Will 90s cards ever be considered vintage?

[WillBBC]

Hypothetical here--say it's 2030. Derek Jeter's rookie cards have been out for almost 40 years. Does anybody have a hard time seeing key cards from the 90s being viewed and treasured nearly as much as cards from the 50s and 60s?

I just have this gut feeling that although some of the cards will hold value people really won't care much for them. I have an even harder time seeing somebody go from collecting 'modern (2030s releases)' to having a change of heart/epiphany and moving to 90s cards.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? It's kind of a foggy, vague subject but I think it's interesting.

[David W]

Clearly people collect 90's cards, and PSA grads tons of them, so they will be collectible.

However value wise, that may be another story. Basically anyone who wants a Jeter rookie can have 1, or 2, or 50 of them for not a whole lot of money.

[BearBailey]

Eventually anything can become vintage, and they might even be collectable because of the large supply and ease of putting them together. The issue will be value because no one's mother will be throwing out their cards. So the supply will always be there. But the older people get they could wind up collecting with their children and go back and get the cards they never had or used to have?

[GasHouseGang]

I have read about people throwing out their own cards rather than waiting for Mom to do it. So I guess its possible that if they continue to keep being treated as worthless, eventually 1990's cards in mint condition might be rare. But I think you'd be looking out at least 50 years or more. That's a long time to hold out for a profit!

[almostdone]

Originally Posted by BearBailey

Eventually anything can become vintage, and they might even be collectable because of the large supply and ease of putting them together. The issue will be value because no one's mother will be throwing out their cards. So the supply will always be there. But the older people get they could wind up collecting with their children and go back and get the cards they never had or used to have?

I think that alot of sentiement has to do with desireability. As time moves on we tend to forget about the chinks in the armor of the players in the past. Our children look up to us as we do to out fathers and grandfathers. I tell of a story of how my grandmother saw Babe Ruth play in a game in Yankee Stadium when she was a teenager and think how lucky she was yet when I tell of the story how my dad took me to see Nolan Ryan pitch my son can hardly believe how lucky I was. Part of collecting is holding on to something that is gone and I feel in time peple will look back at the 90's with some of the same sentament as we do the 50's and 60's and therefore cherish the Jeter or Giffey or who ever else they can now obtain.

[doug.goodman]

Eventually they will be vintage, but they will always be crap.

No offense to anybody, just my humble opinion.

You only have to look at the value of the Griffey Jr. rookie to see what will happen to later cards.

Yes, i know, the Griffey Jr. is from 1989, which illustrates my point even better, because it is older than anything from the 1990s.

Doug

[steve B]

Eventually they'll be more in demand. Early 90's stuff less so, since it was so overproduced. Stuff from the mid 90's on may eventually do ok. Probably in about 10 more years.

If the hobby outgrows its lottery ticket mentality and begins focusing on some other element of the cards there's a lot of stuff that could be good.
It will have to be stuff that exists in enough quantity to be promoted, and with enough good players and a good design. Like maybe the 93 SP die cuts, that sort of thing. The very limited ones won't be widely collected, since they're too hard to find.

Some of the base sets are interesting even if they're awful. Like Topps Tek.

Steve B

[scmavl]

I think since collectibility based on condition/grade was never a concern in the 50's-60's, there will always be MANY more high grade cards from the 90's. Kids took care of their cards in the 80's-90's because they knew there was value in them if they were in good shape. I think a '52 Mantle even in PSA 1 will always be worth thousands of dollars. However, even in 50 years, I doubt an '89 UD Griffey rookie in anything less than PSA 8 will be worth the paper it's printed on.

[bbcard1]

Actually there are some relatively short 1990s sets, especially around the baseball strike years. I think there will be a certain amount of people looking for stars, especially rookies and a certain amount of people looking for the full sets, which they will buy factory sets. There will be a few team collectors but virtually no set builders. The commons, even for relatively short sets, will be hard to get rid of. It will probably be a great hobby...but a lousy investment.

The cards of the 80s on the other hand are pretty much crap. The rookies had their day and those who didn't get rid of the $30 Boggs will probably get to keep them of a long time (points thumb). I do think the Donruss Opening Day Ray/Bonds error could conceivably be a good investment. Maybe a 1985 Topps Glossy...but there isn't much.

[mintacular]

I don't think 90s will ever really be vintage as most cards were mass-produced during this time era; i also have a gloomy view of the future collectibility of these cards as the hobby continues to loose folks, not gain them. I don't cardboard is a medium that works for young people

[theseeker]

The early '90's was the frenzied period just before the bubble burst. Despite the fact that the period ushered in the era of precedence setting, premium quality cards, aimed at adults (and investors,) manufacturer, dealer, and collector greed led it into the hobbies decline. Gone for ever are the HSN guest HOF'er signing shows, the weekly card conventions, and local card shops at every corner. The hobby has contracted greatly since the three decade build up to the early '90's.

Their was simply too much production, by too many companies, of products that were carefully stored by too many buyers for it to ever be of much value. Still can't understand how so many investors didn't see it that way from the start.

Perhaps a more important question is the future of the hobby. The vital hobby element of human interaction has largely been removed. The demographics point to further fading in the future. The average age of subscribers to Becketts magazine is 38. Young peoples interest in the hobby has been trending ever lower since the strike of '94. How many of the next generation's descretionary income will be spent on a hobby void of any childhood attachments?