Sportscards and Inflation

[Brian-Chidester]

I stopped collecting in 1996, because I didn't like the designs anymore. The packs were more expensive. You got less and spent more. Way more. Collecting holograms and gold trimmed font cards and all that crap. It seemed pointless.

I remember going to a card show in 2000, and normally I didn't care about new cards by that time, but I couldn't believe the prices the dealers were charging for a new player. Remember when a hot rookie might cost you ten or fifteen bucks, and then plummet the next year? How about a $100 rookie, because it's a numbered card?

If you manufacture rarity, how can anyone hope to care about that card? Hardly anyone even knows about it!!! There's no story. And instead of there being a great, rare card every few years, there's a thousand rare cards each year, if not more. Then, the whole thing of cutting up uniforms and whatnot... I mean, it's not necessarily that kids aren't into baseball or even into sports card collecting. They buy hero cards and comic cards because they are cheap. New baseball cards are not. But it seems to me that each generation, when they come to that period where they start having disposable income, invariably enjoys collecting cards, and especially older cards.

[ChiefBenderForever]

I think for many who collect you just can't put a price on the entertainment and enjoyment you get working on an impossible puzzle. I think prices will remain where they are or drop a little. But if a new group of collectors come along they could go up a little. I hope they drop so I can add some nice pieces to the puzzle. Right now rare backs in the T206 are very hot, but this could be the result of a small handful of collectors all going after the same cards but I think the set is so popular the trend will continue. The issues outside of T206 are much tougher to find but at the sametime a little tougher to sell for a premium. Unless some of the T206 collectors step outside and start collecting the other issues like Caramel, Cracker Jack,ect, the prices realized on these issues will continue to slowly decline which is great for the collector but no so good for the seller.

[Boccabella]

One major difference about cards today is that they seem to be available in fewer and fewer outlets. Yes, you can get them at Target and Wal-Mart and some drug store chains carry them.

Even 20 years ago, though, you could still find them in supermarkets and other chains where they were often impulse buys.

When I was a kid in the early 70s, bakeries and liquor stores had them. I don't know how many card packs I would have bought had they only been available at K-Mart because we just didn't go there very often. I don't know where small town kids have access to them anymore.

It's sort of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing for a lot of people--younger and adults-- who might consider buying some cheaper packs if they just saw them more often.

Vintage card prices have stayed relatively steady except for the rare or high grade items and I would expect that to continue because of the availability online.

[Brian-Chidester]

I mean, what are you going to buy of today's icons? A 2007 Topps Pujols is worth a few bucks, if you even know what a regular 2007 Topps Pujols looks like. There's probably 400 Pujols cards from 2007 alone... officially issued by the major card companies. I wouldn't know what I was looking for. Not like with Mantle, where a 1950s card of his is iconic as they come.

[teetwoohsix]

Great point Brian.I feel the same way about the modern cards-there are just way too many types/series with hundreds of different cards of the same player,it's just too confusing to keep up with.I actually wonder if this saturation is one of the things that makes the kids of today lose interest in collecting baseball cards?

[GasHouseGang]

Probably so Clayton. That's what did me in around 1990. There was just too much product and too many cards of each player. It got to be such a game and lots of cards that were "1 of 1", you just couldn't ever dream of collecting every card that came out in a year.

[Brian-Chidester]

My dad did marketing for Modell's Sporting Goods during the '80s and '90s, and we used to get free box seats to Phillies, Mets and Yankees games whenever we wanted them. I was a huge Don Mattingly fan, and even before the numbered cards began around 1993, by the late '80s, I couldn't keep up with all the Mattingly cards that were being produced each year. I tried. It was impossible. It pushed me right out of collecting for a few years, but ultimately led to vintage card collecting, so who knows? Maybe it will happen that way for others coming of age now.