Twentysomethings- The future of our hobby?
goodriddance189
Posts: 2,388 ✭✭
everyone has heard the old adage "the kids our the future of our hobby." this may be true for modern cards, as i still see tons of kids in shops and at shows. but when it comes to the graded cards, younger collectors are few and far between. i can only name a few guys on the Registry board- myself, mudflap02, qmayer, and mikeschmidt- who are in their 20's. every other facet of collecting follows the same routine- as older guys leave, younger collectors join.....with new ideas and new interests. this doesn't seem to be true for graded collectors though. most of the newbies that have joined the boards in the past several months are 35 or older. nothing wrong with this of course, but in the long term it might pose a problem. let's face it- in 5 or 10 years, many older posters will move on, and sell off their collections or get out of the hobby. and it doesn't seem that there will be a good influx of newer collectors to take their place. luckily, card collecting isn't like pro sports, where you get "too old." our hobby can be enjoyed at any age.
i mentioned "twentysomethings" because that seems to be the age most collectors get back in to the hobby. most of my collecting buddies in high school have stopped collecting when they went to college, which is understandable. they have more important things to spend their money on, like beer and chicks (luckily i drink cheap beer and have a long term girlfriend, who no longer expects to be taken out every night). when i joined, i figured that i would be the youngest guy on here. and in over a year, i've seen only a few collectors my age join. this is kind of disheartening, because we are the future. the young, casual collectors will eventually become PSA authorized dealers, major players in the Registry, etc.
i always enjoy new posters, especially if they're guys who are close to my age. it's always nice to see input from people i can relate to. and it would be great if more young collectors joined, but that isn't happening. so my question is, what can be done to get younger guys interested in graded cards and the Registry?
i mentioned "twentysomethings" because that seems to be the age most collectors get back in to the hobby. most of my collecting buddies in high school have stopped collecting when they went to college, which is understandable. they have more important things to spend their money on, like beer and chicks (luckily i drink cheap beer and have a long term girlfriend, who no longer expects to be taken out every night). when i joined, i figured that i would be the youngest guy on here. and in over a year, i've seen only a few collectors my age join. this is kind of disheartening, because we are the future. the young, casual collectors will eventually become PSA authorized dealers, major players in the Registry, etc.
i always enjoy new posters, especially if they're guys who are close to my age. it's always nice to see input from people i can relate to. and it would be great if more young collectors joined, but that isn't happening. so my question is, what can be done to get younger guys interested in graded cards and the Registry?
0
Comments
Silver Coins
e-bay ID: grilloj39
e-mail: grilloj39@gmail.com
<< <i>I'm 42 and semi-retired. I am a "twentysomething" at heart....King of the Hill, Simpsons, Johnny Bravo, Ren and Stimpy, Metallica, Dave Matthews, Red-Hot Chili Peppers, kind of guy. >>
i'm still seventeen "at heart".. lol
In fact, I have little to no interest from 60's- current cards.
If it's not old school, it's not for me. Besides, pre-war cards are much simpler and in my opinion just look better.
He wants to post on the forum, but he can't read or write yet so I have to read the posts to him... he really thought the MW-BOTN catfight was "super silly"! LOL!
I mention this because most of the late teens and twenty somethings are always referring to cards in terms of value, e.g., “I got an x card and it's worth...”, "I'd buy x because it will be worth..." I've equated this mentality to stock day traders or "investors" whose only knowledge about a company is its price.
So to answer your question, if the hobby aspect is emphasized, you should retain a following. If "investment" is emphasized than you might have many who will be disillusioned as many were when they bought 100 card lots of Mattingly, Strawberry, Gooden, or limited edition 1 of 10, etc.
the thing about graded PSA cards ...is that they are expensive!
its not lack of interest ..its lack of money.
i try to pick up a card here and there and always try to learn as much as i can about the hobby. but i simply can not drop a couple of grand that easily.
i dont worry about the future of the hobby though, graded cards by nature are not related to quantity but rather to quality, so its logical than its collector base would be smaller.
Groucho Marx
$10-$20 packs pushed me away from the hobby. Along with 50 different sets from each company.
Why would i want to pay that kinda money for 3-5 cards of guys that i don't even care about.
What i enjoy the most is getting out those favorite cards of mine from the 80's with all the creases and then trying to find the same card slabbed with a high grade.
I think it's pretty tough for younger collectors to get into vintage cards. I'm working on it right now, but it's tough to collect cards of guys you've never seen play. Plus it can be pretty expensive at the same time. But my addiction to vintage is getting stronger. Sadly enough most younger collectors would take a GU refractor AUTO RC over a T206 any day.
Maybe as you get older you learn to appreciate the guys you watched play that are no longer in the game or in the HOF.
Still need a lot of cards for the set (thanks to Varga, King Kellog, and others I am well on my way however.)
And of course I still buy a pack or two every time I make the trip to Wal-Mart, etc.
-john
----------------------------------------------------------
Looking for 1975 Topps PSA 8 to finish my set
Replacement collectors concern me, however. There's no denying that fewer kids collect cards today than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. But that doesn't necessarily mean the high-end stuff will suffer. Fewer kids collect coins today too, but the rare and vintage coin market has never been hotter. Time will tell. If cards go up, my net worth goes up. If cards go down, I can afford a bunch more cards. Either way I'm happy and I ain't never leaving the hobby
Joe
S.
but the hobby is relatively old and enduring.
While it is a mystery what will be incredibly hot in the future, I imagine that vintage graded stars will always hold monetary and sentimental value.
Many of the elementary school kids I work with know the big names from the past 100 years. It's like osmosis...
they learn like we learned...
we learned that dr. j, thurman munson, rod carew and roger staubach were heroes and we collect their cards eventhough we hardly remember ever seeing them play.
when we "30 somethings" were teenagers listening to rock music played by guys with long hair and make up... playing pacman and q-bert... dressing like nimrods... the generation ahead of us looked at us and thought the future was lost.
I looked at you 20 somethings when you were teenagers... listening to your fake rappers and grunge and gangster music... playing your video games until your eyes popped out... and it never occured to me that you might appreciate a carlton fisk or jim hunter...
but you do... some of you are building sets from the 70's on the registry!
even in a world where kids seem to be overstimulated by things that require electricity and super-instant gratification... where everyone pines for their 15 minutes of fame on a reality tv show... I would bet that an adequate portion of them will join us someday...
just my thoughts...
I guess my largest uncertainty resides in what will become of the cards that are now modern... millions of chopped up game uniforms and autos... multiple rookies...
Click here to view my Knickstars collection and wantlist
...I....
...when I....
...when I was....
dang it all sonny, what was the question?
"All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
I think it is a natural progression that graded cards become of more interest to a collector as they age. The younger collector buys modern cards, stimulated by the marketing of cards companies. An older collector has a tendency to become more focused on what they have, and narrow the interest in what they collect.
So, to answer the specific question, a company such as PSA would need to do some type of direct marketing aimed at the 20something demographic. Otherwise, word of mouth is the best solution.
Will Baseball still be as popular in 30 years? If not, then collecting could suffer.
<< <i>I mentioned "twentysomethings" because that seems to be the age most collectors get back in to the hobby. >>
Maybe we're looking at it differently but I don't know that this is really true. With most "twentysomethings" they're at a point in their lives where things like marriage, children, and first time home buying are the priority items of both interest and expense. After college I really tried to stay involved but lack of time and other more important expenses made it impossible. It wasn't until after I hit 40 that I had a chance to get back both the necessary interest level and to have the funds needed.
Scott
Ylder, i too wish hockey cards would become worthless, or at least cheap enough so that i can buy more stuff. that Registry special a few months back helped a ton, at least in terms of more stuff showing up on ebay. i was stoked to get a 30 year old PSA 9 HOFer for $15 (a '73 Giacomin), and a ton of 80's OPC PSA 9 rooks for a fraction of what they sold for before that. us hockey collectors are lucky in one aspect- vintage hockey is about 5 times cheaper than baseball. i calculated the value of my collection, and compared it to values for similar cards in baseball (similar years/grades/caliber of players). my hockey collection is worth about $6 grand. if i had collected baseball instead, a comparable collection would have cost me about $28 thousand! enjoy it while you can, because once the Hockey Registry picks up, all bets are off. i've started to notice a ton of cards from popular registry sets sell for ridiculous amounts.
as for myself, i kinda got burned on the hobby around the time i went off to college in '99. the proliferation of too much product, serial numbered crap, parallels, etc was just too much. i started collecting again my sophomore year, mainly picking up Marlins autographs and random rookies. i got heavy in to it for about 2 years, spending about $300 a month at the local shop buying boxes. i hit a high point when i pulled a Ruth/Gehrig dual bat/jersey card and sold it for $2 grand. but it was getting repetitive, buying boxes and rarely getting my money back. i had slowed down greatly by september of '02, then in the span of 1 week my dad died and someone sideswiped my truck, flipping and totalling it and almost killing me. i ended up getting something like $1500 from insurance. i was depressed enough about my dad, and almost considered blowing the entire thing on booze. but i started thinking that that would be a terrible idea, so i decided to invest it vintage PSA graded cards. i chose hockey because i've always loved the sport, and cards seemed undervalued. it was a wise choice. when i was buying unopened product i rarely ever made any money back. i was just stuck with crap i didn't want. with graded cards, i was not only having more fun but also realizing that i could resell my cards for profit. i haven't looked back since, although i'm doing a helluva lot more buying than selling nowadays. but at least i can sleep well knowing that if i ever did need to sell my collection, it would prove to be a wise investment
1. graded usually equates to vintage, and very few young collectors buy vintage. they collect modern stuff, which is a primarily raw market.
1. the graded market (esp. vintage) is geared towards collectors with deeper pockets. i remember back when owning a Mantle card, in any condition, was an accomplishment. now people are so obsessed with condition that they'll only chase after high grade cards. it isn't financially feasible to grade vg-ex cards, and sometimes those are the only affordable conditions available.
-college, marriage, families, starting a career....these thing seem to be higher priority than spending money on cardboard.
I have seen examples of teen-age and 20 something baseball fans quite interested in the old time superstars, Cobb, Ruth, Walter Johnson, and many more. As current stars approach records and milestones, the press brings up Mays, Aaron, Ted Williams or whomever, and they become "popular" again.
True fans, regardless of age usually become collectors, graded cards are a logical ?? progression in collecting.
Hopefully as time goes on, more and more younger / new collectors will get involved in this hobby and the interest level will remain constant or increase.
I think all the jersey cards will be collected and re-sewn into one, whole jersey. Same with bat cards. Glue advances will make this possible. Refractor cards will be taped together to make a suntan folder you hold under your chin. Remember that brilliant invention. Slather on baby lotion and cook yourself medium rare.
S.
I happen to work in a prison with about 450 people, half of which are in their twentys. I bring in my SMR and it has sparked many conversations. Most guys have absolutly no idea about PSA and graded cards. Well I have gotten three guys into it, (all in their thirty's) one guy who up until I sold him some graded vintage was only into coins, now he is on ebay every other night looking for vintage. Almost all the twenty's guys have no interest. I personally think that card collecting will always be around like comic's, stamps ect..As far as vintage collecting goes I dont know. When I talk to twenty year olds a lot of them never heard of players that would be on vintage cards, I think it is a generation thing, I heard of Mays and all those guys from my father a 50's and 60's kid, As generations move up I think that a lot of players will eventually become "never heard of him". I think that down the road it could get a lot tuffer for vintage cards.
Then later on (right after high school) I started catching on that it was cool. Looking through his binders of complete late 60's sets was fun. I started looking for cards here and there for him. Then got hooked.
Someone said earlier that it's not lack of interest, it's lack of money. For a 20 year old (at least for me) that is absolutely true. Every now and then, I step back and check how much I've spent on BBCs in the last month, 2 months, 6 months, and it's astounding. Then I take a mild break. Few weeks later I'm right back in it, checking EBay every night, reading PSA boards.
For this 20 yr. old it'll be awhile till I lose interest in this hobby. And I've gotten a couple of friends my age to take interest as well. Great topic by the way. Let me say I appreciate the older people on the board, because to put it simply, they know a lot more than I do. And knowledge is money in the bank in this hobby.
I think the graded side of the hobby will be fine in the future. My oldest is already looking at going for a player set instead of regular sets, just due to the cost, size, and composition of the newer sets (and she thought of this on her own!).
I believe that our future collectors will be more knowledgable and "know what they want" far better than I was when I started to collect.
The future is looking pretty bright IMO.
Ken
- Slowly (Very Slowly) Working On A 1952 Topps Raw Set (Lower Grade)
I realize that youth will get to know what's 'in their time' like I did, but how do you decide what to collect with all the variations out there today? Does anybody have a handle on what's-what for say 2003? I realize choices can be good but too much choice can be a draining experience.
So to you 20-somethings: Do you enjoy and understand all there is in baseball card collecting for last year, this year, etc? Or does it make you tune out and move into a more simplified area?
just curious, that's all.........
BOTR
A little background on me - I'm 23 and about to graduate from Texas A&M. I was a card collecting fiend from about 1987 to 1990, then I moved on to comic books after that, and when high school started I lost interest in hobbies altogether. When I collected cards, I went after pretty much anything I could get my hands on - condition didn't matter, it was all about getting one of each guy. Hand collated sets were the best, right up there with getting a Topps factory set and going through it and putting all the cards in order. My father helped me out, providing me with a little direction. Being from Texas in the late 80's, Nolan Ryan cards were the most attractive thing to us, and together we assembled a fairly complete run of his cards (less some early oddball stuff). It all started when he found a couple of early cards in a store and bought them all for $50 (the 1968, 1969, and 1971 cards - two of those cards are in my registry now).
Fast forward to January of this year. I had known about graded cards for a little while, and for lack of anything better to do I decided to start up the Ryan collection again, but graded this time. It was overwhelming at first, but as soon as I discovered the registry, it was neat to see how far I had come and (roughly) how far I had to go. I found the boards a couple of months ago and it has really added to my enjoyment of the hobby. PSA has done a great job - they found their niche in the market, and provide collectors with not only grading services but the support behind it (Pop reports, SMR online, and the registry among other things) to make what had been an interesting hobby into one with quantifiable goals and a community of like minded folks. We all like to talk trash about PSA for one little thing or another, whether we disagree with their grading standards, isolated customer service issues, etc. But just think for a moment what it would be like without a company like PSA providing the services they do. It would just be an endless sea of companies like PRO, MGS, BSGS, ABCDEFGGS, etc. I'm more than happy to pay them the money I do in exchange for the enjoyment and security their products and services provide, and I think that barring some sort of Enron type fiasco they will be continue to be profitable simply because they are a great company with a great product.
OK, that rant was kind of off topic, but it leads into the rest of this discussion. I'm a younger collector, but I don't think that this hobby is in any danger of losing new blood. I just think of the younger graded card collectors as ahead of the learning curve. The reason the majority of the collectors here are older is simply because given the state of the hobby today, this is the way to collect that provides the most enjoyment. I look at my cards as an investment, like I'm sure most of you do as well. But let's face it, there are a lot better ways of investing your money that will provide higher, more stable returns. But the hobby offers something different. It's being able to hold that slab in your hand and not seeing it for the thousands of dollars that you either paid for it or the potential thousands it represents if sold, but seeing it as a tangible memory from your own personal experiences.
Fads come and go in this hobby, and I think when people get tired of trying to keep up with everyone else, graded cards are the last place to turn. You know what you're getting, and you can focus on one specific area that's the most interesting to you. It's not as exciting as ripping open wax packs, but there is a different kind of enjoyment that comes from seeing a great looking card as part of your collection - the feeling of "OK, I put that one to bed, what's next on the list?" You don't end up with stacks and stacks of worthless commons, you end up with what you want. As more and more people get disheartened by modern cards, I think you will see more go the route that we on this board are on. The thing is, it takes time for that to happen, and as those younger collectors start to age, you will see them slowly joining our ranks (sounds kind of like a cult doesn't it!)
Money is a major issue as well, but in the day of $100 gambles on a pack this hobby can be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be. I guess my argument can be summed up like this: The age of the collectors isn't really that important, but its safe to assume that there will always be a niche for graded card collectors. It;s kind of like an analogy for life I guess. You go and sow your wild oats buying box upon box of stuff you don't really care about, trying to get that one thing that's worth so much that you're not even sure is in the box. After you get burned a few times, you wise up and realize that what really matters is stability and finding something that makes you happy. The point at which this is realized is different for everyone, but I'm glad that there is a company like PSA that provides the services it does (kind of like Russian mail order brides)
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make love to my wife of a Nolan Ryan collection.