What Happened to Card Collecting That I Knew?

[Jayworld]

I first got into the hobby of collecting baseball cards in 1975, buying a few packs here and there (mostly baseball) from the local 7-11 as a kid; back when you could get 10 cards for 25 cents and a (horrible) stick of Topps bubble gum. Here and there included some of the Donruss Freaks baseball and football card/stickers as well. By 1977, I was really into collecting, and I bought packs all summer to finally get my first complete set, and yes, I colored in the blocks on the checklists and team checklists to track my progress. I collected the 1978 Topps set as well, and ordered the few cards I was missing at the end of the year from (at that time) the best card order house; Richard Gelman's Card Collector's Company, and Santa was good to me that year through Gelman's company when I received near-mint lots of cards in quantities of 25, 50 or 100 from 1963-72 Topps.

1979 was the first year I purchased the complete set from a dealer at the first of the season ($9.99 from a Leon Rock) and also marked the first time I attended a local (Dallas) card show where I became hooked on vintage cards after buying a few 1951 Bowmans for $2 each (Bobby Thompson, Clint Hartung) and a 1933 Goudey Gus Mancuso. The year 1980 introduced me to Renata Galasso, a company I had become familiar with through their comic-book style full page ads in football and baseball digest magazines. I was thrilled at the announcement in 1981 that two other card companies were going to produce baseball cards, and I quickly pre-ordered the complete sets from Fleer, Donruss, and Topps from, you guessed it, Renata Galasso.

I began buying Baseball Card magazine at this time, and continued to pre-order sets from Topps and Donruss in 1982, and for the first time I purchased two Fleer wax boxes to try to put together a set (I was about 40 cards short) from a set, in retrospect, feel far short visually of the 1982 Donruss, which was the better looking set for 1982 to me. Going to bigger card shows each summer allowed me to finally finish putting together the 1974 and 1976 Topps sets I'd been working on since 1978, and I still admired the overall design for both these sets; the 1976 Topps is my favorite set to this day. Donn Jennings out of Alabama got my business for ENOR sheets, albums, and other cards, as I had "graduated" from shoeboxes and the company boxes that sets were shipped in at the time.

After purchasing the 1983 Topps and Donruss and 1984 Donruss sets, the hobby "bug" began to cool, and I did not collect another card through college, although I tried to fill in the gaps later by purchasing the 1985 Donruss/Leaf, 1986 and 1987 Topps, 1988 Score, and the 1989 Bowman, which I put together through two wax boxes after being so excited about the Bowman name coming back into collecting.

Fast forward to 2001, when I walked into a card hobby store and saw company names I did not recognize (some I did) and outlandish prices for packs of cards. I was also introduced to jersey swatch cards, memorabilia swatch cards, autograph cards, cards that were made to commemorate vintage sets, etc. It just did not feel the same. Over the last few years, I've purchased a handful of packs to try to get the bug back again, but the lack of the gum (yes, shudder, staining was a part of card collecting for me), much higher prices for packs, the realization that building a set would be next to impossible because of the sheer number of cards and the prices, and the overwhelming amount of card producing companies have left the hobby empty for me. Graded cards have been a turn-off as well, as I'm the kind of guy that buys a comic to read, not to slab and look at the cover as an investment - same with cards, as all of my cards were/are "raw" (another term I've learned in the past few years).

I've sold all my sets from the 1980s, as well as my 1951 Bowman cards and most of my T206 cards (purchased from Richard Gelman for 50 cents each back in the late 1970s), but I still have my 1970s cards, especially the 1974, 1976-79 sets. What's happened to the hobby that I knew and loved? The new cards don't interest me much at all; perhaps because I don't know the players anymore, nor do I care for the baggy pajama style uniforms where every team seems to wear navy or blue (even my beloved brown/gold Padres have worn blue for 20+ years). Does anyone else feel this way?