Perhaps what really killed the hobby is it went from a kid's hobby to a hobby dominated by adults (at least in terms of money). Back in the 50's and 60's, most of the cards were bought by kids in very small increments. It was rare for a kid to have more than one Mantle or Mays. Although I wasn't around back then, I'm pretty sure very few adults spent thousands of dollars to accumulate cards for some future investment return.
Fast forward to the late 70's and 1980's, many of the baby-boomers started seeing what their Mantles and Mays would sell for at local card shows. All of a sudden, you have more money flowing into the hobby than just allowance and paper-route money and more companies wanted a piece of the pie.
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