Have chase cards proved a good investment?
'91 was my first of many Nationals and as I recall it was the promo card mania, with lots of local media attention on that, driving the attendance. Dealers were offering ridiculous money for the swag bags as people came out, and kids were getting in line and paying to get in multiple times to come back immediately and sell their bags with the promo cards inside. But here's my question: with decades of chase cards, insert cards, redemption cards, refractors, and all the rest of the card-company manufactured rarities behind us, have those proven to be either a good investment or collectible in their own right? If it's still going on as strongly as it seems from the reports this year, I guess it must have some history of success. Or is it just new generations of quick-buck exploiters and suckers that come along every few years? Do all the ones that can't find a chair when the music stops just quit the hobby so there is no institutional memory of these things to prevent the next wave? Even though I'm a memorabilia guy and not a card guy, I've never had any trouble understanding the appeal of vintage cards. And likewise, the enormity of the whole "chase cards" phenomenon has me as mystified today as it did when I first witnessed it almost 30 years ago. Could someone (probably much younger!) please explain all this to me?
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