What Happened to Card Collecting That I Knew?

[Fred]

Jay,

I've got to ask... what's up with RLJ as your avatar? That's brings back memories of his better 1975 and 1976 seasons. Any particular reason you use him in your avatar?

Yup, the hobby's changed a lot since the 70's. Enter the early 80's and things were still not so twisted. Around 1984 things started going nuts with the rookie card craze and the 1984 Mattingly rookie. It just got worse from there when Donrus, Fleer and Topps started to compete for everyone's hobby dollars - enter the "chase" and "SP" cards and the crazy people shoveling hout $$$ to get those cards.

Enter Upper Deck in 1989 and the other card companies had to conform to the nice glossy photo style/stock cards. Here was the start of the crazy rookie cards with everyone trying to get that Griffey Jr. 1989 UD rookie card.

Then came grading - now everyone was looking for the "10" and throwing huge amounts of cash at the cards. Then came those stupid OPC cards (I think it was about 1991) that were pre-selling for huge bucks for a case. Then came the greed and the big burns when people presold cases for lower amounts of $$$ and then refused to sell the presold cases because they could get 4x the presold price for them on the "new" inflated market. Greed, $$$, greed, $$$.

Then the crash.... ah, it was funny to watch all those crazy prices come tumbling down.

Anyone remember "Big Bob - the biggest in the business"? The 90's was a crazy time for the hobby. I never really got caught up in the rookie card or chase card craze. I always liked the "old stuff". I remember picking up some pretty neat stuff in those days because a lot of the hobbyist didn't care about the "old stuff". Unfortunately prices since the 90s have really escalated and the grading thing has helped the hobby (in some respects) but it has also turned it upside down. Give me numbers, give me high numbers, no, I don't want any qualifiers.

I figure if you stick to collecting what you like then you'll enjoy the hobby. If you're collecting to make a buck on the stuff then it may not be as enjoyable unless you can continually turn a buck and get enjoyment from that.