Who will be the buyer of our vintage cards in 20 years?

[mcap100176]

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America is ruled by it like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will come most definitely come."

[thekingofclout]

Originally Posted by mcap100176

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America is ruled by it like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will come most definitely come."

Best come back I've seen for a long time! Just fantastic. I'm applauding and my dog thinks I want to play

[barrysloate]

What fueled the early hobby boom in the late 1970's more than anything was nostalgia. Kids who collected cards avidly in the 1950's and 60's were now adults earning a good living, and the prospect of reacquiring childhood baseball cards was irresistible. Now that will certainly be missing from the next generation of collectors, as virtually none of them will have those memories.

[Jim VB]

This is a great question.

The correct answer is: Not individuals, but GROUPS!

That's right. Conglomerates, Associations, Cabals, Corporations, Organizations, Syndicates.

But they won't be looking to buy every card. No, no. Only the elite. The chosen. The select few on their tough want list. The rest, they will look down and spit upon.

Aah, just kidding.


I'd guess that in 20 years, the average collector will look much like he does today. We have plenty of young collectors on this board. And if you go to The National, you see lots of young collectors in attendance. (Albeit, you also see many older collectors who look like they're one more Prime Rib dinner away from a coronary, myself included.)

I think there is a collecting gene in some people. If you have it, you're going to collect something, cards, coins, stamps, toys, antiques, etc. I don't think that will change. Besides, most of us have gone through periods where we took time off from collecting. I collected as a kid. Stopped from age 15-30, and then started up again 20+ years ago. I don't think I can look at my 20 year old son and know if he'll collect when he's 40.

[Fetamore]

I predict, that as the baby boomer generation retires and ages gracefully, all organized hobbies will experience a prolonged growth period. While I have collected baseball cards for 36 years, I've had little time to enjoy other aspects of the hobby. In two years I hope to retire and enjoy this hobby to the fullest. I can't wait. Also, I plan on living much longer than 20 more years and collecting cards will help me do that.

[barrysloate]

Jim- in the sense that there will always be someone collecting baseball cards at any point in time, then I would agree that it will be no different twenty years from now. But some aspects of the hobby will likely be very different, and it may be something we can't even predict right now. Perhaps the lower grade pedestrian material will languish and be out of favor, while the rarer and better quality material will become so valuable that it will be out of reach of 99% of collectors. Nobody knows for sure, but things change so quickly these days that I have to anticipate in some way it will be a different landscape.

Perhaps somebody will invent a baseball card so realistic, and so technologically sophisticated, that it will collect us. Maybe robotic baseball cards will enslave the human race and keep them hermetically sealed in lucite and mylar. You never know.

[mcap100176]

Why not throw a survey up asking the ages of Net54 visitors/users? Do a second survey of how long each person has been collecting vintage material.

[Fetamore]

Barry,
I'm enjoying this discussion. It's fun to speculate about the future. The past 30 years of growth in the prices of vintage baseball cards in unimaginable. Had I only known, I would be a rich man today. It's continued through ups and downs in the economy with hardly a blip. it seems impossible that it can continue, but I think it will. How, I don't know, but it will. Now for those pedestrian material, in time they have lost most if not all of their value. For guys like me it was th best thing to happen. I love all of the improved printing techniques of the 1990s and I enjoy now going to weekend mall shows routing through boxes of cards to find cards that previously sold for fifty dollars languishing in a dollar box. It doesn't get any better than this. Yes, as time goes on I'll spend less on vintage and more on modern, but someone else will come along to fill that void.
One threat to our hobby is people loosing interest in the sport of baseball. As long as baseball is our national pastime, many will study the history of the game and collect and invest in cards.

[vintagebaseball]

As a younger collector also (27), I have always had a interest in baseball, I played for 13 years and after I no longer played I started to collect vintage baseball cards because of the look of the cards and the history to keep me connected to baseball. I always have enjoyed history and with vintage baseball cards it is way to connect to that time period for me to actual have something from that era. I hope future generations will always be able to make some kind of connection to history in general.

[collectbaseball]

I've enjoyed reading this discussion -- it's certainly an interesting question, and while baseball card collecting has certainly seen a decline in popularity recently, I think it'll always be around. Sure, childhood pastimes are changing and kids are now occupied with video games and Disney indoctrination, but a drive through springtime suburbia will reveal plenty of wiffleball games. My sister babysits the kid across the street from us (he's six years old, I think) and whenever she's there he likes to show her his most recent baseball card acquisitions and flip through his binder. The hobby might be a bit unhealthy, but I don't think it's dying.

I do think that the vintage baseball cards collected by most of the people on this forum are a whole different ballgame than modern cards (pun intended). The people willing to spend thousands on old cardboard is incredibly small to begin with, and that small group might become smaller -- but it only takes two people with money to drive the price of something up into the stratosphere in any given auction. I'm only 20, so I certainly plan to be buying things twenty, thirty, forty years from now, and I'm sure there will be others like me.

Most importantly, there will always be a market for things of aesthetic value and historical relevance, and vintage baseball cards represent both of those things. With any luck, though, the market will collapse and I'll be able to snag a PSA 7 Cobb Bat Off for a couple hundred bucks