Our future...from the mind of a seven year old...

jeffmohler · #1 11-30-2011, 10:57 AM

My 13 year old son watches a lot of MLB TV and has started to become familiar with the players from the 1960-90s. I got him into the modern cards at first, then we found 80s and 90s cards at garage sales. Now his Christmas list has the 1977 Topps set on it. I ponied up the $65.00 the 77 set cost on Ebay, but it is going to get costly if he gets into older stuff!

Not many of his friends are into cards. I just think it take the collecting gene to get into cards and a history gene to get into vintage. No matter how much you try, most kids just won't have the interest (and probably never will) to get into cards in general and vintage in particular.

Mark · #2 11-30-2011, 11:45 AM

My strategy with my 10 year old has been to talk to him once in a while about the amazing greatness of a handful of the all time greats. When I show him an old card of one of these immortals, he is impressed--although he always says something about how it must be worth a lot of money. I am thinking that as he develops an appreciation for the history of the game, he will naturally be attracted to the old cards that are available to the average fan.

Boccabella · #3 11-30-2011, 12:37 PM

You can't force feed it to them. Generally, just expose them to the history in a casual way. Eventually, if they love the game, they'll go back and develop the interest on their own, in their own time and in their own way. I didn't really start to appreciate the pre-War generation until I was an adult, even though my father would often talk about his old cards (Goudey) and the players of the past. Now, I'd give anything to go back and try to draw on his memory a few more times...even if it was fuzzy.

t206hound · #4 11-30-2011, 12:40 PM

My eight year old plays baseball and loves the game, will go with me to watch the Nats or O's or even one of the local minor league teams, but he won't watch a game on television. He has no interest in baseball cards or even the specific players. On the contrary, he watches football on tv every Sunday, plays Madden on the Wii, collects football cards and knows more current players than I do! He even took a stack of cards to school today to trade with friends.

He knows I collect the "old" cards, but hasn't shown any interest in them. Maybe he will in the future. I did introduce him to TPG after he pulled a Tebow autographed rookie out of a pack. That card immediately went to SGC with a stack of T206s. Thankfully I was able to save what is graded a 98 from looking the rest of his crease-riddled collection that he riffles through every day. I honestly don't care if he ever goes to vintage baseball... I'm just glad he enjoys what he has for the now.

T206Collector · #5 11-30-2011, 01:33 PM

Don't ignore the fact that these cards are extremely valuable to a seven year old. "With this one, I could buy thousands of legos," works with my 5 year old. "And if I just hold on to it for a few months, I may be able to buy even MORE legos with it next year."

Many of us raised in the 80's got into it with quite a bit of a push by financial incentives from the Becketts and CCPs of the world at the time.

Ronnie73 · #6 11-30-2011, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffmohler

I just think it take the collecting gene to get into cards and a history gene to get into vintage. No matter how much you try, most kids just won't have the interest (and probably never will) to get into cards in general and vintage in particular.

I believe there is a collecting gene. I know that I have it. I was collecting coins at 4 years old, stamps at 5, and cards and comics at 6. Nobody ever showed me anything about getting started. I never had went to a ball game or had anything given to me to spark the interest. There wasn't computers either to look things up. My parents didn't really support my collecting either.

I don't have any kids yet but if I did, I would probably do some local shows and have them help at the table and even pay them to help out. Maybe them just seeing others have an interest in items at your table might get them interested and i'm sure the money changing hands wouldn't hurt either. Once they start using their allowance and the money they got for helping at the table and buying cards from other dealers, they just might be hooked.

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