Is the hobby as popular as it was...
doubledragon
Posts: 23,269 ✭✭✭✭✭
during the height of the junk wax era in the early 1990s? Is the hobby going to be that popular again? Am I going to have to take a little old lady out at the knees for the last box of Topps Heritage someday? Is it going to get to that level of insane popularity like it was in the early 90s?
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Give me that box of Topps Chrome!
No, no, no and no.
I don't think the hobby has as many participants as the boom years but I think today's collector is more informed and more passionate.
Of course, of course, of course and of course.
chaz
No, the hobby has consolidated, less players but each player has a bigger stake.
1990 was crazy. UD French hockey was a feeding frenzy at Costco, people clearing out pallets in minutes. There were tons of shops, shows, multiple licensees and cards were carried at every grocery store.
At that time everyone collected. I hear all the time about all these people coming back into the hobby but I don’t have one other person in my peer group that came back, and I don’t know one kid that collects. Open to the possibility that I’m an outlier but none of my collecting buddies in school came back. I suspect number of overall participants is a fraction of the 1990s
Not even close. But the hobby is extremely healthy.
Agreed! And, with the Fed just injecting $2 trillion into the financial system over the past month, a fraction of that printed money/spending power should surely flow into the hobby.
3 close friends of mine have passed away in the last 5 years. None of their offspring has picked up the card collecting bug to replace them.
If it doesn’t happen now with the Covid-19... it’s never going to happen. We need to bring back DON WEST!!! Loved me some Don West on the Shop At Home network, on a Saturday night 👍🏼
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Popularity doesn't equate to pallets of products at Sam's Club, so I will say yes. Just in a totally different and non-comparable way.
No. Unfortunately I don't see the younger generation into collecting as much as I did when I was their age. When I was a kid I couldn't wait to get a my daily pack of cards. I carried cards everywhere I went. I spent hours organizing them into boxes and binders. All I see collecting today are us older guys. How many 20 years old or under are members or participate in this forum? I hope card collecting does not go the way stamp collecting went.
Seems to be quite a few younger collectors on blowout.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
There aren’t as many collectors as during the “boom” but I would argue there’s more money flowing in this hobby than ever.
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Also collecting Andre Tippett, Patriots Greats' RCs, Dwight Evans, 1964 Venezuelan Topps, 1974 Topps Red Sox
Well it kind of does. Somethings a popularly is directly correlated to how many participants / followers a thing has. If there were 5mm participants in the hobby in 1990 and there are 1mm today, there is no doubt it is less popular.
Now none of us know the number of participants but anyone who collected through the 90a remembers how mainstream collecting was. Most kids my age and a lot of their dads were in the hobby on some level.
The hobby today is healthy - depending on what you consider the hobby should be, personally I think the hobby should have kids in it but thats debatable. But it is definitely not more popular then it was.
That is the truth. Those cool kids on Blowout taught this middle aged dude a lot about Retail product. Changed my whole strategy on purchasing modern products,
It seems like in the late 80s and early 90s everyone thought they were going to get rich quick. Just get a bunch of cards and hold onto them for 30 years and it will be like a bunch of 52 Mantles. Everyone could afford them and there was plenty of supply, but that was exactly the problem. I think there are still plenty of people trying to get rich, but now it is all around the hype of new players and serialized short prints (planned short supply). Flip them quick. Kids can't afford the majority of the cards out there by saving up their nickles. The manufacturing process has certainly gotten better, and there are all sorts of different types of cards available now, just not at the mass quantities they once were. The game has changed, the players have changed, the market has changed, but I don't think it is going anywhere.
Kris
My 1971 Topps adventure - Davis Men in Black
One thing I've noticed, at least in my city, is there are nowhere near the amount of card shops like there was in the late 80s to early 90s. Back then, I could walk out of my bathroom, and be in a card shop. Now there's one lone cardshop in my city.
As someone who got into collecting after a long hiatus; I went all in on 2019 topps. I loved the autos I got, what am I getting in terms of value? Am I getting an investment?
I bought 15 hobby boxes of 2019 heritage, 10 blasters, 5 mega boxes and 5 hangar packs. What did I have to show for it? 1 AUTO. Some parallels and patch cards. I stopped altogether after 2019 series 2. I’m happy with what I have, but I wasn’t satisfied with my overall experience. Outside of a players rookie year, what makes one base auto more valuable than another? Being numbered 10/ or less?
This was the main reason for me in collecting vintage cards, especially ‘71’s. The black border cards look amazing, especially when top condition. And really it goes for any older vintage in NM-Mint or better. I appreciate my cards so much more knowing that I have some cards that are quite difficult to find in top condition. The thrill of having a card that could grade extremely high upon submitting is equally exciting for me too. Seems like a forgone conclusion that any recent modern cards are a shoe-in for a 10 or 9. Guess it’s the thrill of the hunt! 😁
I am 22 years old so I am definitely an outlier. However, I agree with the sentiment that tons of people my age do not get into card collecting. I have friends that love baseball and are passionate about the game, but only one friend has bought any type of baseball card that I've been around. He bought a 1993 Upper deck SP Derek Jeter and only from an investment point of view. I always have to explain to my friends that vintage cards is where its at, but they don't appreciate the historical point of view and only consider the upside of baseball cards as an investment.
Because of Covid, this was the first year there werent cards in my kids easter baskets. They neither noticed nor cared.
My son has a genuine love of baseball but does not connect to it through cards as I did. After practice, I would get a pack of cards at the store. He instead plays MLB The Show on his phone after practice. When he's my age with disposable income, I don't see him reminiscing about his youth and chasing the cards he wished we could have had when he was 10 as I do now.
Therefore I worry about who is going to be around to buy the cards I am collecting now. Demand has to go down. But then I say $%^& it, I want the cards I want, and the kids can figure out what to do with them at the estate sale after Im dead.
Blockbuster is out of business but people still watch movies at home some how. Relating back to my previous reply, it's just as popular. The face and distribution has simply changed. If you want to define "popular" by card shops, then the hobby is all but dead. However, if you want to define "popular" by the amount of money flowing through it and prices realized then the hobby is way more popular than in the junk wax era. Choice is yours.
The game has changed though. "Kids" back in the day were actually kids. The "kids" today are folks, like your friend, that are not actually kids. Rather older folks who know nothing about cards & looking at them as investment vehicles. Just look at the Gary V herd. Those "kids" knew nothing about cards.
My son and many of his friends collect cards.
Pokémon, football, basketball and baseball.
They do not grade them, they do not sell them on eBay - they have binders and makes trades. It’s fun and not an investment, they don’t take care of the cards all that well and they like them based on look and color and favorite teams and players.
That’s how kids are supposed to collect.
Everything goes in cycles; we’re only at the beginning of a new one in my opinion.
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I would agree there is more money flowing through it. But I think that's due to the old timers and the junk wax era collectors that are now grown up and able to afford more cards. Not because of more collectors. And packs and boxes are way more expensive. Kids can't afford today's prices to just rip and rip like we did
Thanks for my flashback of the day. As much as I loved Don West turning purple in the face trying to sell Shaq cards, my wife HATED his voice. I can admit that he convinced me to buy several packages of various brands.
This
Cards were the 1990 version of toilet paper today!
I didn't get back into the "hobby" business until I was 33 back in 1989 so there. Give the 20 year old kids enough time to get into it, there's plenty of time.
chaz
It is true that hobby boxes are way too high for kids, but I don't see kids starting with National Treasures.
You can buy retail blasters for $20, sometimes $15 when they go on sale. Even at $20 you can get a jersey card in some products. I know 6 or 7 packs may seem small but I remember ripping lots of wax boxes and getting zero value. I open a lot of blasters and pulled a decent number of autos and nice refractors.
That "90's popularity" was not real. Just people thinking they can make a buck and never were into the hobby.
Never much cared about it because I collect vintage.
The Etopps cards should be the canary in the coal mine why is it that these cards have lost their value? A rising tide will lift all boats something is wrong if the Etopps remain flat and never increase in value. At least the 2001 Derek Jeter Etopps card should be doing better but it actually has gone down 20% over the last 5 years and there are only 1000 examples of this card and many of these cards could be delivered cracked open and grade at a PSA 10 but collectors don't seem to be interested in this card or even getting it graded for a possible 10. You would think with all the collectors spending money like a drunken sailor the Jeter card would be at $500 dollars now and a 10 going for $5,000 dollars but no you can get a Jeter for less the $50 dollars.
A surprisingly amount of collectors think eTopps were digital. And is 2001 considered Jeter's rookie year? I've lost track.
Have not thought about ETopps for a while. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but thankfully I didn't buy too many. I hated the ridiculous s/h fees Topps extorted out of everyone if they wanted to have their cards delivered too. Since I only had maybe 8-10, I sucked it up and had them delivered. Never got anything great, because everyone else bought them too. I think the first or 2nd year Frank Thomas is the "best" card I have. I bought 3 of the first year Ichiro thinking that would be the one to have, but so did everyone else and I think they made 10K of that one. Still, pretty limited in the big picture of regular card production, but nobody cares.
Sorry, my bad.
For whatever reason I thought eTopps were an internet based digital trading card.
I feel stupid.
Don't feel bad. I think everybody did at first because of the eMPHASIS with the "e". First thing that comes to mind is "email" which is obviously digital.
The funny thing is I scroll across some decent looking Bunt cards all the time, which are completely digital. I have come very close to pulling the trigger thinking it was just another physical parallel card. I can only imagine the weekly headaches of being a secondary Bunt reseller on ebay with customers, explaining what you are actually selling to older individuals plus constant refunds and the whole paypal keeping their fee thing.
In my opinion, I doubt that the craze for sports cards will ever be at the height that it was in the late 80's thru 90's, BUT with the advent of card grading/authentication which changed the entire dynamic of collecting because we now realize that these pieces of cardboard can now have the potential to be bonafide commodities, I think it's regained a lot of traction with the older crowd, the same people that were collecting during the craze. It's kind of what brought me back after a 25 year sabbatical from collecting.
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Chaz’s psa 6 Jordan’s are now worth a nice used card