The difficulties of getting kids to collect

[ronniehatesjazz]

Originally Posted by glynparson

A ton of kids at my daughters school collect or collected cards. Less of them collected baseball but many collect football, or any number of gaming cards. I think that more collect than we seem to think. I also often see kids buying packs at the local target when I go there. It’s not as big as the 80s but neither is the production numbers of the cards

This is totally true. I think a lot of collectors don't quite understand how kids have been priced out of shops/shows. I remember going to shops when I was young and maybe you had a card or two above $100 but the vast majority of singles topped out at $20 or so... putting just about any card in reach for kids. Most shops I got into now have very few cards below $50 and most are north of $100. With packs it's the same story... most kids aren't going to be able to plunk down $50 for a pack of Tribute of Topps Museum. The shows are a totally different animal also than they were in the mid to late 90's where you'll see, almost exclusively, dealer after dealer with either expensive prewar and early postwar or insanely priced quad patch auto cards. A good chunk of kids still collect, they just do it at WalMart/Target or online. Nothing like the 80's but still most kids who play sports at least have a few hundred cards if not many more.