What's hurting the vintage card hobby?

[JasonL]

"It's the economy, stupid!"

Upward spiraling asset values cover all the blemishes, get people excited, maintain interest, etc...

[Tony Gordon]

In my observation, based alone on the large number of venues where cards may be purchased today, the vintage card hobby is extremely healthy. When I first began collecting in 1975, my only options for obtaining cards were the corner drug store, trades with friends or the flea market. Today I regularly purchase cards from five or six private auction houses, eBay, and card shows -- with each possessing tremendous amounts of inventory.

In addition, I have been selling cards since 1979 when the old man loaded up my shoe boxes and set me up at the local flea market. Today, I sell cards on eBay and at local card shows every weekend. In this lousy economy, I'm selling more cards than ever before. Turn out at three of the four local card shows has been terrific. The fourth show, not so good, but I go because the few guys that show up and the other dealers are great people and I enjoy their company.

There are always kids buying vintage cards at each of these shows. Each kid I talk to has a surprising amount of baseball history knowledge. Today, baseball history is a mouse click away.

Sure there is fraud and a criminal element out there, but it has always been there and will be around wherever and whenever money is exchanged. Through websites like Net54, conversations with other collectors and dealers, it's easy to learn how to spot the frauds, fakes and criminals.

I think the hobby is in great shape. My only issue these days is convincing my wife that I should buy more cards instead of redoing the bathroom.

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by Tony Gordon

In my observation, based alone on the large number of venues where cards may be purchased today, the vintage card hobby is extremely healthy. When I first began collecting in 1975, my only options for obtaining cards were the corner drug store, trades with friends or the flea market. Today I regularly purchase cards from five or six private auction houses, eBay, and card shows -- with each possessing tremendous amounts of inventory.

In addition, I have been selling cards since 1979 when the old man loaded up my shoe boxes and set me up at the local flea market. Today, I sell cards on eBay and at local card shows every weekend. In this lousy economy, I'm selling more cards than ever before. Turn out at three of the four local card shows has been terrific. The fourth show, not so good, but I go because the few guys that show up and the other dealers are great people and I enjoy their company.

There are always kids buying vintage cards at each of these shows. Each kid I talk to has a surprising amount of baseball history knowledge. Today, baseball history is a mouse click away.

Sure there is fraud and a criminal element out there, but it has always been there and will be around wherever and whenever money is exchanged. Through websites like Net54, conversations with other collectors and dealers, it's easy to learn how to spot the frauds, fakes and criminals.

I think the hobby is in great shape. My only issue these days is convincing my wife that I should buy more cards instead of redoing the bathroom.

Hello Tony,

Very positive feedback there - nice to hear! Mind sharing what part of the world you are in? (Just curious to know if experiences differ depending on where you live.)

[EDIT: I see from another of your posts that you are in the Chicago area. Good to hear the hobby is strong there!]

Cheers,
Blair

[calvindog]

Fraud mainly. Greed doesn't help, especially annoying when it causes people to commit minor frauds just cause they think they can get away with it. Hypocrisy is also bad, especially when it occurs in an effort to hide fraud (mainly because of greed). And once some of the degenerates are forced out of the auction business the hobby will also improve.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Fraud mainly. Greed doesn't help, especially annoying when it causes people to commit minor frauds just cause they think they can get away with it. Hypocrisy is also bad, especially when it occurs in an effort to hide fraud (mainly because of greed). And once some of the degenerates are forced out of the auction business the hobby will also improve.

With the possible exception of one grand jury target, and the disposition of that remains to be seen, do you really see anyone being forced out?

[cfc1909]

I don't think the problem is sellers like rawoysterman who has listings that you can clearly see they have low priced fakes-apposed to a t206 Museum that has alot of good information but is buying $75 dollar cards and faking them and promoting them as rare as the Ty Cobb brand and scamming new and veteran collectors or any one they can.

I have made alot a good hobby friends over the years but it is hard for new collectors to figure out who the good guys are. the more open honest talk we have here the better it will be for all of us....

[Jewish-collector]

We are going through a generational shift in our hobby. The baby boomers, one of the most influential groups in American history, really got this entire hobby going in the 1980's. I think today's generation collects a little differently than the baby boomers did. There is a major difference between today's collector and the old-time collector.

Many years ago, most transactions in the hobby were done by trading and exchanging want lists through the mail. Even at the few early card shows in the country, there were some cash transactions, but more trades. With the internet, almost everything is less personal and done through eBay, auction houses, and/or web sites. However, todays collectors create and enjoy in different ways to make their own collecting a very rewarding experience.

Alan

[ChrisStufflestreet]

Fun.

I began collecting when I was 6 years old, a time where my attention span ran pretty quick from Star Wars to baseball to Superman to Emergency! to what was on the radio to playing with my friends to whatever else just happened to catch it. Some of my first cards followed those interests -- Star Wars, Superman and baseball were among the first subjects I collected in '78/'79, with Wacky Packages following soon after -- but I'd have never kept at it if it wasn't fun.

My friends and I traded them, played games with them, competed over who could get the most. As time went on and my friends began finding other interests, I still enjoyed them. Without my chums, I still did stuff with the cards like sorting through them, organizing them in different manners and working towards getting a set every year. I was a terrible math student until it hit me that the statistics on the back of my cards were math-related. So the 6th grade C student in basic math was an A student in precalculus as a high school senior.

Even today, they're fun. I write about them, and enjoy showing off the ugly ones in my collection. It's not about the money, in fact I don't even have a price guide that's less than 5 years old and don't subscribe to VCP. My daughter has a collection too, based on what she likes...not by what return it might bring her in the future.

When I was a kid, we played with cards. Not a whole lot of them survived our abuse. Then, people began comparing price trends and encouraging collectors to put large numbers away without using them for what the Cardboard Gods intended. When I was a weekend seller between 1989-'92, there were 11 year-old kids who had memorized the values of all the hot cards in the latest Beckett. Hell, when I was 11, there was still a kid in the neighborhood who used a card and a clothespin to make his bicycle sound like it had a motor.

Anything that makes this hobby fun will help keep collectors interested.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by JasonL

"It's the economy, stupid!"

Upward spiraling asset values cover all the blemishes, get people excited, maintain interest, etc...

+1 on that.

I'd also add that the much-maligned label "advanced collector" has a place in this discussion. It is necessary to differentiate between different collector styles and degrees of sophistication when analyzing the "vintage card hobby"; you can't just toss it all into one basket. When I first started out collecting, the natural place to start was with the leading lights in the modern (at the time) game--Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose--plus some well known old timers--Ruth, Johnson, Cobb, Matty, Gehrig--in mainstream vintage sets. As I developed an appreciation for the cards themselves, reads more about their history, learned about variations, etc., I naturally moved on towards older, more obscure and rarer issues. I'd say that advanced collectors lead the way into the more remote corners of the vintage universe and collect very differently from people who are relatively recent to the field. Modern card collectors may never cross over to vintage card collection and when they do they might not ever move away from T206, Goudey, Play Ball, etc., and into Zeenuts, E cards or whatever else there is out there. What's most important, IMO, is making room in the hobby for everyone's particular niche(s) so that no one interested in collecting is turned off from the hobby. That's the best way to grow the collector base.

Oh, and free food and drinks at the National.

[J.McMurry]

The much older cards require an appreciation of the history........

I think that is what drives most vintage collectors. (NOT investors)