What's killing baseball cards?

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Posted By: Richard Dwyer

Interesting article:

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2006/08_13-55/LIF

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Posted By: Turner

Wow. $850 for a single pack! I mean you don't even know what you are getting in it.

That must be a record.

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Posted By: ScottIngold

I like the GEM graded Ripkin.

Nothing like promoting a dealer who shows our hobby in the best light.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I guess in the end only the market niche of vintage collectors will ever know what a Yum Yum or E92 Dockman is. I don't think the general public has any interest. Ever tell a noncollector that you collect or deal in old baseball cards? The first question is usually about Mickey Mantle or Honus Wagner. It rarely gets past that. The people who write these articles are equally clueless.

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Posted By: PC

Not only is it a GEM graded Ripken (which reflects badly on the dealer), but the caption in the article describes it as his "rookie" card, which it isn't.

Shady sellers and a press that could care less. The shiney market is what I remember it to be -- a complete waste of time.

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Posted By: John_B_California

I don't know if technology is as big of a culprit as it's made out to be in articles like this.

When I was a kid in the late 80's collecting with my friends, kids spent alot of money on Nintendo, Sega, there were walkmans back then, and popular toys. But packs and cards were only 50 cents or a dollar.

There was a simplicity to it. The stuff now is over a 12 year old's head (it's over anyones head). An $850 pack of cards?

If I was a kid now, I don't see myself getting into it. Baseball is so different. Does any kid want to grow up and be like Barry Bonds? Kids use to want to be like Donnie baseball or Cal Ripken.

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Posted By: nbbrazil

""I'm disappointed about (the state of the hobby)," said George King of Gambrills, who collects himself and also sells cards. "Not very many kids can afford $20 or $50 a pack.""

and a lot of them cant afford that GEM graded piece of **** you're selling for $250 either, chump.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Here's another in a recent flurry of articles mourning the death of baseball cards. What has struck me as remarkable about the articles is the absolute cluelessness of the reporters writing about cards (and I'm a newspaper reporter, by the way). It's as if baseball cards don't exist prior to 1980 (with the exception of the T206 Honus Wagner, of course). Yes, there should be a funeral (or a wake!) mourning (celebrating!) the death of shiny new cards, but vintage cards are alive and well and the market for them is healthier than ever. All you have to do is look at the recent prices of vintage cards ...

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Posted By: joe brennan

I've said this before but it's worth repeating. Our kids today have so many options of what to do with their time, and they have so much of it now. Most of it is spent right here, no not on this board but in front of some type of computer screen. How many great baseball players will we never hear of because they spent talents other ways. In the depression to the 80's kids played sports. Night and day, every day. They dreamed of making it to the majors, being like their heroes. Now, so many other opertunities are there for them. Shouldn't be suprised when the major leagues will be comprised completely of Central American and or poor American kids? It won't be too long that the majority will be from Central America. They live, breath and die baseball every day. They know that it their ticket out of poverty. The majority of kids today have no interest in a game that takes 4 hours and 162 of them for a season. The only kids interested are the one's taught by their fathers. It will be awhile before they are nastalgic enough to buy cardboard, and by then pokemon will be their childhood memories. The adults are the ones that are buying packs and boxes today and the $850 packs prove that. The marketing is geared for us with disposible income, not for a kid with a $10 allowance. Joe

People said it was a million dollar wound. But the government must keep that money, cause I ain't never seen a penny of it.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Nothing is killing baseball cards. Baseball cards will never die. Nor will rock & roll, hot dogs, chess, and many other standards of society.

Sure, things may change, but they will never die. Blue hot dogs, anyone?

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Posted By: BcD

Disney and Sex!

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Posted By: Cy

$850 is high for a pack of cards. But before you start knocking the way the younger generation is buying cards, you need to see what the younger generation wants in cards.

I have a good friend who sells new packs and boxes. The card collectors today want nothing to do with regular cards. The Topps packs and sets stay on the shelves of card sellers. The card collector of today's market is game used or autographed cards. They do not want to collect cards. They want to buy a pack or a box that has a valuable autograph or game-used item in it and they are willing to gamble that they can pull one of these rarer cards. And these collectors are willing to pay anywhere from $60 a box to $250 a box to find these cards.

So before you think that these cards are overpriced, take a look at what sells. The higher priced items are the ones that move. The regular $1-$4 packs remain on the shelves.

Sincerely,

Cy

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Posted By: jay behrens

Those cards won't get a 7 year old kick to buy a pack with a small allowance they might get. The concern here is to get the youngest postential collectors into the hobby, not older teens and adults.

Part ofthe prrblm also lies with the parents. Many parents with kids in the critical 7-12 range were card collectors in the 80s and have the current mentality that you have to be able to pull a valuable card from a pack for it to be enjoyable. Don't underestimate those little kids. They generally get more joy of the box their gift comes in than the gift itself, but dad won't let jr spend some change on a low end pack because there is no financial return in it. What about the emotional return of getting a card of the player the idolizes or a local hero? You need to offer a product that will get the little kids interested, not the people who can spend the most money.

Jay

A good friend will come bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I don't think what he does as a 7 year old earmarks a future baseball fan as a non-collector. Let's be really honest here: the true motivation behind being an adult sports fan and collector is getting away from the wife and kids. The vast majority of us are fat middle aged married guys with high disposable incomes who got into cards as an offshoot of rekindled interest in sports as married adults. That's the way it always is because we're too old or crippled to play sports or drink, can't stand golf, and can't get away with watching television all weekend in our underwear without being besieged with endless crap about home improvements, playing board games, going with her to hold the purse while she shops out the local Macy's, etc. Cards are always going to be there because, like the Three Stooges, women (vast majority, ok) simply do not understand the attraction, just as we could not give less of a damn whether the bed is made. As Larry David said, a single man in communist China is freer than a married man in the USA because although the commie can't leave the country, the married guy can't get out of the house on a Sunday afternoon. Imagine how bad it would be without sports and cards.

J/K, I love ya, honey, if you are reading this...

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Posted By: Joann

Oh my gosh Adam. hahahaha. That's the funniest thing I've seen in awhile. Tales from the other side! Board games. heee.

But as to selling cards, it really does strike me how thin the line is between what's going on with the chase-card phenomenon and actual gambling. I've thought we are turning little kids into gambling-mentality collectors, but with them getting so expensive that only adults can afford the packs, it truly is getting more like gambling every day.

No one buys these cards for anything but the big boomers they might get. So they are spending money on a chance at more money. Ta-DAH! Gambling.

Joann

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Posted By: jay behrens

It's true we don't become serious collectors until we are older, but I am willing to bet that almost all of us collected cards as a kid first and then later in life, picked it up again to capture the magic of childhood, among other things. If that little kid isn't buying a few packs here and there, then what incentive does he realy have to start collecting when he is older, other than potential for profit?

We collect things because they have meaning to us.

Jay

A good friend will come bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Considering ESPN covers poker, kids probably think pack ripping counts as exersize.

'American Idol' is closer to sport than poker. At least the singers dance. And don't anyone say that having to sit for a long time without going to the bathroom makes poker an endurance sport.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I never thought I would ever find a "sport" more boring than a bunch of guys making left hand turns all day, but poker is it. I just don't the fascination. The next thing ESPN will be covering is scrapbooking. At least with competative csrapbooking, there is a chance you might see a pissed off competator plunge her scissor into a another competator.

Jay

A good friend will come bail you out of jail. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Baseball cards has always been about gambling.

When you draw them out if it is marked with green ink - you gat a small candy,

If the ink is pink, you get a large one.

If it is the last one in the machine - you get a baseball.

Now lets flip them (of course for keeps).

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Posted By: dennis

i think the spelling b is the lowest ESPN can go. can anyone top the televised spelling b for sheer boredom????