Who is the biggest culprit?

[bn2cardz]

There are many great points. I just wanted to add to the kid collecting aspect of the conversation.

I am 29 years old so when I was collecting as a child it was already a business. Destroying cards was popular prior to the 80s amongst children but i was still living in the past as a child doing it in the early 90s. Non like the older generations before me though I did have the option to go to card shops. I used price guides as a way to know what level I could expect to trade cards, not to buy them or sell them.

If we want to grow the hobby to the children we need to remember that the way they go about things can be a lot more simple than adults go about it. So the adults that do it as a hobby need to be on their level when dealing with them and treat them fairly.

There was a card shop that as a child I HATED going to. They always made me feel like I was inconveniencing them when I would ask them questions. Sometimes I would go in and see a ripken card that I wanted for my Ripken collection. I would offer to trade with them and they wouldn't even look at my cards. Living in St. Louis they were never going to be selling Ripken at a high value and I was willing to trade them dollar for dollar anything else I had (including Cardinals cards that are a hot commodity here). To this day when I see them at shows I don't even stop at their table. My wife even knows who they are and knows my disdain for how they treated children in the hobby as being a waste of time.

On the other hand there were many great collectors who helped me and taught me many things. Some shop owners were open to trading with me on my sub $10 cards to help out my collecting. I am sure there were times that looking at my cards was a waste of time and they knew it, but they still would do it anyways. These are the guys that are now getting my business as an adult with a steady income.

[Jcfowler6]

I blame:

The X games (most kids follow this kinda thing and can tell you all the major players and can't name most baseball teams)

Over saturation of the product

And scandal.

Those three are my opinion.

[mintacular]

To summarize, "eff" the kids, if they don't like cards that's their issue

[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

[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..

[campyfan39]

Oversaturation
Grading

[skelly]

I could go on forever on the topic, but I'll look to keep it somewhat short. The key market used to be your 8-13 year old. I was kind of the last generation that really saw many kids this age collect ( currently in my mid thirties ) It was just big back then. The beckett with the up and down arrows. Packs were affordable. You could find a local show at a Holiday Inn and buy beat up vintage for a few bucks... Now kids are just married to their phones/electronics. You don't see the packs of cards at pharmacies / supermarkets. The good news is that there will always be some sort of market for vintage cards as long as sports are such a big part of this country, which should be the case for quite a while.

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Originally Posted by Bicem

the widespread fraud hasn't helped!

Yep. Personally that's been my biggest issue. That's why I only spend only about 1-2% of what I used to on vintage cards over a given year with no expectations of the cards that I buy having any investment value.

[Chesbro41]

It's not because of lack of interest in baseball... there is still a ton of interest, much higher than even the 80's when collecting started to boom. Baseball revenues are very very high. More competition from football... but they are the only game in town during the summer, and that means interest and money. Kids still love the game.

And frankly, it's not because of the shiny new stuff that is being put out. The card companies were forced to go that route once the hobby became monetary. It's like people who say MTV should be playing music videos all the time... trust me, if playing music videos got the ratings... MTV would still have Guns & Roses in rotation. But the game changes and businesses have to adapt. The companies saw how rarity was driving demand in vintage (and prices) and adopted that model to compensate for the lack of interest as a "hobby"... but instead of genuine rarity, it is manufactured rarity. And that is what drives vintage collectors nuts on top of the bulk of products. If those companies could survive on one set, trust me they would out of efficiency (it's just a better business model). Example... the Billy Ripken F-Face card showed a 15% increase in Fleer packs in 1989 vs 1988 so what if we had that possibility every year on multiple sets! Not factually meant to be correct but you get my point.

Kids stopped collecting for the passion of the game the minute a price guide was issued. That is a fact. If you want to find the day this entire thing was turned on it's head, look for the 1st price guide. That gave birth to everything the "hobby" is now including slabbing.

Will kids come back? Probably not in the numbers it saw prior... but as long as the cards have monetary value there will always be "collectors". So really... it doesn't matter. It's the evolution... and some might even say it's the American Way. The money will always create the demand and the demand will always create the money.

Find something of value and exploit. End of story. The "business" no longer needs the kids.

[sandmountainslim]

I was born in 1970 so I experienced the "overflooding" as a teenager and remember friends buying box after box of Topps sets in the eighties for "collector value" and then when Upper Deck came out it was shitbox crazy! More unopened packs than OPENED packs. That completely turned me off of modern cards and shaped how I collect. I have no interest in any card made post-1952 unless it's a reprint set of an earlier release. I do LOVE baseball itself though and so do many people....I am sure Fantasy Baseball has helped the game become more popular nowadays.

[WWGjohn]

I see five main factors contributing to the decline in collecting interest.

1) The proliferation of price guides which led to increased emphasis on collecting for monetary value.

2) The explosion of card sets beginning in the 80's and the emergence of "premium" cards that killed a lot of collector interest.

3) The emergence of TPG which magnified even more, the emphasis on collecting for monetary value. They created artificial/imaginary guidelines for determining value, that bore almost no resemblance to grading standards that had been in existence for decades prior to their emergence.

4) The rise of the internet and the demise of the local card shop. Availability of cards by auction on Ebay and later, other sources led to the gradual disappearance of the card shop. With that went the opportunity for people/kids to be introduced to cards, first hand, to get knowledge of the hobby and see a variety of cards in person, and learn from people concerned with the hobby aspect of collecting.

5) The rise of the internet, electronic gadgets, and social media that offer people/kids many more entertainment options besides traditional hobbies, and require less thoughtful engagement.

None of these factors by themselves is responsible for the drop in collecting interest, but combined, they have created an atmosphere that is not conducive to developing a reflective hobby interest where the focus is on the intrinsic value of the collectible as opposed to the monetary value. Our attention span is truly shrinking.

[Piratedogcardshows]

I have to say the technology as well.There is just to much for kids to do nowadays to focus on any one hobby.

[fkw]

removing the product.

A true collector card was always issued FREE with a product or service of some kind.

Issues other than that were called "Collector Issues" and usually were issued in boxed sets ie TCMA, Exhibits, R316, Berk Ross, etc. and usually suffered demand wise (too easy to collect/buy a set)

Now almost every card is a "Collector Issue" and is the product

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by HaloFan

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!"Craig

That is what drove off a lot of the collectors who got into cards during 1984-1995; the collapse of the modern market was a huge energy suck. I recall shows in the early1990s that were just electric with excitement because cards were just flying off the tables, but it was really a game of musical chairs--whoever ended up with the cards at the end lost badly. In fact, I used to do some local shows here in L.A. with vintage cards and it used to really chap my @$$ how people would blow past my stuff to buy 100-card stacks of modern rookies with the guy next door. I remember one show when the price of a UD Griffey finally topped the price of a 1971 Topps Ryan in near mint--just blew my mind because I could not believe that things sold in muti-card lots and even 100 card stacks could be valuable.

[Goose]

Speaking as someone that bought cards as a kid in the mid/late 70's that now has 3 kids....

All 3 of our kids (boy 14, girl 11, girl 9) all enjoy buying packs of cards but the card co's have morphed the hobby into a lottery for adults....meaning you're simply buying a 3.00 pack at the chance of a "hit".

Back in the 70's my mom or dad would hand me a couple of bucks and I could buy 8 or more packs! Now today there's no way I'm handing my kid 25.00 to buy several packs of cards. If they're lucky I'll buy them ONE....and I won't even do that anymore due to the morons I see at the local Target fondling the individual packs trying to find the hits.

My son bought 2 A&G blasters the other night for 30.00 total. He ended up with a couple of decent hits and some Yankees but honestly I wouldn't give someone 5.00 for what he had pulled. Like I said it's like a lottery ticket.....

They've priced the kids out and seemingly don't care. Must be enough adults hooked to keep the "hobby" alive.