Who is the biggest culprit?

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by HaloFan

I don't believe the hobby nor baseball is going down like some detractors think they will even with the Astros in the AL West. And the popularity of the NFL shouldn't be compared with MLB because they are two completely different things. There are definitely much more specialties in this hobby then many people are aware of. I'm mostly a vintage card collector, but I never get tired of meeting other collectors who are experts in areas I don't collect. The modern side is much more diverse then we think. I met a guy who collects current non sports stuff and he was telling me how different that crowd views grading than we do. Modern football collectors are said to not be into collecting sets just draft picks like Cam Newton and soon to be Andrew Luck. My father pulled Mantle cards for pennies on the dollar as a kid and grandma threw them all away like many collectors here, but when I was a kid, I was a fan of Griffey and Frank Thomas but could not afford their cards because they were expensive. Now that their cards are cheap, I'm collecting them now. A lot of guys I grew up with have cards that are worth nothing, but we have endless conversations about the hobby from when we were kids. "How much is that '86 Donruss Canseco?....$2?? Man, I had two of them when they were $100 a piece--I was a huge Canseco fan." or I'll hear something like this. "How much is that '90 Leaf Frank Thomas?..."$7? If you find one at that price buy me one. I wanted that card for years as a kid, but it was $80 at the time!"
The hobby will always be there but the way the generations view it will be different and that's not always a bad thing.

Craig

Yeah, when I first got back into collecting, one of the first things I did was search out those cards that were priced out of my range when I was a kid...And then moved on from there. Any time I mention collecting to non-collectors, one of the first things they ask me is if I have a Ripken F*ck Face card...And normally they insist that it was Cal, because they have no clue who Billy is/was.

Completely agreed about the specialties, or niches. What we all view as phases, some people will settle on one or another as their main focus.. So yes, modern collecting is all across the board, which is one of the reason's that the industry might seem worse off than it really is...Because no one product really dominates..