Originally Posted by BobC
The new, young collectors aren't an issue, or a problem, they just come from a different place and perspective. Baby Boomers are pretty much the ones who started and have fueled the sports card collecting craze, till these more recent years. And Baby Boomers did so primarily based on a unique experience that has ceased to exist for decades now. It was a happy coincidence that the Baby Boomer generation pretty much exactly coincided with the rise of Topps (and Bowman) baseball cards, and their availability and relatively cheap cost to Baby Boomers as kids. And the fact that these companies have been around so long, issuing new cards and sets consistently year after year on a national level, was heretofore virtually unheard of. Old Judge cards are likely the next closest example, having lasted five years from 1886-1890. Zeenuts were strictly a regional, minor league issue. And though Exhibit cards alone showed the kind of longevity Topps and Bowman have experienced, they were sold in primarily a much different method, not in packs, and certainly not in a numbered set that was fully changed, updated, and somewhat unique from year to year. Also the size difference played a huge role. You would much more easily be able to find a kid hauling round a rubber banded stack of regular baseball cards to school or the playground, than you ever would expect to see them hauling around a stack of Exhibit cards. Virtually every dime, drug, or other local store you'd walk into back in the 50s and 60s would always have packs of baseball (and other) cards for sale right on the counters for sale next to the register. Certainly not so today, or for many decades now.
And combine that with the Baby Boomer generation coinciding with the long overdue integration of baseball, MLB finally extending all the way to the West coast, the beginning of expansion in the number of MLB teams, and maybe most importantly of all, the post-war advent of television and the bringing of games/teams on a national level right into our living rooms. These elements and their timing all added up to create the perfect storm that vaulted us into the sports card collecting rise and surge that started in the 1980's, and has carried us for the most part till today. And that was all primarily due to baseball cards as the initiating genesis for all this.
So, the "old-timers" among us approach the fascination and attraction to the sports card collecting hobby as a somewhat shared, but pretty much unique collective background and experience that will never be duplicated. It is certainly different from the backgrounds and experiences that have led younger generations to the hobby now as well. And the Baby Boomers are lucky that younger generations are embracing and picking up the hobby so as to bolster prices for some who can then use that potential cash, if needed, as they get older and move into retirement. For many who started out collecting cards for fun and/or as reliving youthful memories, it is akin to finding a $20 bill in the pocket of a pair of jeans they pulled out of the dryer.
And there was never any guarantee that future generations would hold and look at sports cards, especially vintage cards, in the same overall esteem and value as the Baby Boomers do. Just look at stamp or train collecting today. Though both hobbies are still active and out there, the overall acceptance, following, and of course value associated with such items, have experienced nothing like the continued surge and growth to the sports card hobby and market. We have experienced additional good fortune on at least some factors of our hobby attracting new, fresh and younger faces to the fore.
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