally, in some cases) to re-awaken the collecting spirit amongst the fanbase. Souvenirs fly off the shelves, and savers turn into collectors. It only takes a few of those casual fans to turn into serious collectors to make any auction competitive. As for the "iconic" cards out there, if may very well be that the 1989 UD Ken Griffey Jr Rookie is the last highly recognizable, sought after card. But certainly not if you are a rookie card collector (plenty more to get since him), or a team collector, or specific player or set collector or type card collector. There are so many niche collections and ways to collect. This hobby is arguably down from its heyday in terms of numbers of collectors, but baseball is part of the culture and history of this country, and collecting is one of the many ways fans express themselves. You don't discover that when you are a kid collecting cards, you discover that when you are old enough to appreciate, pursue, preserve, and share your own niche collection with others.