The difficulties of getting kids to collect
 

My youngest picked up a small box of baseball cards yesterday, just a small late 80's boxed set.
"Hey daddy, what are these?"
"Baseball cards"
Disappointed tone " Oh, I thought it said waspball" Puts it down and walks away.

She's almost 6, but if I can't even get my own kids interested.........

And now I want to invent waspball. It could be a big hit on cable tv.

It seems like today’s youth under 30 are way more interested in living in the moment, spending their hard earned money on experiences rather than collectibles.

You may be on to something there :D

But as to the subject at hand....

My sons got into collecting when they were young. They had lots of cards, pennants, SLU figures, etc. They saved all their publications, chased autographs, etc. I took them to cards shows and card shops. But as they got older high school stuff, playing sports & video games became a priority. The next thing you know they are married and I have boxes of junk wax collecting dust in my hobby room.

I was at the Houston TriStar show this past weekend and there were very few young people in sight.

I'm not sure what the answer is when it comes to getting younger blood involved.

She collects, but at the moment it's mostly my little pony, and five nights at freddies figures. But only sister location, the new series with lots of teeth are "too creepy" But the non-toothy homicidal animatronics aren't?!

They might get into pokemon soon, they've gotten a few cards but treated them about like a 5 and 7 year old treat most things.

Mine flipped around sophomore year of high school to girls and cars. I am hoping he does the same thing as me and comes back to it after college...we'll see.

He starts Michigan State in August and I will admit college girls are better than cards, so he has a point. :D

Obviously kids have so many more things to do then we did as kids (Ipad, Phones, video games, etc). But the one thing that got me into Baseball as a kid which eventually got me into collecting Baseball Cards was reading the Sports Section everyday and being obsessed with box scores.

Statistics/Tradition was the one thing that Baseball had over the other major sports, and that is sort of lost in the internet/post-Steroid era these days. I used to love getting cards of older players who had been in the league and you could look at their 15 year career of statistics on the back of the card. I loved comparing the backs of a Nolan Ryan with Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver in the early 80's when they were approaching 3,000 Strikeouts, 300 wins, etc.

Stuff like that just doesn't appeal to kids these days like it did when we were kids, and that is probably why the NFL is so appealing to them because it's all about THE moment. Keeping score at a baseball game, reading the box scores everyday in the newspaper, and following who may break Roger Maris HR record are all just gone now as the lore of the Baseball isn't the same. The advent of the Wildcard, interleague play, etc just cemented Baseball as just another sport. I think those things reflected in card collecting too and why we love them.

Well, I'm 62 and as long as there are plenty of 40-year-olds willing to purchase from me - I will try not to worry about how they will resell them.

Kids
 

For the most part kids have no interest in what we are doing with our baseball (sports cards) in general. 26 ,15 and 11 none of them collect. All I ever get is what are you going to do with all those cards? Most of the time I tell them they are going to have to deal with it when I'm gone! This is an old mans hobby and I'm reaching that age. I recently quoted my father :eek:Enjoy what you collect and don't worry about it.
Brett

I left in my teens.

I came back 7 months ago at 38.

I feel this is a common/usual cycle perhaps. :) Not to worry.

My two boys have the same lack of interest in cards...my older son's interest peaked in 2014 when he got a Jeter auto, but since then, his interest has greatly declined. My younger son, loves baseball but could care less about cards....he would rather be playing baseball outside, or if that is not possible watching or gaming baseball inside. Two springs ago, I used the Topps website to generate cards for them....they could have cared less. They both went through a Pokeman phase, but that passed a year back.

Nice cards and a good idea on getting them interested, but certainly not every kid is going to catch the bug.

I've got two boys, 5 and 8, and we have a few traditions already with cards. We always open a box of Topps on Opening Day and I always give a blaster box of current year Topps and a handful of old cards from my collection to each on his birthday. Also do the birthday tradition with my nephews and my niece. My youngest son is into the cards - just last night instead of reading a bedtime book, we each broke out some of our cards and showed them to each other (my youngest is very into sports, too, in general).

My oldest is very into Pokemon, and I can see how that makes sense. The kids at his school trade them, even if few have played the game, basing their value on HP and attack damage. Even not playing the game, they get that the card can "do" something. And some kids, including a nephew who is also into Pokemon, are aware of the monetary value of the cards, which seems to pique their interest.

Cards are an opportunity to connect with kids (I bought a deck of Pokemon cards so I could play against my older son), but from my experience it is definitely a hit and miss proposition, baseball cards aren't for every kid.

A ton of kids at my daughters school collect or collected cards. Less of them collected baseball but many collect football, or any number of gaming cards. I think that more collect than we seem to think. I also often see kids buying packs at the local target when I go there. It’s not as big as the 80s but neither is the production numbers of the cards

Hundreds of thousands of kids collect on the Topps apps. It may just be digital cards instead of cardboard moving forward.

Arthur

My son is 6, he likes cards and looking at them. I collects Chipper Jones. He enjoys opening packs and messing up my organized box of cards. I would not say he has a passion for it. But I didn’t have a passion for years even after I was a collector. Packs and cheap boxes seem to get his attention.

Fortnight

nuff said

My 9 year old is certainly into Fortnite.

But he also collects cards. He started with Pokémon but has moved into football and basketball cards. He really enjoys doing case breaks on-line. We are both looking forward to spending 5 days at the National. He wants autos from Earl Campbell and Steve Largent (yes, not any of the new guys!). Look for us in the case break pavilion and digging in the 5000 count boxes.

I've also taken a few of his friends to our LCS and some shows.

Maybe there is still some hope.

Is something happening in a couple weeks?

No idea
Just seems that everything is fortnight lol

My oldest (13) used to love collecting. Still plays ball and talks cards every now and then so there is hope ...

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

This is very common! I collected up until I was 14 and didn't come back to it until I hit 29 a few years ago. All my friends who collected when we were kids pretty much have done the same thing. The difference between now and then is that we all have a decent amount of disposable income that allows us to buy all the cards that we wanted when we were kids and couldn't afford it. One of the first cards I bought when I got back into it was a beat up Ruth Goudey card. When I received it in the mail it was like I was a kid again... awesome feeling and full of nostalgia! I think a lot of people get back into it for the same reasons.

This is totally true. I think a lot of collectors don't quite understand how kids have been priced out of shops/shows. I remember going to shops when I was young and maybe you had a card or two above $100 but the vast majority of singles topped out at $20 or so... putting just about any card in reach for kids. Most shops I got into now have very few cards below $50 and most are north of $100. With packs it's the same story... most kids aren't going to be able to plunk down $50 for a pack of Tribute of Topps Museum. The shows are a totally different animal also than they were in the mid to late 90's where you'll see, almost exclusively, dealer after dealer with either expensive prewar and early postwar or insanely priced quad patch auto cards. A good chunk of kids still collect, they just do it at WalMart/Target or online. Nothing like the 80's but still most kids who play sports at least have a few hundred cards if not many more.

That's a big part of it.

I collected as a kid, mostly started in late 73, and the Hank Aaron cards showing all his earlier cards got me interested in older cards. Moved in late 77 to a place with a card shop.
T206s were 1.50 each for commons. And by the time I was working were maybe 2-3.00 That seemed pricy, as I only made a bit over 3 an hour.

Compared to now where a kid might make 7-8, but a vg common will usually be around 40. And other than the more common sets most prewar cards are pretty much untouchable (There's a bunch I still can't afford)

A few years ago, I picked up about 20,000 different cards from the 80's thru about 2010. Including Sports Illustrated going back to the late 80's I picked out the cards I wanted. I recently gave them to a 10 yr old friends son. He loved them. His family sat around the kitchen table for days checking and sorting them out. Even his 16 yr old sister pitched into help. Then a few weeks ago, I gave him my Topps sets from the late 80's and 90's all in binders. About another 5,000 cards. He was on happy kid.

I'll disagree about shows -- because that may be true for the big shows and the large costs to attend but at my local show (40 tables or so) let me assure you we have many very affordable cards and very few expensive cards. And the dealer to dealer action is not as large as some shows.

Next week, I'll be 51 years old. I started collecting in the mid to late 70s, with 80-83 being big years. Packs were 30 cents and local card shops were abundant with the occasional fire hall show. It was a blast.


Added to the collection during the HS and college years, and without eBay, the collection remained largely the same. Flash forward to the late 90s with eBay, the internet, message boards, and access to more spending money, the collection changed. Still is to this day …..


Now I am married, with two boys. One loves baseball and all sports and my youngest is a casual sports fan other than Philly teams. Neither collect, and I don't think any of their buddies do either. To me, that is the sign of a potential "apocalypse" for the hobby - none were 30 cent pack kids like most of us.

My neighborhood was teaming with kids back in the day whose daily summer activities included trading sessions. Some of them still collect, many do not.

The one local show in Portland seems to have pretty decent turnout when I get the chance to go. Decent selection of mostly post war cards.

While some people have mentioned having a kid not into collecting or into collecting, I think it's good to note that in a number of big box stores by me that the latest issue of Topps doesn't seem to hang around for long before being sold out. And other venues for collecting (COMC comes to mind) seem to be flourishing (granted, COMC is also a marketplace for gaming cards, comics, etc.).

There's another thread on the board about the 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout at PSA 10 hitting $600, and what worries me more than kids losing interest is kids being priced out of what was a base card sold in packs. It seems crazy to think that if my 8-year-old was a big Trout fan, his "rookie" card would already be priced out for him - raw versions of this card are going for hundreds of dollars, including this example that has a wrinkle (!!!) (doesn't go directly to the card with a wrinkle, but you can still click on the link to access the original listing):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2011-TOPPS-...p2047675.l2557

I think Neal's post is spot-on; I have two boys as well, and neither are really baseball fans. The older is a "casual" at best fan, and really neither are interested in baseball cards really. The older one has a complete 1987 Topps baseball set he purchased for $15 at a local show, and I bought a box of Topps Opening Day for them last year to split (interesting that there were no duplicates, so the collation has greatly improved since I was collecting from packs from 1975-82).

Although both have gone with me to local card shows (hi Rich!), neither are really interested; the older likes vintage WW1 and 2 art cards and history stuff, and the younger likes Pokemon cards. I also don't see any young "kids" when I go into the local card shop, either; most are around my age or older, and many drop a "bundle" (at least from my perspective...heck, I spend less than $100 each year on cards) of $150+ on unopened boxes to get that "special" pull, autograph, or relic card. That seems to be driving the current, modern hobby, and as discussed elsewhere in this folder on the forum, new common cards are basically "worthless" or "junk wax" as was the case from 1986ish to 1995.

By the time I was 12, I already had completed the Topps 1976, 1977, and 1978 sets and was placing my order to buy a complete 1979 Topps set from a mail-order dealer for the first time rather than buying and completing by the pack.

The talk about the cost of shows struck a chord with me. I went to the latest TriStar show here in Houston. $12 to park and $15 to get in. I'm down $27 before I even see a table. I used to take my two sons to the big shows in town and even with the prices slightly lower in those days I was out $40 or so before walking in the door. Kids are scarce at the big shows, at least in my view.

OTOH I hit the hotel shows that a local dealer puts on once or twice a month (Hi Darryl) and all it costs me is gas money. I see young kids at those shows. In fact, I stood at a table and overheard a dealer practically give a graded card of the kid's favorite player to him. The youngster (and his hobby-novice Dad) were pretty excited. That dealer may have lost a few bucks on the card but he almost certainly made hobbyists out of that young family.

I'm 45 years old, so I collected on the same trajectory as you, but just a few years after. I started collecting around 1979, as the 80's were the big years of collecting for me.

I still say (and I may have posted this earlier in this thread or another tread), once those cards became a value for me, it all changed. When I was collecting back in 1981, 82, 83, 84, it was all about completing the Topps Baseball set each year. I didn't bother with Fleer or Donruss, or even other sports, I just wanted to complete that 792 card set for Topps each year. I would have traded a double of a 1983 Tony Gwynn Rookie back then for some common player to complete the set.

But once I saw a value on these cards (around 1986 when my friend told me about the Canseco Donruss Rookie) it was never the same. Then Upper Deck came around and cards started to skyrocket and they pretty much priced most kids out.

Less is more is the eventual downfall of kids not collecting because there are just too many sets today, and you have to be a real collector to know which is which. Back when I was a kid, I rode my bike up to Wawa or 7-11, bought a few packs of Topps Baseball Cards, and life was good.

I'm younger than most here at 27. Collected as a kid, after my Dad bought me a few packs, never lost interest. I didn't collect in High School/College for economic reasons, but never really left the hobby. My dad, my uncles, my grandpa, all collected as kids. None of my cousins do, and most of my friends in my age group could care less about cards. My best friend is a great baseball fan and loves the history of the game, he'll take one of my boxes or binders occasionally and flip through the vintage, but doesn't collect.


I think it's largely because A) my generation is less collector oriented, B) has far more interest options than older generations did in the digital era, and C) my generation lacks the financial means to collect much. Many of my college classmates graduated with major debt, and struggle to live independently and build families, have little money to spend on hobbies at this point in their lives (which partly makes digital stuff more appealing, as here in Sillicon valley a smartphone and computer is basically a required item, and using them to spend time browsing the internet or playing free games costs nothing). I have been blessed to be able to responsibly spend some money on tobacco and vintage cards, but a lot more 45 year olds can do so than 25 year olds. I suspect many baseball fans will find the hobby later in life when it becomes more practical for them. And if it doesn't, that's one reason I don't spend much on any item. It's an aging market, and if it completely collapses one day, I want to still be happy with my modest collection and not feel like I lost an investment if they lose their value.

Darryl has come up to do Kyle's Frisco shows the last couple of months and he is a good guy -- and what Tri Star does is good for their business. Thankfully there is room for both types of promoters in the hobby. I could go into a long-winded version of why Dallas is not as good for Autograph shows as Houston, but that's better done on a long-form email or on a phone call.

Rich

I wish the market would collapse so I could stack t206 cobbs and wagners but I think they will only get more and more expensive unfortunately. No one wants to see their cards lose value but that's the paradox of being a true collector.

And you're right of course. I understand TriStar's model and I usually don't gripe (much) but I thought this last show was lacking in terms of dealers (I don't do the autographs). But all that is better discussed in a separate thread as you said. I hope to get up to the shows in the Dallas area one day soon.

Agree with you when it comes to iconic players such as Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Gehrig, etc. The market is never going to collapse for inner circle Hall of Famers from the pre-war era. I do think there is some danger in valuations for cards from the 1950s on up because there is just so much supply around. I also think obscure type cards of common players could suffer a major hit in the future.

BTW -- Darryl came up to Kyle's show again and Leon dropped by (Hi Leon!) and we discussed lightly this thread. He said something interesting in that he sets up at Tri-Star for 2 purposes

1) To make money

2) To promote his own shows and he says there is always a bump after a Tri-Star show because then as you mentioned, the whole experience goes from gas money and $27 before you step in the door to gas money only.

And he gets pretty good dealers.

And yes, we'd love to see you in Dallas, subtle plug -- the next show I run will be Labor Day Sunday and Monday for the Adat Chaverim brotherhood. We give everyone who comes in and pays the $1 suggested donation -- 100-200 cards in a bag and a prize slip. You might as well get some reward for your trip up :)

Rich

Kids and Collecting
 

I just re-discovered this forum after looking for a place to talk about just this kind of subject.

I bought a few packs of Topps Big League today because part of what I read said it was aimed at getting kids into the hobby. It's a nice design, a decent feel, and relatively simple - but still a disappointment. Only 400 cards, limited stats, etc.

I'm 50, and a set builder. I've been buying cards since I first found a small uncut sample sheet of 1978s in a Dynamite magazine in 4th grade. I became a baseball fan because of the cards, rather than the other way around. In recent years, I've given up putting together anything current because of what's out there.

To my mind, here are some things Topps could do to appeal to young, and old, collectors alike:

1) Have a comprehensive set that includes star outfielders, but also back-up catchers and long relief men. That's how I, and I suspect many others, really started to learn about MLB - the teams, the players, etc.
2) Include lifetime stats, with minor league records where they fit - at first glance, it looks like Joey Votto has been around only as long as Khris Davis.
3) Give all teams a roughly equal amount of cards - with some recent issues, it's hard to imagine kids in San Diego or Baltimore getting very excited about what they have to chose from.
4) Have a nice, non-flashy, cardboard-ish stock with no foil printing - this is something Heritage and Big League get right. Some recent Topps base cards had to be held at just the right angle to read the player's name.
5) Have absolutely no computer generated "paint jobs" - leave those guys that switch teams for the update issue;
6) Don't make it impossible to easily build a base set - I'm looking at you, Heritage - no better way to discourage kids than to make it hard to complete a set.
7) Sell cards at someplace other than just Wal-Mart or Target. Make them ubiquitous.
8) Insert sets are fine, but if you want parallels, autos, relics and such, keep it very simple and make them slightly easier to find than Amelia Earhart. It might help keep the guys who loiter around Targets at opening to snatch up cases of product away, and that would be wonderful.

I know it sounds like an old man yelling at people to get off his lawn, but I just can't imagine it being that hard. Kids are either going to buy cards or they're not.

I suppose the one good thing about younger people staying out of the hobby means that eventually I'll be able to pick up some 1960s sets for a few hundred dollars. Seriously - can these sets still go for thousands if no new blood comes into the hobby?

Anyway, glad to get that off my chest - happy collecting!

1) Your basic Topps set issued in series 1, 2 and update pretty much covers all that. Yes there are 2-3 cards of the stars but you are just as likely to have a Chance Sisco card as a Mike Trout card. This one is covered

3) See comment about Topps 1. 2 and update. Yes, all teams are covered

6) I get your frustration about Heritage and the SP's but,,,, the original sets those cards are based on had SP''s and tough cards to find. Guess what, that's actually being somewhat true to the original. I can live with the SP's especially when Topps returned as they did this year to having common players as SP's. What had been going on the past few years with the stars almost all being SP's was terrible. This year is fine.

7) I'm sure Topps and Panini would love to sell cards at more than those just the places you mentioned. That is what caused some of the "junk wax" issues of the 1980's and 90's when cards were everywhere. But I get it, the wider audience does need more places for cards.

8) I could explain in long detail why the card companies do parallel sets but the simplest answer is that this makes sense for them and Topps does a pretty good job in their basic set of mostly affordable insert cards with a few better ones tossed in.

I get your rant, but as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Rich

I’ve heard many guys say. Oh my wife is gonna kill me or don’t tell me wife, I hope she doesn’t find out etc. I think these are funny.

Anyways here is my question, what percentage of women collect ? Better yet what percentage under 50? At this one small card show in Baltimore, that I sometimes set up at, I’ve only seen 2 women collectors.

From what I gather most women don’t want card hoards in their house, they get pissed off with the space it takes up. The key is to get young girls and women involved in the hobby. I’m sure this statement makes many cringe, I believe it will really help the hobby.

Trust me, I live with that issue about cards in the house every day. At my shows, what I usually do is check to see who is the collector if the significant other comes. To make it easier, I usually let them in for free because to charge the small amount of money to upset someone makes no sense to me. Sometimes they pay the admission anyway which is fine by me.

I use the same policy for kids and half the time let them in anyway. The more people we can expose to the fun in the hobby the better off we are. That's why one should always think long-term. Now, there is a difference at show such as the National where the costs are so huge and so much is going on, yes they do charge for the significant others but all kids 12 and under are let in free for the National. All in favor of that policy for the kids and frankly too difficult at that show to monitor the S/O issue..

Rich

Agree Rich. Free admission for collectors wives and kids go a long way, that’s classy and old school. love it

I’ve heard this one a lot too, predominantly collectors in their late to early 40’s. I have to put my kids through college. I wish I had the money to buy some of your cards. Which leaves what I believe is the median age hard core collector in the hobby, male mid 50’s to 70’s.