General Forum

I was back in my hometown a couple weeks ago.  I felt nostalgic and took a drive around to see some of the places I played ball as a kid, as well as some of the places that I bought cards in the last 80s and 90s.  

There's absolutely no sign of the hobby where I grew up anymore.  Curious about others' experiences...

My Hometown:  A Hobby Wasteland

Cards used to be everywhere here. Even in the drug stores. Now, you have one card shop that has lasted since the 1990s, but is mostly paintball now, and Target. That's it. All the other shops, gone or still there but no longer selling cards.

We have not had a card show in a local mall since February 2002.

If it wasn't for the internet, my chances of getting cards would be significantly lower than they are now.

I think that even more than card shops, the disappearance of shows is interesting.  Simply because of a lack of brick-and-mortar overhead.  

I have wondered if Ebay played a role. The shows stopped right when ebay became a thing, I think. (I was late to the Ebay party, I didn't sign up until 2006)

As a little kid it was all over and the best places were Sandy's News and Fisher's Department Store but I was a comic kid back then. They had all the cards too from movie cards and sports but never really got into it. Then when my good friend Greg (RIP) opened his shop I was sucked into the card thing. However he got me intereted in vintage and Oiler collecting. We were both huge Oiler fans. After his divorce he had to sell the shop and they moved it to another part of town but I kept going. They brought comics back to town and before long I was back into comics as well. Sadly they moved lock stock and barrel to Ft. Mac and left a huge void here in town. By this time Wal-Mart had came into town and none of the corner stores had abandoned having cards at all. 7-11 and the like no longer cared. This is when I had no choice to leave town for Edmonton 2.5 hrs away. I first used Saturn Comics, then another i can not recall finally settling with Wizard Comics and Games and the card shop I used to this day. West's Cards and Collectibles. There have been a couple of attempts in town again but they have both fizzled (poor business plan IMO) and as of this moment we still have two small time Gaming shops. That is my Small Town story in a nut shell.

I live in the third largest city in Massachusetts, and the hobby is beyond dead here. We have three comics/card shops in a 40 mile radius (back in 93 we had at least 20), and of those, one sells only comics now, one sells exclusively new sports card product, and the oldest of them just changed ownership and is phasing sports cards out in favor of Pokemon and other CCG's. I haven't heard of a card show this side of Boston in about ten years. I mostly focus on non-sports like GPK and Wacky Packages, but got pulled back into collecting Red Sox cards when I found whole lots of amazing stuff literally cheaper than dirt. 

I grew up in a small town in Washington of around 30,000.  Back in the 90's, shortly after I had started collecting, we had gotten to the height of sports cards locally when we had 15 card shops in town.  The last of them closed their doors by 2003.  There are now single digits of shops in the entire state, and only 1 on my side.  Spokane, which is about 2 1/2 hours from where I live now has 1 sports card shop, and a couple non-sport card shops (CCG's, comics, etc.) (conversely, there are many non-sport card shops around, including one still in the town I grew up in).  Other than that, you would need to cross the mountains to either Seattle or Vancouver.  From 15 shops in one town of 30,000 people, to only 3 cities in the whole state with any shops at all.  I definitely miss the "good ole' days!"

Here in Ottawa/Gatineau we have four card specialty shops and a monthly card show to serve a population of about 1,000,000 people.

I grew up in Halifax (pop. about 350,000) which still has at least three card shops that I am aware of. When I was last there at Christmas I saw flyers for an upcoming 3-day card and collectables show which was to start a couple days after I flew back to Ottawa. 

Growing up in Western Massachusetts in the late 80' and 90's, there was a handful of shops local to my area. They also used to have shows at about 4 local malls pretty frequently. Now, there is a small show once every month in different local areas here in CT, and virtually no brick and mortar stores. A lot of those shops are mostly comics, gaming cards, and memorabilia with a few overpriced cards mixed in. I usually go to these shops for supplies only. There are a few shops within an hour drive from me here in northern CT, and a small monthly show that I go to. As a kid, the local shops were flooded with kids. I miss those days.

Having been a part of this hobby now for 40 years (am I really that old?), I've seen lots of changes over time. (This is a long-ish read - proceed with caution!)

First, we had the people who got into it because they were fun (the 1970s and before).

Then, we had people get into the cards because there were valuable (the 80s) - and this brought on the jump in the number of baseball card shops all over the place. So for all of you talking about the 80s and 90s with the huge amount of shops, you have have that "boom" to thank for that.

Then, we saw the card companies almost self-destruct. The glut of sets and cards they unleashed on the market made all those kids who were collecting in the 80s walk away. (Many of us are back, but who here on this site who is over 40 hasn't said "I was out of the hobby for a few years there in the 90s/00s" - I don't think there's anyone who continued the buy/sell/trade aspect of their collections continuously. So, blame #1 - the companies for making products that caused people to walk away.

Additionally, during this time, I noticed that card shows and card shops were starting the trend of selling less cards and more memorabilia, be it jerseys, hats, autographs, or other non-card items. Maybe they were more profitable, maybe they were more popular, but this also helped move cards out of shops.

The other thing that has killed it is the change in distribution of packs of cards. I remember back in 1981 when Donruss & Fleer released their first baseball products, that packs were available at every convenience store, drug store, deli, and many grocery stores. Maybe I was just lucky, but we had a candy wholesaler near us in southern NJ who also carried baseball cards,which in turn meant the public could buy boxes at wholesale prices and that packs could be found in candy shops. They really were everywhere - and this was even before the over-production days! Now, Target, Wal-Mart, Meijer (which we don't have around me), and maybe a few other stores and of course card shops (which are few and far between now) are the only places selling packs & boxes. They are not in the convenience stores any more.

We had many card shops in southern NJ through the 80s (although I really only went to one) and we had a card show somewhere there almost every weekend. My dream as a kid back then was to have my own card shop. My best friend actually did achieve that dream - in at least 6 different locations (permanent stores, not flea markets, which he also did), 4 of which were in the 90s/00s. He recently had 2 more locations, and he just couldn't get the people coming into the store at the first of those 2 locations to keep the place open. It would up being an extremely expensive storage unit. So he closed that one down, and basically, the second one was merely an attempt to liquidate before moving from NJ to FL. But even then, again, no foot traffic. Maybe the interest level is just down. It wasn't due to pricing because he'd charge what he'd see stuff selling for online.

This is why the hobby looks like it does. This is why most people's hometowns arre now Hobby Wastelands.