The next five years- what do you see for the future of the hobby?

[sesop]

Since I asked last weekend about what's been new in the hobby over the past 5 years, the natural next question seems to be: what do you see for the future of the hobby?

Personally, having spent much of the past week digging through archives during the time I was out of the hobby, my suspicion is a lot more of the same down the same paths- i.e.- tougher anomalies will rise in value as differentiators (It may be worth mentioning- I'm not saying I agree with the exorbitant prices of stuff like blue back old mills, nor do I care- just saying I don't see it fading anytime soon, as plenty of people care a lot about differentiating themselves).

I also expect to see higher prices for key HOFers (obviously), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the more esoteric stuff like E99, T211s will drop in value even more because new collectors will place more importance on collecting players they have a chance of learning about. I think this means more people will start to pursue Goudey and stuff from the '40s, '50s, '60s and even 70s, as it's much easier to find a newspaper clip or even film footage of even the lousiest player than it would be to find footage of, say, Gordon Hickman. Also, there may be some element of a 10 year old kid today hearing his grandfather talk about watching Nolan Ryan pitch and the kid will be more attracted to "vintage" Nolan Ryan than vintage Cap Anson.

Again- this has nothing to do with my personal preference, what I like, dislike or even agree with, just a guess based on a bunch of crap in my head. Most collectors of vintage anything are history buffs, and if there's a personal connection, the value tends to be greater. The recent history, though not as old as turn of the century cardboard, will be "older" relatively soon and there's a lot more stuff available for less money from the 1950s and 60s than the 1910s.

I saw a post from about 4 years ago the other day along similar lines- can't remember who said it, but he nailed it- higher prices for Cobb, Wagner, et al, lower prices for stuff on the fringe due to less interest/competition. Maybe this is kind of obvious now, but I remember a time when it was nearly impossible to pick up an E99, T210 or T211 without tremendous competition.

I could go on and on but I'm interested in getting the conversation started. What do you think? Will T205 rise in popularity? Will scads of people clammer to buy T207s? Will a trove of information come to light about every player in the T210 set, making it more accessible? Will anybody ever care about the 1980s in our lifetime? Will cards, in general, gain in popularity or will memorabilia supersede it in popularity? Will people ever clean their pools with paprika?