Off-Topic Forum

first let me say, this is long winded, and probally mostly rambling, but its something that happened to me today and i thought i would share, maybe you've had the same thoughts, or seen similar things happen... car to share or off a thought?

what happened to the hobby? collecting used to be as innocent as playing hooky to watch your favorite baseball team play a day game. it used to be about going to the grocery store to spend your allowance on a pack of 15 cards that came with a stick of gum that was from the age of dinosaurs. I think "memorabilia" cards, introduced almost 15 years ago now, which brought in the invest style of collecting has killed it for the average collector and for many of the youths. Im writing this because today, while I was at a store holding a box of cards, I was at a reminded of a connection. The connection of being able to hold or collect a piece of a cardboard, that to me was a piece of the holy grail, from a game that taught me so much as kid.ack to the story, I walked up behind someone who had just grabbed most of the big card boxes and was walking away. I was holding a box of cards, while i was scanning over the shelf to see if missed anything. Out of the corner of my an an Elderly Gentleman and a young kid, man in his 70's and the kid was around 5 or 6, had walked up and started going though shelfs, and the kid asked me if i saw anymore of the cards i was holding. I exclaimed no this was the last box. The elderly man told the kid as nicely as he could maybe next time. And the look on the kids face, as if the coach just traded his favorite player from his favorite team, the day before he got to the ballpark to see said player play, it struck me. Edited: Before You ask, Yes I gave the kid my box of cards, and picked up a couple packs of a different set that i had no interest in at the time...Have we all become more obsessed with the chasing the Othani's, Pujols or Jeter? that we dont stop to think about the kids or those who are just trying to hold onto the last thing that is still innocent enough in our lifes? ... again what has our hobby become? ..... sorry long and random...

The hobby has always been a business. The innocense is still there to kids who still collect trading cards. We have all lost that innocense as we grew older and started to look at the hobby in another way. The reasons why the hobby is dying are many. I believe the main reason is technology. Years ago when cards came out it was hard to get images of your favorate sports hero. Games were on the radio not TV, or the internet. That little card you held in your hand gave you an image of that person you idolized in your innocense. You no longer need that because images of players are everywhere these days.

Let me think 

• at one time there was  grades of POOR,   GOOD,   VERY GOOD,  and   EXCELENT 
• people collected for the fun of it and the hunt for a card
• Cards were mostly bought at stores you bought candy at 
• I dealt with a seller via mail or at a show  ( MID- ATLANTIC SHOW in Willow Grove)   You found them with ads in Hobby publications or new paper ads.  If they were buying maybe they would sell too.
• The ression of the 1980 to 1982 cause people to get out of stock market  and coins / stamps were already over priced with little hope of uptick.   
• Many Coin /  Stamp dealrs and some Comic Book Shops too, got into hobby dealing besides colecting  and intoduced  NEAR MINT  and  MINT   I use to say Cards are printed  not Minted
• Some dealers opened shops to sell to the wall street people buying and drove up prices 
• News of cards that were limited and ERRORS out there   FLEER  1981 set.  then again in 1982,  1983   and Billy Ripkin
• Many new Manufactues entered  hobby  
• Card buyers were flooded with choices  
• Then the resession ended  and some got out because they wanted to get back into stocks.
• as someone signature in the forms say     "If his cards double in price, they be worth half of what he paid for them"

Oh maybe ESPN  started to make Gods out of players  Where have you gone Joe Charboneau  A dollar card for cards that were brand new  to find it in common box today, or even a throw in on a deal. 

Robert

Let me preface this by saying that what I am about to tell you is about a really cool, super nice and generous guy.  But even super nice awesome generous guys I like can do things in this hobby that cause me to shake my head a bit.

My favorite card store run by the coolest card store owner closed down recently.  Sometimes I go on the store's social media page to see if he is going to be doing anything regarding selling cards again.  A couple weeks ago I saw him make a video of himself going to a local Target (the one I most often go to because it's the closest and they have a good card section) right after they put out a retail display of 2018 Bowman packs.  He bought the entire thing, including the display.  

It bugged me a little bit because as I expected, there has not been another shipment to that store of Bowman.  I haven't even seen a pack of Bowman at any retail store I have been to since it released.  I am sure he still has contact with his distributors, so he could have had all the Bowman he wants.  Myself who can only afford a pack at a time right now and any local kid who goes to that store were unable to add any to their collection.

This of course was triggered by the rush to get the Ohtani card.  

Anyways again, this guy is one of the "good guys" out there and I hate to even have a bad thing to say, but this rubbed me the wrong way a bit is all.  

I started collecting as a kid in 1979. I have always seen a business side of things. As in many things, as we evolve card collecting has been evolving. I grew up in a rural area and so my only means of getting cards was down at the local pharmacy store. Of course when I started you got baseball cards in the summer and football cards in the fall and sometimes they would carry basketball or hockey in the winter. Collecting was easy and not complicated. We also didn't have home computers and auction sites like ebay so while there were some investors investing in cards for the most part your singular purpose for buying cards was to collect. 

Today it's much easier to flip cards by purchase and then reselling on an auction site or now of course to buy boxes or cases and sell spots and do live breaks so it has created even more opportunities for people to make it a business. I too have struggled with getting a grip on where my hobby has gone and on how to keep it affordable. Now, I rarely open packs. I still do some when I get the urge but for the most part I too have had to evolve. I spend much more of my collecting time and money now trading and buying lots off of ebay. I have found it much more affordable to do things this way. It does kind of stink to know that I probably won't own cards of any of the top rookies of this year for a couple of years until all the speculators are done investing and prices come down. I also feel pretty bitter towards Panini who I blame for bringing the hobby to the point that there are thousands of different cards of each player every year because I struggle with not being able to collect everything. But, if you are still a hobbyist you just need to find your niche and find what in collecting still makes you happy.

That's a long way to say it has always been a business it's just a lot more business than hobby now.

When people starting viewing them as "investments" and not something you collected because you had a passion for them.

1955 - 1956.

Whenever Topps bought Bowman - it was a business then. Maybe for the thousands of kids out there who were buying packs of gum and cards it wasn't a business, but for Topps, it sure was. They bought their competition. (Don't think that could fly today.)

It was a business to Fleer and Donruss who sued Topps in the 1970s and finally won in court the right to produce baseball cards.

It was a business for every person who opened a card shop - ever.

And I'd be willing to bet it was a business for all those 5&10s, corner stores, and drug stores who ate up valuable shelf space with a box or 2 of cards where something else could have gone, unless the cards sold so well, that they made business sense to populate that space.

Long-winded reply to say it was always a business, when they began to be sold as a product and not just a giveaway in another product.

unfort--- anytime you have a product , item, "idea" - that has the possibility of a dollar being made- it becomes a business. doesn't matter if its trading cards, art, old cars, coins, or even furniture. 

The people that treat it as a "hobby" a "passion" is what keeps it going for them, the others who treat it as a business will slowly dwindle because they have to contineously find ways to advertise or market to make that dollar. For the average person or store owner prices will continue to increase and product to expand and the return made on one card will most likely not be worth the return on the amount spent to get there. Can you imagine the amount of money some people spent on boxes or cases just to get the superfractor auto of Shohei Ohtani ? for some im sure it was and is a huge loss and the one who gets it just probably made back what they put in.

I collect completely as a hobby ...  
and I realize that most of my cards will probably have very little resale value down the road  
because they are not popular/recognizable names. 
However, many are scarce- and I think that is partly why they are interesting to me. 

Anyway- When I participate on card forums, sometimes I actually feel like an outcast 
since I'm not hyping and chasing all the same big-name players that everybody else is. 

 


  

This site is the reason i still have hope for the hobby as it brought me back to the fold, educated me on everything i missed in the years i was not paying attention and focused me on a reasonable amount of cards to pursue for the rest of my life.  Trading cards here may be old school, but it is a great way to swap cards like when we were kids and i actually sold my first cards here this week (not counting my sales on COMC).  So the business of my collecting hobby is keeping me interested.  when it becomes uninteresting or too hard thats the time to move on.