[DaClyde]

I think Rich nailed it. As the years went by and more magazines flooded the market, they were all fragmenting the Baseball Cards Magazine audience, but not so much the Beckett audience. Sadly, Beckett's audience had to grow up and as they did, the market seriously began to change, and so did Beckett. As I've picked up back issues of both, the Krause publications definitely had the more in-depth and interesting articles, but now I'm looking at them with completely different eyes than I did back in 1987-1990. I think the first issue of Beckett I ever bought (from 1987, with Mark McGwire on the cover) confused me. One of the main articles was about card flipping (card what? wouldn't that ruin the corners? why would I want to win some other kid's dinged up cards?), and one of the photos accompanying the piece was a kid holding a handful of 1985 Topps McGwire cards fanned out. Seriously, in an issue with McGwire on the cover during his rookie year, there's an article about flinging McGwire Olympic cards against a wall. I never really got "hooked" on Beckett because of that.