Guys, Besides video games, another pastime of kids that's very robust are comic books. I'm sure that is not news to any of you. Along with video games, my son loves comic books of his favorite video game character, Sonic the Hedgehog. We have a wonderful store in our area, BUYMETOYS.COM, which is full of comics, action figures, sports action figures, and a little for us gray-hairs. The place is hoppin' with business. The people who run the place are most friendly, and through the years I have long admired how courteous they are with my son. They always, always, treat him with dignity and respect. You can just imagine what that does to a father's heart. The comics go right along with his video game passion. Though my son never had an interest in collecting baseball cards, long ago I decided I would help him with his love of Sonic and Case Closed Detective Conan anime. Of this I am certain; it has helped us to remain extremely close. He's 26 now, and this decision made when he was 5 is one I'm very glad I made.
Several of you disparage stamps. I collected them for a couple years, but transferred all my interest to cards and sports coins (Salada Tea baseball and hockey) in the mid-60s. However, I have always relished a good story. The story of the Inverted Jenny stamp is extremely interesting, and when I discovered someone had written a book on that whole saga, I purchased it immediately. Very rarely have I read a more enthralling book. For those whose interest is piqued, type "Inverted Jenny book" on eBay; it should come up. There's a drawing of an airmail pilot and the stamp on the cover. I love history. I love collecting. The man who wrote it did an absolutely first rate job. Why bring this up, you might well ask?
Because by and large, our hobby has done a lousy job at producing good historical, interesting books about sports cards. We have "The Card" by Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson, whose premise however was not to enlighten and entertain, but to put into book form their investigative reporting, etc. Regrettably, so much of what we've done may be distilled down to price guides. Yes, we must have price guides. They identify what it is and roundabout what its' value is. Auction catalogs are good, and some of the entries superb at giving us interesting background about certain cards and sets, why they're significant and special, sometimes the specific provenance about them, and the historical context if it bears discussing.
As Sports Collectors Daily columnist Rich Klein mentioned in so many words, for most collectors, just about all that consumed their little minds was, "Eh, what's it woith?"
I'd dearly love to hear someone talk about when they were a kid and they collected T-206s, Goudeys, regionals in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and Kellogg's 3-Ds. We could all pepper such a person with 25 questions. I guess our hobby rarely thought enough to consider how interesting that might be to their fellow hobbyists. Of course, maybe I'm just kidding myself and living under a gross illusion---maybe in actuality my fellow collectors could care less about the history of the cards and the old sea stories of the former kids and sometimes adults who collected them.
I still love collecting; I wish I could still afford the items I would still like to have. The hobby has priced itself well above my means. The price point is a pivotal determinant to ANYONE'S involvement in a hobby. Then again, I sure wouldn't want what I have left to become worthless, just so someone could pick it up for a few pennies on the dollar.
Time to shush; I'm burbling. ---IndianaJones (Brian Powell)
A very interesting topic. I speak from the stamp collecting side. I dabbled in cards in the early 70's. (I don't want to think about the 60's BB cards my mom threw away...)
My impression of your hobby is that it is in MUCH better shape than stamp collecting, so take heart. If we had the enthusiasm and (relative) youth that your hobby does, we'd consider philately to be undergoing a true renaissance.
I shy away from investment/returns issues in either hobby. If the markets drop, great: all the more material for me to accumulate! I am into stamps because I like them. Besides, plenty of sports figures adorn stamps; can you think of one sports card that nods at philately?
There's a robust internet culture for stamp collectors. When one knows where to look, scads of material is out there. In fact, I'd say the internet age saved the hobby. It is transformed, but very much alive. That said, we collectors would greatly desire an influx of youth, the same as for sports cards.
And an inverted Jenny would thrill me much more than a Babe Ruth, so there!
Played baseball until I was 12. Only what I collect. Played basketball thru high school. Don't collect basketball Never played football and enjoy the most now. No interest in football cards.
<< <i>And an inverted Jenny would thrill me much more than a Babe Ruth, so there!
I once knew a dancer named inverted Jenny. >>
Did she have a tramp stamp?
<< <i>
I know her phone number: 867-5309
I have 3 boys: 11, 10 and 7 Currently, the obsession is Pokémon cards. I can barely get them to sit and watch sports, or at least baseball. I am taking them to Citi Field tonight, though to see the Phillies (they are allowed to be Yankees fans but the Mets, Rangers and Giants are forbidden).)
The middle and youngest at ch Flyers games with me a bit. They got a lot of OPC for Christmas and have enjoyed looking at player stats. They did seem to prefer the shinier Panini Prizm cards and we did manage to pull a MacKinnon Young Guns from UD.
They'll watch football occasionally too. We really enjoyed the blizzard game (Eagles/Lions) last season.
I keep wondering the about the interest in Pokémon as it appears to me that the attachment to a fictional character is different than an athlete that you can watch live.
Nostalgia drives our hobby. We're grasping youth when we obtain or discuss that which we had as kids and, more often, that which we desired as kids. Nostalgia makes the Heritage line popular and it's what's making unopened popular.
Our hobby will be stable and even grow while the current thirty to forty year-olds' incomes grow. When we start declining, the hobby will also likely decline. I take solace in the fact that we'll be around longer than the numismatists.
I appreciated the mentioning of your sons' interest in Pokemon. Though what I'm about to relate is before your boys were born, I feel sure you'll remember this. Do you recall the massive Burger King fun meals Pokemon promotion in late 1999? E-gad! Burger King was offering 57 different Pokemon characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. The toys came in a white plastic bag, so you could not see who your prize was until you opened it. Furthermore, the toy was enclosed in a nice red n' white poke-ball, for added secrecy. Customers were told you could not ask for a specific toy, and the manner of packaging nipped that possibility in the bud. I was able to detect a product code on the white bag though, which helped me immensely when I begged hard enough with the store manager to, with clean hands, go through his case of bagged toys looking for any codes we didn't have.
Great Scot!! We were living in Montana at the time, with trips to Rapid City, South Dakota; all along the way our eyes would be on the lookout for an exit with a Burger King. My son was 12, loved Pokemon along with 80% of the other kids. The whole country was Pokemon crazy at the time. We were going nuts trying to build this Pokemon collection for our son. Truthfully, he was not the one pushing it. He did not want to be a bother---it was all dwaddy on this one!!!! I guess I wanted to show him the fun of collecting. More like showing him how psychotic, nerve-wracking (just try to imagine buying a fun meal, only to get a third Charzarr, or however you spell it---that was before I figured out about the codes on the bags!!!), compulsive, and feverish collecting can be. Of course, he loved the toys; Burger King went all out to put on an unparalleled promotion. You know how those kid meal deals are----6-to-8 different toys.
But 57 different toys???????????????
We were getting so sick of those meals, they became almost nauseating. I can eat at Burger King now, but it took me almost 10 years to find their fare palatable again. Not many years afterwords, methinks the fast food industry had a private summit and decided this toy stuff was getting out of hand. Running a toy shop wasn't their business; selling cheap food and making an obscene profit was their racket. The big promotions seemed to fade away, much faster than my abhorrence for their food!!!!!!!
Oh, and we did not come close to completing that huge set. We got about 38 of those critters, and I felt pretty good about that.
Nuf' said. Somehow, writing about all these memories does not make me hungry for a Whopper.
Do you think football card collecting will come closer in popularity to baseball card collecting in the next 20 years because of the popularity of the NFL?
<< <i>Do you think football card collecting will come closer in popularity to baseball card collecting in the next 20 years because of the popularity of the NFL? >>
I think that baseball as a sport has made a pretty good comeback lately. I doubt it.
"Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood."
This is a great topic, and one that I don't have all that much to add except for the fact that I often think cards are way too expensive for kids... . >>
A few years back when I was an elementary school counselor I put a request on the board for donations of cards so I could give them out at school. Many of you kindly and generously responded and I got a ton of cards, and the kids ate them up!!! In fact, I actually got a kind of "talking to" because the cards were creating such a disturbance. (Yes, it was a delightful working environment.) The kids were looking at them during class, trading them (!), etc., and I thought it was great. Kids love cards, at least in my experience. Of course, I was only working with a sample size of about 200 interested kids, so I wouldn't call my hypothesis valid, but it was promising. And also, let's remember that a lot of the cards I was passing out were 90's and 2000's issues, before these kids were even born. When I would mix in current players (especially Phillies and Eagles) it would be mayhem!
What had prompted me to ask for the donations was the fact that one day one of the grades came back from a field trip and there must have been some machine there that was selling baseball cards for 25 or 50 cents. I think it was giving out 3 or 4 cards. And the kids were going on and on about their cards when they were showing them to me. Clearly there was an interest. But also, at 25 or 50 cents a pop, they could afford the cards. I think 2 or three bucks a pack for cards is not affordable for the average 9 year old. Not when compared to the other small items that kids like: candy, snacks, soda, etc. Today, if your Mom gives you a couple of bucks you can go and get a candy bar, a bag of chips, and a soda. Or you can save those two bucks, try to find another, and buy a pack of heritage. Few nine year olds are going to save their money for a pack of cards like that.
When I was a kid, the cost of baseball cards was on par with candy. If I had a buck, I could get a pack of cards and still get a can of soda and a Hershey bar. Or I could just get two or three packs of cards. I didn't have to plan my card buying purchase. I just feel that if the card companies made it easier for kids to pay for cards, more kids would buy them. Then maybe we could get some new blood in the hobby.
Comments
Besides video games, another pastime of kids that's very robust are comic books. I'm sure that is not news to any of you. Along with video games, my son loves comic books of his favorite video game character, Sonic the Hedgehog. We have a wonderful store in our area, BUYMETOYS.COM, which is full of comics, action figures, sports action figures, and a little for us gray-hairs. The place is hoppin' with business. The people who run the place are most friendly, and through the years I have long admired how courteous they are with my son. They always, always, treat him with dignity and respect. You can just imagine what that does to a father's heart. The comics go right along with his video game passion. Though my son never had an interest in collecting baseball cards, long ago I decided I would help him with his love of Sonic and Case Closed Detective Conan anime. Of this I am certain; it has helped us to remain extremely close. He's 26 now, and this decision made when he was 5 is one I'm very glad I made.
Several of you disparage stamps. I collected them for a couple years, but transferred all my interest to cards and sports coins (Salada Tea baseball and hockey) in the mid-60s. However, I have always relished a good story. The story of the Inverted Jenny stamp is extremely interesting, and when I discovered someone had written a book on that whole saga, I purchased it immediately. Very rarely have I read a more enthralling book. For those whose interest is piqued, type "Inverted Jenny book" on eBay; it should come up. There's a drawing of an airmail pilot and the stamp on the cover. I love history. I love collecting. The man who wrote it did an absolutely first rate job. Why bring this up, you might well ask?
Because by and large, our hobby has done a lousy job at producing good historical, interesting books about sports cards. We have "The Card" by Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson, whose premise however was not to enlighten and entertain, but to put into book form their investigative reporting, etc. Regrettably, so much of what we've done may be distilled down to price guides. Yes, we must have price guides. They identify what it is and roundabout what its' value is. Auction catalogs are good, and some of the entries superb at giving us interesting background about certain cards and sets, why they're significant and special, sometimes the specific provenance about them, and the historical context if it bears discussing.
As Sports Collectors Daily columnist Rich Klein mentioned in so many words, for most collectors, just about all that consumed their little minds was, "Eh, what's it woith?"
I'd dearly love to hear someone talk about when they were a kid and they collected T-206s, Goudeys, regionals in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and Kellogg's 3-Ds. We could all pepper such a person with 25 questions. I guess our hobby rarely thought enough to consider how interesting that might be to their fellow hobbyists. Of course, maybe I'm just kidding myself and living under a gross illusion---maybe in actuality my fellow collectors could care less about the history of the cards and the old sea stories of the former kids and sometimes adults who collected them.
I still love collecting; I wish I could still afford the items I would still like to have. The hobby has priced itself well above my means. The price point is a pivotal determinant to ANYONE'S involvement in a hobby. Then again, I sure wouldn't want what I have left to become worthless, just so someone could pick it up for a few pennies on the dollar.
Time to shush; I'm burbling. ---IndianaJones (Brian Powell)
My impression of your hobby is that it is in MUCH better shape than stamp collecting, so take heart. If we had the enthusiasm and (relative) youth that your hobby does, we'd consider philately to be undergoing a true renaissance.
I shy away from investment/returns issues in either hobby. If the markets drop, great: all the more material for me to accumulate! I am into stamps because I like them. Besides, plenty of sports figures adorn stamps; can you think of one sports card that nods at philately?
There's a robust internet culture for stamp collectors. When one knows where to look, scads of material is out there. In fact, I'd say the internet age saved the hobby. It is transformed, but very much alive. That said, we collectors would greatly desire an influx of youth, the same as for sports cards.
And an inverted Jenny would thrill me much more than a Babe Ruth, so there!
I once knew a dancer named inverted Jenny.
<< <i>And an inverted Jenny would thrill me much more than a Babe Ruth, so there!
I once knew a dancer named inverted Jenny. >>
Did she have a tramp stamp?
Played basketball thru high school. Don't collect basketball
Never played football and enjoy the most now. No interest in football cards.
Never been to professional game live.
Do go to iowa hawkeye football.
So I think the hobby will have its ups and downs.
<< <i>
<< <i>And an inverted Jenny would thrill me much more than a Babe Ruth, so there!
I once knew a dancer named inverted Jenny. >>
Did she have a tramp stamp?
<< <i>
I know her phone number: 867-5309
I have 3 boys: 11, 10 and 7
Currently, the obsession is Pokémon cards.
I can barely get them to sit and watch sports, or at least baseball. I am taking them to Citi Field tonight, though to see the Phillies (they are allowed to be Yankees fans but the Mets, Rangers and Giants are forbidden).)
The middle and youngest at ch Flyers games with me a bit. They got a lot of OPC for Christmas and have enjoyed looking at player stats. They did seem to prefer the shinier Panini Prizm cards and we did manage to pull a MacKinnon Young Guns from UD.
They'll watch football occasionally too. We really enjoyed the blizzard game (Eagles/Lions) last season.
I keep wondering the about the interest in Pokémon as it appears to me that the attachment to a fictional character is different than an athlete that you can watch live.
Our hobby will be stable and even grow while the current thirty to forty year-olds' incomes grow. When we start declining, the hobby will also likely decline. I take solace in the fact that we'll be around longer than the numismatists.
I appreciated the mentioning of your sons' interest in Pokemon. Though what I'm about to relate is before your boys were born, I feel sure you'll remember this. Do you recall the massive Burger King fun meals Pokemon promotion in late 1999? E-gad! Burger King was offering 57 different Pokemon characters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. The toys came in a white plastic bag, so you could not see who your prize was until you opened it. Furthermore, the toy was enclosed in a nice red n' white poke-ball, for added secrecy. Customers were told you could not ask for a specific toy, and the manner of packaging nipped that possibility in the bud. I was able to detect a product code on the white bag though, which helped me immensely when I begged hard enough with the store manager to, with clean hands, go through his case of bagged toys looking for any codes we didn't have.
Great Scot!! We were living in Montana at the time, with trips to Rapid City, South Dakota; all along the way our eyes would be on the lookout for an exit with a Burger King. My son was 12, loved Pokemon along with 80% of the other kids. The whole country was Pokemon crazy at the time. We were going nuts trying to build this Pokemon collection for our son. Truthfully, he was not the one pushing it. He did not want to be a bother---it was all dwaddy on this one!!!! I guess I wanted to show him the fun of collecting. More like showing him how psychotic, nerve-wracking (just try to imagine buying a fun meal, only to get a third Charzarr, or however you spell it---that was before I figured out about the codes on the bags!!!), compulsive, and feverish collecting can be. Of course, he loved the toys; Burger King went all out to put on an unparalleled promotion. You know how those kid meal deals are----6-to-8 different toys.
But 57 different toys???????????????
We were getting so sick of those meals, they became almost nauseating. I can eat at Burger King now, but it took me almost 10 years to find their fare palatable again. Not many years afterwords, methinks the fast food industry had a private summit and decided this toy stuff was getting out of hand. Running a toy shop wasn't their business; selling cheap food and making an obscene profit was their racket. The big promotions seemed to fade away, much faster than my abhorrence for their food!!!!!!!
Oh, and we did not come close to completing that huge set. We got about 38 of those critters, and I felt pretty good about that.
Nuf' said. Somehow, writing about all these memories does not make me hungry for a Whopper.
Ciao. ---Indiana Jones (Brian Powell)
<< <i>Do you think football card collecting will come closer in popularity to baseball card collecting in the next 20 years because of the popularity of the NFL? >>
I think that baseball as a sport has made a pretty good comeback lately. I doubt it.
<< <i>
This is a great topic, and one that I don't have all that much to add except for the fact that I often think cards are way too expensive for kids... . >>
A few years back when I was an elementary school counselor I put a request on the board for donations of cards so I could give them out at school. Many of you kindly and generously responded and I got a ton of cards, and the kids ate them up!!! In fact, I actually got a kind of "talking to" because the cards were creating such a disturbance. (Yes, it was a delightful working environment.) The kids were looking at them during class, trading them (!), etc., and I thought it was great. Kids love cards, at least in my experience. Of course, I was only working with a sample size of about 200 interested kids, so I wouldn't call my hypothesis valid, but it was promising. And also, let's remember that a lot of the cards I was passing out were 90's and 2000's issues, before these kids were even born. When I would mix in current players (especially Phillies and Eagles) it would be mayhem!
What had prompted me to ask for the donations was the fact that one day one of the grades came back from a field trip and there must have been some machine there that was selling baseball cards for 25 or 50 cents. I think it was giving out 3 or 4 cards. And the kids were going on and on about their cards when they were showing them to me. Clearly there was an interest. But also, at 25 or 50 cents a pop, they could afford the cards. I think 2 or three bucks a pack for cards is not affordable for the average 9 year old. Not when compared to the other small items that kids like: candy, snacks, soda, etc. Today, if your Mom gives you a couple of bucks you can go and get a candy bar, a bag of chips, and a soda. Or you can save those two bucks, try to find another, and buy a pack of heritage. Few nine year olds are going to save their money for a pack of cards like that.
When I was a kid, the cost of baseball cards was on par with candy. If I had a buck, I could get a pack of cards and still get a can of soda and a Hershey bar. Or I could just get two or three packs of cards. I didn't have to plan my card buying purchase. I just feel that if the card companies made it easier for kids to pay for cards, more kids would buy them. Then maybe we could get some new blood in the hobby.
(Written while waiting for coffee.)