Who will be the buyer of our vintage cards in 20 years?

[mcap100176]

I don't think "the tainted era of baseball" will have anything to do with cards. 75 million people went to MLB games in 2009, and how many more went to the cheaper minor league stadiums. I would wager that only a small portion of the baseball following public cares about steroids/PEDs.

I am 33 years old. I am at age where all my friends are having or have had kids. Guess what? All the boys play baseball, all the boys collect cards of today's players. All their dads are teaching them the history of the game. If they stay interested in cards, they'll find the vintage stuff.

Concerning what the future holds....
1. Commons are called commons for a reason. Nice to have but when my friends are over and I pull out my Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, etc., eyes open wide. Not just my friends, but my father's friends have asked me to bring over vintage stuff.

2. The internet has been a godsend.
A. Cheap and easy way to trade and buy.
B. Without the internet, we wouldn't be having this discussion
C. Opened markets where there wasn't a market before

3. The future
A. Big names will always sell
B. Rare items will always sell
C. High grade will sell
D. The internet is the future, no more store fronts
E. Shows will continue to happen just not as often
F. Card will be viewed as a commodity for today's "older statesmen." Today
it's a collection & hobby, tomorrow the commodity will be sold off for
retirement, to pay for medical bills, etc.
G. Something will come along to replace Ebay as the main sales venture.

To add:
I am not concerned about going to a store. I would rather sit at home, and compare prices and have something delivered. Search Ebay and use VCP to find what I want and if I don't like the price, wait.

This isn't a generational thing any more. This year at Christmas I had 3 people come up to me at family parties saying they did all their shopping online like I do (We talked about it the year before) and they will never go to a store again.

PS. I also play video games.

[smtjoy]

Real good thread.

I think many have mentioned the collecting gene a lot and I also believe in it. Because of that while we can have no idea what kids today will collect when they are older we do know that many of them will collect something. So they very well may collect cards when older just because they remember the game and the memories it gives them. I think baseballs popularity has a lot more to do with collecting cards later on than if you did as a kid or not.

I never saw the Ruths and Cobbs play much less the Clementes and Jackie Robinsons but I stongly collect them and I dont really see any less demand for the real greats in the future.

This got me thinking, how have the prices of vintage boxing cards done over the years. To me its a sport thats seen a huge decline in fans in the last 30-50 years or so and I wonder how the vintage cards are doing? Did they peak years ago? The only boxing cards I have purchased have been Dempsey, Louis and Ali exhibits, how have the top fighters cards done over the last 30 years or so vs all the other boxing cards? I wonder did most of the people collecting vintage boxing today, collect them as a kid or not?


While I loved the card shows and stores of the 80's, if it was not for the internet I would not be collecting today.