In terms of autographs I believe and agree with Steve that "completists" are a dying breed and in 10 years complete anything signature collections will be a rare thing because of many factors. I think there are more baseball subset collectors and HoF sig collectors as completists or trying to be than any other, maybe followed by Moonwalkers ( not Michael Jackson impersonators) then Presidents and then Declaration of Independence signers. I know of very few people trying to complete football or basketball HoFers complete sets.
Baseball is what I know so I believe that getting MVP, ROY, Cy Young winners are not that hard, but I believe the days of getting complete card sets signed or all decade players or decade debut players or complete team history roster players are getting harder and harder to complete and find not just for new collectors but also for the veteran collector. I believe this stems from the continued rising cost for the vintage or rare/ultra rare signatures and more importantly a skepticism due to the growing number of forgeries entering the market for this type of material. Also TPAs I believe have muddied the water for most collectors because if the TPAs screw up a LOA there is little or no recourse back to them.
The fact that the majority of kids today could care less about card, autograph or memorabilia collecting is increasing rapidly so that leaves us old guys to hold the fort down and as we get older, for most collectors because there will always be those collectors with bottomless pockets, we are less likely I feel to spend as freely as we once did because of past economic trends that affected our hobby and our wallets and the looming question of retirement as well as what am I going to do with all this stuff later or if I die before I sell it.
So rarity and prices of objects plays a role but I also think life and time, whether it is now or 10 years down the road or longer , does too for the dying " completest" collector in all fields.
|