Why aren't there more registrants for early Vintage Football Player Sets?

weinhold

I'm thinking about upper-echelon Hall Of Famers such as Slingin' Sammy Baugh (just 6 active breathing registrants), Chuck Bednarik (5), Sid Luckman (3). To a less extreme extent, there's Otto Graham (8) and Norm Van Brocklin (7).

Is it because not nearly as many football cards were produced during this era? Perhaps it's because collectors attach with a specific player more based on whom they remember, hence '70s Player Sets often have more participation.

I own Player Sets of Baugh, Bednarik, Luckman, and Graham and can't figure this out. None of these Player Sets are new to the Registry either. To further confound the point, most of the cards from this era ('50s) are visually appealing issues and represent enduring NFL "legacy franchises". Even ever-popular quarterback cards are not immune.



-Keith

BigDaddyBowman

For me, its quite simple. I collect the card not the holder. I would be at about 100% for all of the sets you mentioned, but they are mixed between PSA and SGC slabs. I have sets on the registry for the PSA cards I have..but I don't want to cross the SGC over to PSA.

funny story.....I get an email from PSA last week saying the Ya Tittle player registry set that I requested is now up. I totally forgot about it because I had requested it over a year ago!

gotsparks09

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I collect vintage football for a few reasons:

1. Some of the most visually appealing sets
2. I love football (and the history of it)
3. They're cheaper than baseball cards of the same era

Not sure why people aren't into it as much as they "should" be.
Maybe because card collecting has historically been focused around baseball cards.
Maybe because football hasn't been around as long as baseball.

Who knows? I just hope collector's don't start noticing these
great sets for at least another few years so I can make some more
headway on my sets.

perkdog

There are alot of Vintage Football guys out there, obviously not as many as Baseball but as far as those Player sets you have mentioned Keith most of these collectors have all of these players cards but in their major sets.


As far as there being more Baseball guys though in general I think that most of these collectors are older and grew up with the Golden age of Baseball where players were bigger than life so to speak, you often hear older gentleman speak of Mickey Mantle as the greatest thing but never hear Sammy Baugh or Otto Graham in that sentence!

The NFL HOF Rookie set is as popular as ever and I bet alot of these guys involved will eventually branch off into an early Bowman set once they get to liking how great these cards look, personally I hope they dont for a long time More pickings for me! I pretty much got out until you inspired me again, oh and seeing my friend Ryan plaster up pics of banner day mail box deliverys of newly aquired Bowmans reeled me back in as well!

Publius

Good question Keith. I agree with all the other girls here, but for me its being too lazy and not wanting to clutter everything up with registry sets Im not focused on

Why have the 50 bowman team sets, Packers, Steelers, etc.. AND the 50 bowman set. The only sets worth splintering off are Seahawk sets.

weinhold

Thanks for the input, fellas. Though the views and reasons vary, every bit is valid.

Baseball player sets from this era have burgeoning participation numbers: Mantle (104), Aaron (86), Mays (64), Banks (51), etc. Even when viewed as a ratio of Player Sets registered to number of Company Sets registered for those same years, these upper echelon baseball HOFers have much more of a player following. This ratio is upwards of 1:2. It's a much smaller fraction for Football Player Sets. So I conclude that player popularity, and fame / name recognition significantly factors in (reinforcing Perkdog's point).

Heck, even baseball's Eddie Mathews has 16 Player Sets to half that for football's Otto Graham. Sheesh, we nearly had to write Doctoral Dissertations, summon lengthy Congressional Hearings, lobby for legislation, and then personally contact the President Of The United States in order to get the Steve Van Buren Player Set Request listed. ...and thanks to those that helped with that success.

Am I just asking to be knocked down in the Football Player Set Rankings or what? I wouldn't care that much. The participation and camaraderie is more fun than anything.

weinhold

This is opening up the conversation a bit: What is the best way to inform people about the existence and fun of participation in Registry Sets?

In my experience, even most collectors do not know what "Set Registries" are. Non-collectors really have no clue. Although Registry Sets have grown fast, I think there's a lot of room for growth if only persons know about them. The proprietor of a local sports card shop tells me that 99% of his customers don't know what Set Registries are. The proprietor of the other local card shop in my city has not even heard of Set Registries himself. I think it's safe to say that in 2009, there are most Fantasy Football gamers than Vintage Football card collectors. The NFL's surge in popularity certainly makes fans desire an additional "outlet" or "connection" with the game.

My team, the Philadelphia Eagles, is one of the "legacy franchises" of the NFL. The Eagles may boast a million or more fans. Yet eleven (yes, exactly 11) belong to the All-Time Eagles Set Registry. Most Eagles fans have no idea that such a fun and interactive tool for collecting Eagles memorabilia exists.

The reason that I have an interest in finding an answer to this question is because I'm discovering that as my fun collecting journey continues, the most fun is in the camaraderie and connection to fellow collectors - especially Registry collectors.

One of my answers to the above question is that perhaps PSA should advertise the Set Registry on mainstream sports websites such as ESPN.com, and also advertise on Fantasy Football websites and magazines. I have seen the PSA Set Registry advertised in online banner advertisements, sure, however those ads are intra-industry outlets such as VintageCardPrices.com. There is a much greater market share out there - and there are ways for them to discover the fun of the Registry as many already have.

JasP24

On a collector level, I've seen quite a few sellers who advertised or promoted the Registry on ebay listings. Of course, that isn't quite the wide audience you're looking for here Keith, but I'm still surprised at the number of ebay PSA card buyers who still aren't aware of the Set Registry. I've introduced it to quite a few buyers over the years, and some of them ended up becoming big Registry fans/participants.

I like your idea, and I totally agree.

Jason

perkdog

Alot of my friends have said to me regarding my Football cards "Football cards are not really worth that much though are they?" I explain to them how they are in fact very valuable and in alot of cases worth more than alot of Baseball cards, they are always suprised to hear that in fact some have litterally been shocked to hear that I spent over a thousand dollars on a single Football card. In my opinion the persona is with most people is that they dont think they are worthy of collecting like Baseball is, and no they have zero clue about the registry or Graded cards for that matter.

I always collected Baseball growing up and being born in 1970 I remember the big names of players I saw play in the 1970's & 1980's however I NEVER heard of a Sammy Baugh, Bronco Nagurski or Bobby Layne let alone Don Hutson, Tony Canadeo or a Joe Perry yet I did hear plenty of Willy Mays, Yogi Berra, Cy Young and the like. I bet there are so many people out there that couldnt ever say they heard of even 20% of the players of the pre 1960 Football days, my Father ( born in 1949 ) tells me back in the 1950's and early 1960's there was only 2 NFL games on TV on Sunday Afternoons back then so exposure was minimal I believe at least in the North East part of the country. Although the NFL is a booming part of America now I dont believe the NFL promotes the early days of Football as much as MLB does,this could be a reason why Baseball dominates the collecting world especially when it comes to Vintage.

Another thing I believe is the Old timers dont hold as many records as Players from the 1980's and up do, not because the players now dominate more but the game is so different than it was back then, could you imagine if Marion Motley had a career of playing Football FULL time and was a 20-25 carry a game Running Back? Or put Otto Graham in a situation that a Dan Marino had but back in his day? These guys would have put up much better numbers and their legacy would be even more greater than it is, the TV screen might be flashing "Brett Favre just surpassed Otto Graham on the career TD list" or "Emmitt Smith just broke Marion Motleys career rushing mark"

That is my 2 cents!