When in the 80's did the hobby boom ?

edmundfitzgerald

I remember in 1989 Upper Deck, Score, Pro Set, and a few other companies trying to capatilize on the boom of the 80's.
My question is, what year, or years did the boom take place. I'd guess 1987, but I'm sure there are other opinions.

hammered

I was thinking 89, and UD was key

ThoseBackPages

<< <i>I remember in 1989 Upper Deck, Score, Pro Set, and a few other companies trying to capatilize on the boom of the 80's.
My question is, what year, or years did the boom take place. I'd guess 1987, but I'm sure there are other opinions. >>



my answer when asked this question is 1986.

my reasoning is ... take a look at Wax Box Pricing

1980 - $300ish
1981 - $100ish
1982 - $150ish
1983 - $140ish
1984 - $40ish
1985 - $70ish

1986 - $12ish
1987 - $08ish
1988 - $07ish
1989 - $07ish

BIG drop-off there.

of course like anything else, there are exception to this (1987 Leaf Baseball, 1989 UD Baseball) but for the most part, 1986 was when the forests really started to get slaughtered for card production.

richtree

87 Donruss played a huge part.....

I would say 1987 because of McGwire, Bonds, and the rest of a huge Rookie Card Class....

1986 Topps Traded Set may have actually peaked the interest for all collectors to "boom" in 87 --- after that 1988 Jefferies were more anticipated because the boom had already started


So, it had to be between 86 and 87...

Dboneesq

I would say 1988. I remember the three big companies coming out with their production runs in the beginning of the season. Half way through they said "OOPS", we made a hell of a lot more than we first stated. Thus one of the reasons I have cases of that crap in my basement.

DavidPuddy

IMO 1986.

mccardguy1

The boom was the early to mid 80's. The overproduction can be pinpointed to 1986 or so.

YogiBerraFan

1986

handyman

early part of the 80s, Bc after that boom they uped the production making the 1986-to89 stuff worthless. They were moving after the boom. 1984 Mattinglys were like 20 bucks or something right? back then?

mccardguy1

<< <i>I would say 1988. I remember the three big companies coming out with their production runs in the beginning of the season. Half way through they said "OOPS", we made a hell of a lot more than we first stated. Thus one of the reasons I have cases of that crap in my basement. >>



1987 Topps, Fleer and Donruss were coming out of everyone's ears and still is. I think 87 is a more logical place to start when looking at actual overproduction that 88.

edmundfitzgerald

Not just the products, but how about card shows as well.

When did the card shows start to see a huge increase in attendance ?

gemint

I'd say '86 is when it really started to take off. By '87/'88, you could find cards everywhere (grocery stores, 5/10, gas stations, hair salons-kidding). Prior to '80, you usually had to go to candy stores or five and dime stores to find cards. Topps must have modified their direct purchasing agreements in the 80s to loosen distribution.

Ironmanfan

1984 IMO....Shows were appearing with more regularity plus the implied scarcity of the 1984 Donruss cards

IMF

edmundfitzgerald

Good point Ironman.

Fleer and Donruss started pumping out the baseball cards in the early 80's, so they must have done their homework and
noticed many more collectors entering the market.

DWest

In 1985 I was an avid collector but had a hard time finding anything other than Topps. Card shows were rare in our area. Middle of '86 baseball season every gas station I went to had Topps, Donruss and Fleer. Plus, card shows became at least a monthly occurrence.

Someone posted a link about player cards not long ago that showed each players card from each year. I believe Dale Murphy was the example used. In 1985 he had about 10 random cards made. In 1986 that number jumped to over 40.

Mefer

Good points all the way around. However, having lived through that era during the height of my collecting bug (being still a kid), I have nothing but fond memories. Things always seemed exciting and fun. Of course it helped too that my grandparents were still alive then who got me into collecting. While almost all of the 80s stuff is now close to worthless (exceptions of course), the memories for me during the era are priceless.

ndleo

The boom of the hobby was in the early 1980's after Donruss and Fleer joined the business. At that point the hobby grew exponentially every year peaking in 1989-1992.

The 1985 Jim Hawkins show in Plymouth, MI was the first one I remember where dealers were aggressively buying every rookie card they could get of Don Mattingly, Doc Gooden, and Darryl Strawberry. I walked into that show with my binder filled with those rookies and walked out with $700.

LuvOldPacks

Funny you'd ask, I remember passing on '89 Score Football because the market was already sooooo saturated and then when I saw the stacks and stacks of '90 Leaf Baseball at Costco, I refused to buy yet another card company's stuff . . . too bad since both turned out to be major players in the market at the time..... I think the 'boom' was just starting to kick in around '85 but it is tough to say.

Foo3112

Id say 84. Beckett noticed so much that he started a monthly magazine in 84 (actually it was one issue every 2 months back then)

It really started picking up by 1986. You can even tell in the prices. I think once people started seeing the value of their cards, it just made the hobby that more appealing.

I remember being 6 in 1986 and having topps cards in rubber bands and by the time 1989 rolled around (3rd grade), it felt like every kid had baseball cards. We would all bring them to school and trade and even teachers would give packs of Topps out sometimes as incentives/rewards I remember.

msassin

I'd say the 'boom' started in 1986-1987 (I wasn't even a teenager then so what do I know). Jose Canseco Donruss rookies helped ignite the fire.

Football (and then hoops and hockey) didn't really take off until '88.

Probstein123

81.....donruss and fleer both produced crazy amounts of extra sets...
I bought over 500 sets off a truck for $3.75 each...

DWest

<< <i>81.....donruss and fleer both produced crazy amounts of extra sets...
I bought over 500 sets off a truck for $3.75 each... >>



He asked when the "boom" began. Donruss and Fleer only jumped on board in 1981 because they were legally allowed to.

fiveniner

86,87

Cokin75

I'd say that the hobby started gaining steam in '84 or '85 when Beckett and 'Baseball Cards' monthly magazines came out at the newstands. They made it easy for kids and former kids to easily place a monetary value on their stashes, taking card collecting from a niche thing to the mainstream. I noticed this was about the time card shops started really popping up. Then in '86 and '87, card shows started to get huge. I'd argue that things kept booming until '91 or so when the market was really saturated with higher price points. From what I saw, the beginning of the boom skewed a little older, with kids really fueling the explosion in '87 or so.

WinPitcher

I had a store at the time and at least in the town I was in it started late in 85.

Ripken

If you're talking mainstream, interest gradually picked up throughout the decade, especially after the court case brought the new players into the market. Mattingly and Strawberry rookie cards got a lot of attention, but it wasn't until the late 80s, when those early-mid 80s rookie cards were still hot/valuable and UD came on board that there was a 'boom'.

Mr. Mint appeared on national TV a couple of times and it all really pushed things forward. Topps got some buzz for its 40th anniversary too, in '91. You had the Griffey/Thomas interest, Beckett on the newsstand. Non-collectors buying for 'investment' because everything was growing in value throughout the decade.

No one outside the insiders talked about 'overproduction' until several years later when the stuff stopped selling, eBay revealed how easily available it was and the kids who collected during that 'boom' were long gone.

Brock21

<< <i>I'd say that the hobby started gaining steam in '84 or '85 when Beckett and 'Baseball Cards' monthly magazines came out at the newstands. They made it easy for kids and former kids to easily place a monetary value on their stashes, taking card collecting from a niche thing to the mainstream. I noticed this was about the time card shops started really popping up. Then in '86 and '87, card shows started to get huge. I'd argue that things kept booming until '91 or so when the market was really saturated with higher price points. From what I saw, the beginning of the boom skewed a little older, with kids really fueling the explosion in '87 or so. >>



Yep, Beckett magazine changed everything. Throw in all the wanna be's like Tuff Stuff, all the Krause stuff, and suddenly everybody was buying cards and checking prices. They all dug dad and older brothers cards out from under the bed and thought they would be millionaires.

I'd timeline like this

78-79 - Beckett and Eckes come out with their big annual price guides.
81 - Fleer and Donruss do baseball cards
82-84 - Card Price update (remember them??), Beckett, et al monthly mags rule supreme.
85 -88 - Potentially millions of cards sold by Topps, Fleer, Donruss
88-89 - Score and Upper Deck make a better looking product and the floodgates really open.

So, I think it peaked around 87-88 and there was a slow decline into the late 90's, when Ebay and
the internet ruled supreme (and still do)

gosteelers

<< <i>

<< <i>I'd say that the hobby started gaining steam in '84 or '85 when Beckett and 'Baseball Cards' monthly magazines came out at the newstands. They made it easy for kids and former kids to easily place a monetary value on their stashes, taking card collecting from a niche thing to the mainstream. I noticed this was about the time card shops started really popping up. Then in '86 and '87, card shows started to get huge. I'd argue that things kept booming until '91 or so when the market was really saturated with higher price points. From what I saw, the beginning of the boom skewed a little older, with kids really fueling the explosion in '87 or so. >>



Yep, Beckett magazine changed everything. Throw in all the wanna be's like Tuff Stuff, all the Krause stuff, and suddenly everybody was buying cards and checking prices. They all dug dad and older brothers cards out from under the bed and thought they would be millionaires.

I'd timeline like this

78-79 - Beckett and Eckes come out with their big annual price guides.
81 - Fleer and Donruss do baseball cards
82-84 - Card Price update (remember them??), Beckett, et al monthly mags rule supreme.
85 -88 - Potentially millions of cards sold by Topps, Fleer, Donruss
88-89 - Score and Upper Deck make a better looking product and the floodgates really open.

So, I think it peaked around 87-88 and there was a slow decline into the late 90's, when Ebay and
the internet ruled supreme (and still do) >>



CCP-Current Card Prices was a hot pricing guide back then. I think you may be referring to that above between '82 and '84. For me, the craze was from late '84 to early '87. I think the Jefferies/Maas craze was in '88, though, so who knows...

kingnascar

<< <i>IMO 1986. >>

Dpeck100

This is really a difficult question because it is up to interpretation. The card market got really hot in 1984 on the heals of the Dwight Gooden traded cards and gained even more steam into 1985 with his base issue.

In 1986 you had the break out years of Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens which added more fuel to the fire.

In 1987 you could find packs in every 7-11 in Florida and as soon as they would sell out more would get stocked.

In 1989 the hobby was changed for ever with the introduction of the 1989 Upper Deck and 1989 Hoops.

If I had to pick a year I would say 1985 because Topps started selling Garbage Pail Kids, WWF cards, and many other novelty sets which meant they were turning on the printing presses and trying to sell any type of card possible.

Stone193

In 1985 the baby boomers were somewhere between 30 and 40 - and they were starting to get nostalgic IMO.

That was the beginning for me - also.

By 1990 - it was really heating up - and in the early 90s the industry was doing over a Billion in sales.

Then by the mid-90s - the overproduction and over-speculation started to wane along with factors like the strike of 1994 - things started to change and I believe by the 2000s - the industry was probably cranking at about 3 to 400 million - if memory serves - from an article I read somewhere.

I believe the boomers may have started to drop like flies by the late 90s - most likely never to return?

This is just my recollection and can be taken about as seriously as my guess at who will win the SB? I predict? NY.

edit: part of the boom was driven (motivated) - IMO - by people thinking they were going to get rich stockpiling cases of 1990 Donruss, e.g. and fund their retirement home in the Florida Keys?

estang

I agree that it started an up-swing in 1981 with 2 more competitors to Topps, and then hit the next plateau in 1984 and rode a high-wave until 1987.

By late spring of 1988, all the main sets were so overproduced that wax boxes/cases started to go down big.

In parallel, the vintage material was really under-valued (especially in high-end condition before professional grading) as collectors were drawn to the new stuff & parameters for grading weren't widespread yet...

An uptick hit in 1989 with Upper Deck that rode out until 1992 with premium products like Fleer Ultra, Stadium Club (hot when released) and then people got overwhelmed with so much stuff that it all nose dived in 1993 and I don't believe it's been as big since then....despite the lottery style inserts that has dominated the hobby in the last 15+ years.

dontippet

The card boom started in the early 80's and picked up steam starting in 1985. I agree that 1986 was probably the most dramatic of the increases. 1986 is when a lot of subsets started to come out. The Traded sets with Canseco, Joyner, etc... were highly anticipated. I remember dropping $50 for the '86 Donruss Rookies set. Compare that to the update sets of 1985 or even the great 1984 update sets, and the anticipation wasn't there. By late '86 and early '87 the baseball card magazines were full of people buying and selling large lots of single players. I would say that the rookie class of '86 had a lot to do with it. The '86 class took the momentum that was started by Kittle, Strawberry, Mattingly, and Gooden and made everybody want to collect baseball cards.

Goodsport40

I agree that the boom began in 1981 and reached a fever pitch in 84-85.

Hard to say when the peak was, but in my city it was most likely 1987.

For me, the best year was 1989, the year I got back into the hobby. I have a great love for 89 Upper Deck, Hoops and Score FB. That was a great hobby year, IMO!


Robert

TheCARDKid

I would say 1986.

-Production started going up (hence, 1986 topps boxes aren't worth as much as 80-85). The traded sets were pretty limited before that....like 82 Topps Traded or 84 Fleer update. But I think with 86....after that there was no going back.

-You had major rookies. Canseco. I think the 86 Donruss Canseco was the first modern card to book for $80-100. Maybe the first really mainstream card to book that high.

The 84 fleer update Gooden or 84 Donruss Mattingly were more limited.

-You had a good onslaught of major rookies after that....will clark, ruben sierra, joyner, all the way to glavine or griffey jr.

-The other sports started to pick up....football, basketball, hockey. In only 3-4 years, they'd get their own Beckett.

I think attendance at shows started going up in 86 or 87. It went up exponential for a few years after that....remember 90,000 at the Anaheim National in 91?

The novelty factor also opened up....like promo cards or error cards on purpose. I dont think promos would have been a big deal in 85 or 84. But by 90 they were more valuable than real cards.

CardboardKeeper

Such an easy answer.....summer of 1984 during the emergence of Don Mattingly...guy basically created the ny card show boom

RedHeart54

If you want a great resource to answer this question you could do worse than to track down a copy of The Sports Card Explosion. This was a book SCD produced in the '90s and there are a lot of great articles from old SCDs which highlight some of the things that helped create the boom of the '80s.

Yankees001

I would have to say it started in 1986 and hit it's peak in 1989.

I think 1990 hit the highest point with the Leaf issue.

Dave

gemint

<< <i>

In parallel, the vintage material was really under-valued (especially in high-end condition before professional grading) as collectors were drawn to the new stuff & parameters for grading weren't widespread yet... >>



I agree that high grade vintage cards were underpriced but I'd say the pricing structure on vintage was more compressed at the time. I sold lower grade star cards like '61 Topps Mantle and '56 Duke Snider in Gd to VG condition for prices that would be considered strong even in today's market. I sold the Mantle for $100 in 1987 and it was probably PSA 2 condition. I wish I had taken that money and invested it in vintage unopened or high grade vintage but I ended up using it to overpay for a NM 1967 Tommy John which was a card I really wanted badly.

mtcards

I would say there was a double "Boom" that occurred

The first one, which I would call the "collector boom" began in late 1985 to early 1986. As collectors were being enamored with owning a Mattingly RC, the prices of 1984's started going through the roof....this continued on through 1987 when McGwire hit the market, coupled with budding new stars like Dwight Gooden, Roger Clemens, Kirby Puckett and Eric Davis.

Then came the investor boom, of 1988, when card companies realized how much product they COULD sell and were doing so. Investors, who were buying hundreds of cases of product made the industry scream for more. This continued through the early 90's when both collector and investor couldnt get enough....89 UpperDeck started the premium card craze which both collector/investor loved. Bowman, Finest, Stadium Club all followed as I would guess half the cases were put into storage as an "investment". I can still remember 91 Stadium Club being hard to find and now you can get them everywhere.

RedHeart54

<< <i>I can still remember 91 Stadium Club being hard to find and now you can get them everywhere >>



And it was $7 a pack.

CardboardKeeper

<< <i>

<< <i>I can still remember 91 Stadium Club being hard to find and now you can get them everywhere >>



And it was $7 a pack. >>



chump change,
try $100 a pack for the great 2001 UD Ultimate Collection.

soundgard

80-82