Ever wondered how many ACTIVE collectors there are in the United States?

[JunkyJoe]

I've pondered this a few times lately, trying to guesstimate approximately how many active collectors of Postwar cards we have in the United States at this point in time (Postwar up to 1980). By active collectors, I mean people who add at least a couple of cards to their collections every year.

I did a little math based on the current U.S. population and some of my own quasi-logic, and came up with a number of somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000. Now, I'm not claiming this to be accurate, as it's more of a wild guesstimate than anything.

Have any of you here tried dragging this through your brains yet? Have you come up with any guesstimates of your own?

[AGuinness]

A few observations:
I think there are 10,000 registered accounts on this board and about 40,000 on BO’s forum. Not everyone is active, but that’s a good starting point.
I don’t run in a big collector’s circle, but from conversations at the local card show, there are many savvy and experienced collectors who surprisingly not are a part of these two boards.
The population of the US is 325,000,000, or so. If as few as one percent of the country collects, that’s more than 3 million. If only 60,000 people collect, that’s just .018 percent (if my math is right).
Just thinking about the massive sums of money in the hobby (auction houses, eBay, not to mention LCS, shows, etc), and I have a hard time imagining just 60,000 people fueling it.
My best wild guess is that it is in the low single digits for percentage of the population that collects, 2-3 perhaps, meaning about 9 million collectors at the top of the range.


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[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

A few observations:
I think there are 10,000 registered accounts on this board and about 40,000 on BO’s forum. Not everyone is active, but that’s a good starting point.
I don’t run in a big collector’s circle, but from conversations at the local card show, there are many savvy and experienced collectors who surprisingly not are a part of these two boards.
The population of the US is 325,000,000, or so. If as few as one percent of the country collects, that’s more than 3 million. If only 60,000 people collect, that’s just .018 percent (if my math is right).
Just thinking about the massive sums of money in the hobby (auction houses, eBay, not to mention LCS, shows, etc), and I have a hard time imagining just 60,000 people fueling it.
My best wild guess is that it is in the low single digits for percentage of the population that collects, 2-3 perhaps, meaning about 9 million collectors at the top of the range.


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Thanks for opining. I do have a feeling my "40K to 60K" guess might be conservative. There must be some way to conclude a good ballpark number (pun intended ) using certain metrics...ahh the quest for that magic formula! I guess if we knew the total annual $$$ brought in between all the auction houses + ebay + card shows combined, we could divide that by what we think the average collector might spend in a year. So, for example -- just for some wildly speculative numbers, let's say:

$300,000,000 per year total from auction houses+ebay+card shows (U.S. buyers only, Postwar to 1980 only)

$2,500 per year (avg) spent by each collector

So.... 300,000,000 divided by 2,500 = [?] 120,000 [?] active U.S. collectors

Again, these are just random speculative numbers I'm throwing out there. I hope others can throw in some realistic metrics that we can use.

The way I came up with my original range was:

330,000,000 (approx. U.S. population),
divided by 2 (male/female, sports card collecting is male-dominated),
divided by 5 (mostly 40-60 age group, the U.S. population is generally aged 1-100 yrs old),
divided by 30 (assuming 1 in every 30 males aged 40-60 is an avid baseball fan)
divided by 20 (assuming 1 in 20 of those avid baseball fans is an active Postwar collector)

= [??] 55,000 [??] active Postwar collectors in the U.S.

Of course, without decent metrics to use, it leaves us with some pretty wide ranging guesstimation.

[JollyElm]

Active collectors are apt to go to local card shows and, of course, events like the National. Looking at (or getting a feel for) attendance numbers from various events across the country would probably help add some more insight to the subject at hand.

[Bigdaddy]

I've seen a similar question posed in job interviews - "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?"

The point of the question is to watch someone go through some type of logical cypherin' to come up with a defensible number.

TJ

[JunkyJoe]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

I've seen a similar question posed in job interviews - "How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?"

The point of the question is to watch someone go through some type of logical cypherin' to come up with a defensible number.

TJ

I'm thinking that the most accurate route would be to divide total annual sales by average amount spent annually by each collector. Obviously, that goofy formula I used in my initial calculation leaves way too much room for speculation.

I think I read somewhere in the past year that PWCC alone does $50,000,000 in annual auction sales. Would it be safe to say that the majority of that $50 million is in Postwar-to-1980 baseball? And to narrow it down even more, there are a couple other auction houses that do lots of revenue. What, maybe $20-$30 million each? Then throw in, what, $10-$20 million total for the remaining smaller outfits? So, if these guesses were somewhat accurate, then the total annual revenues for the auction houses would be somewhere around $100,000,000, give or take.

Then add in ebay, outfits like COMC, card shows, and the few remaining card shops --- is anyone willing to guess how much that would add up to for Postwar to 1980 annual sales?

[AGuinness]

One more..
COMC shows a bit more than 210,00 buyers on the site. Even with inactive accounts, buyers who don’t purchase cards, etc, I see that as indicative of a much larger collecting population.


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[insidethewrapper]

If everyone does their own research, we should be able to come up with an estimate percentage. Add up all the people you know personally ( at work, family, relatives, friends etc) and divide by the number who "activity" collect cards. Then use this percentage against the total population. My percentage came out to about 1% (me) x 327 million = 3 million. Not many of these go to shows, or buy hobby publications etc. Most publications have ceased printing. Check the auctions, not a lot of bids total( 1,000's by the same people).

So maybe a few million buy some cards, but only about 50,000 or less are really in the hobby, in my opinion. Pre-war ? .

[Rich Klein]

More than we think but less than we would surmise

Here is an example: I do free admission for my December show each year. There is a nice man who ONLY comes to that show and none of my other shows during the year and is working on his 1970 set. He is actively collecting the set but not in a real rush. I define him as a collector but someone else might not.

Just an example

Rich

[JunkyJoe]

I appreciate all the replies so far!
One word of advice ...
Don't let yourself think about it too much, or you might end up with a brain cramp (I speak from personal experience on this one ).