After years of increased production and higher pricing in the baseball card industry, collectors are slowly disappearing and stores are feeling the pain.
To whomever did this - you should make this into a full feature documentary. The story is something so many can relate to and its interesting as well. If youre interested in doing it - write back. I would consider funding your project.
And why are these shops going out of business? Why don't more people collect? Because it's TOO $%#@ expensive. These bastards destroyed it with greed and economics.
You may be right. I'm acting like one of the old guys who insists that everything was better when they were young. Maybe so, maybe not. But, different for sure.
You may be right. I'm acting like one of the old guys who insists that everything was better when they were young. Maybe so, maybe not. But, different for sure.
SHONUFF If baseball cards were only two dollars a pack and there were only base cards, kids would still be collecting. I think the internet would actually help if this were the case because you could trade for cards to complete your set.
I have 2 kids between 5 and 8. The electronic age is in full swing. My kids know how to use technology better than me and I'm no slouch. They figure out how to download games, videos, etc. and they are experts at smart phones, laptops, i-pads, etc. by the time they reach 1st grade. Physical items like toys and cards are almost nonsense for most kids - although I make every reasonable effort to get cards into the hands of kids I coach and my son.
these guys make millions of dollars for playing a child's game for a few months out of the year...and they have a problem smiling? i can't imagine how terrible they would feel had they have to get a normal job like regular people
someday I hope that production facilities will be in place where you can get "paid" or at least have food and basic housing where you don't have to "work" at a normal job makes people generally miserable
Since when was baseball a child's game, if it was adults who created baseball, first played it for centuries before there was any sort of little league baseball.
Almost four years later, WaPo should think about revisiting this story with the likes of Ohtani, Acuna and Soto rookie cards often approaching or going over six figures this past year. Cards are BACK!
Players going on strike in 94 killed the hobby. Thankfully it's making a comeback
5 лет назад
I don't blame Topps. In the late 80's they only had the factory and traded sets. I blame Upper Deck. I could get a pack of 15 Topps cards for 50 cents for the longest time. Then Upper Deck came out with their premium cards and charging way more than the other 4 manufacturers. It ends up jacking the price up for basic wax packs. Then the 90s hit and every manufacturer starts churning out multiple sets in every sport. I still loathe Upper Deck to this day.
Joey Porto - I'm totally with you. I only collect t206 cards at the moment and have been for many years and don't see any reason to collect other cards.
Beckett was to baseball cards as blue book is to cars. it was the book that values cards and a big influencer in card precieved value. 10 year old me thought I had cards worth something yet nobody ever paid what beckett said they are worth. they were practically worthless. 1950 older are worth something however.
Your getting you own baseball card and you mad about being up early!? Getting your own baseball card, is like getting your own stamp or having a navy ship named after you. I would have the biggest dumbest smile on my face if that was me.
Like these overpriced jerks care? The amount of money they get is a drop in the bucket for them. Only reason they are even there is due to the contract they signed.
eBay just showed how many of these cards were actually out there and made it much easier to get access to them -- supply and demand. Not everyone is going to sell their cards at the exact same price, because if you want your card to sell, you have to go a little cheaper than the next guy. When there are hundreds of the same card being sold on eBay at the same time, a card that was originally valued at $50 goes down to $10 pretty quickly. Since there were millions of people buying these cards and stashing them away for a big payday, the supply just never runs out. eBay didn't kill the industry. It just exposed the hype and showed the reality. People couldn't live in a dream world anymore and depend on Beckett to tell them what their cards were worth.
mobus1603 I agree completely. my local card store is a big rip off. a football box from 2014 they still charge $90 when I can get one online for about 50
We have two card shops left here (Pensacola area). Only thing really keeping them afloat is they also cater to Funko collectors, MTG/Pokemon players, and video gamers. They have sports card trade days once a month and a handful of guys still show up. My dad and I have been on-and-off collectors since I was a kid. We just recently picked back up in mid-2019. Still a fun thing to do. I can definitely say a lot has changed over the years, though.
Just because card shops are closing doesn't mean card collecting is dead. Far from it. Sports memorabilia is recession proof. There are millions of hardcore collectors out there and always will be. When the stock market tanks people look for something else like antiques, fine art, and sports memorabilia. When the stock market is booming collectors still buy collectibles because they like it, they want to diversify, or both. The key is to buy good cards graded high. Hall of famers or future hall of famers. It's better to save up and buy really nice cards, rather than buy tons of mediocre ones. Nobody has a crystal ball, but this hobby has been around a long time, and there is no shortage of sports fans.
I'm just getting back into it and found collecting mid-grade cards from the 50' 60's the best because it's super affordable and you get legendary players in their prime for very nice prices on eBay. The same cards in near mint condition look to good to be true, my spidey senses go off thinking they might be fake.
I also would like to mention that although sports cards have been impacted significantly so have countless other hobby industries: scrapbooking, comic book collecting, antiquing, stamp collecting, coin collecting, etc. Now more than ever there is an overabundance of supply versus demand. Most people have saved everything they think is even remotely 'collectible'. As the years roll by, there is such an accumulation of you name it that it would not be humanly possible to embrace everything that is out there. I believe all of these industries will settle into what they are and remain there. They will 'survive' but none of them are going to reach a zenith of popularity nationwide as what was once seen at various times in the past.
What a misleading story. One look at recent Ebay sales shows that current stars like Mike Trout, Manny Machado, Ronald Acuna etc... are selling for thousands and thousands of dollars. Just b/c the card biz is not what it was in the 80s and early 90s does not mean it's anywhere close to being dead.
I still collect and love the 70's-90's cards. I grew up playing flipping contests in grade school. I have about 900,000 cards Topps, Upper deck, Fleer, Opee-chee, Donruss, Pacific, Bowman, Score, etc. Its a great hobby.
My 6 and 3 year old just started collecting. We are using RU-vid to film us opening up packs and boxes of cards. They love the views and comments as much as the cards. The Hobby has changed a lot since the 80s.
Awe, that's really sweet! Just don't give your kids the impression that it's anything more than a pure hobby, because the cards won't ever be worth anymore than the material on which they're printed.
This is an old comment, but i'd say it will. Not because kids collect them, but because the market value has already been established. 80's and 90's cards however...
Baseball cards died because sports cards died in general, including basketball and hockey. I used to have a bunch of NBA and NHL ones in the 90s but they got played out into my teens. We also had WWE, WCW, Marvel, Pokemon, DBZ, and other comic/tv related cards that were popular. They're just nostalgic stuff now; most kids would rather spend money on video games.
It’s crazy how it bounced back! It is bigger than ever nowadays major money to be made if you can invest right. Definitely the most fun I’ve had in years.
It was a combination of the ridiculous prices that card makers started charging for new packs, the flood of different kinds, and the flood of fakes from china for the vintage ones.
I used to drive 30 miles a weekend goin to card shops and shows (in the 90's before the internet) .....it was fun to track down specific cards and sets..... then Ebay happened. cards or sets I paid 20-30 bux for all of a sudden were available for 5.00 to 10.00 bux cause 100 people were tryin to sell them on Ebay lower than the next guy. I got discouraged and sold my collection for peanuts in 2016 a shame....the guy that bought them (from Orlando I think) got all that sweat, gas and time cheap...lol I bought a fence for my yard so i can point to something and say- I paid for that with my card collection hahaha
its crazy how you can buy a 1975 topps george brett rc nm condition for 40.00 on ebay but a psa 9 will cost you 2500+ and it looks exactly the same just slabbed.
The graded card is certified which takes the fear out of buying. The $2500 sales you pointed out inspires scammers to trim and sell raw ( a big problem with vintage raw which I have fallen victim to multiple times ).
@@DemonChildCC theres more product on ebay so of course theres fakes floating around, but they just make up a small portion of the card market, theres an ocean of real cards on there, you just have to know what to look for. If it sounds to good to be true, its probably so.
Baseball cards will never die only the hobby of collecting them might. But I honestly doubt topps is going to stop making cards any time in the future.
+LT productions I totally agree. I took a break from collecting them because of a medical issue I developed but rest assured the allure of doing it once again is still there. Next time, I plan on collecting back to 1965 and onto the present.
when Topps started selling full sets packs became needed. A six hundred cards sets would take hundreds of packs to fill. Card shows help but to many different manufacturers and sets made it to hard to keep up.
This is sad. I can remember going to the local card shops with my dad looking at all the different types of cards and memorabilia. Sport card collecting was something my dad and I enjoyed, it also helped me too stay out of trouble.
Card companies are getting too damn greedy, almost every box is over 100 bucks and online buy isn't always better when blowout, DA and Steel City overcharging for boxes.. plus, cards used to be for kids and rising costs have killed off kids buying.. you also think, a new game is 60 bucks, a box of baseball cards is 80-100.. what do you think the kid is gonna do? Buy that game.. let's also not forget with these rising costs and the invention of card games, kids have also swayed to card games as well.. sports cards are doomed and topps, upper deck and panini have only themselves to blame for this..
I collected heavy in the early 90s then supply and demand took over the market was flooded with multiple sets and subsets and it all became virtually worthless so sad
The craze started around Pete Rose in the early 80s. He was THE card to get. Along with George Brett and Nolan Ryan. Then 84 Donruss hit with Mattingly's rookie. In our small town we had 4 baseball card shops plus several people dealing out of their houses. Even the gas stations had dedicated sections just for cards. Then the 90s hit and the card companies flooded the market. Now the card companies create fake rarity by printing one of cards. Stick to the old cards.
When I started you used to get 15 cards a pack for 50 cents. And rookie cards were the only highly sought cards. Now you gotta spend a handful of dollars just for 5 cards a pack. Mass production of inserts and subsets ruined the hobby. And it used to be fun trading cards with your buddy back then. A shame.
The popular players' card values have been on the rise for years, pre-dating this video. The Post neglected to look at ebay where the card market is now. Do your research. And to bring this up to date, the card market is BOOMING thanks to COVID-19. People who left the hobby are coming back because they have time on their hands and money to spend. This hobby isn't going away anytime soon.
This video is overly simplistic. Ironically enough, in Minneapolis, there have been about one or two new card shops opening every 6 months in the past 2+ years. I don't know how or why brick and mortar stores are opening. But they are. I still like to peruse physical locations in addition to online shopping. There is something to be said about visiting a shop to see what is available.
Modern cards are only expensive because grown men are buying them up, in the hopes that they can make money off of them. But they won't really be valuable for at least another 20 years.
Well if a depression hits baseball cards won't be produced nearly at all so their worth is going to go way up and everyone will be scrambling to get them and then they will be revived and big again
It is because no one cares about the game. When I was a dealer, in the late 1980's, most cards could sell. People made sets and fans bought players from their favorite teams (no matter how good/bad they were). Today, no one makes sets (except, perhaps, old fogies) and only buy the hot rookies and "sure" HOF'ers. 99% of all cards in a set are "worthless"! Heck, 99.99%!!! Only the artificial "rarities"....the inserts....have any "value"! And even then, most of those are junk. In 1988, a Marty Castillo 1984 Topps card would sell just as fast as an Alan Trammell or Lou Whitaker. Today, only inserts (autographed or memorabilia piece) of Cabrera or Verlander would sell (and only at a discount). Can't give away base set cards....even to kids. It is a joke. It will all die out, eventually. The baby boomers will die off and no one will give a crap about Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays.
Jim Brady Find me a dozen millennials that even know who Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays were. Then I will retract that last part. Out of sight, out of mind. Why else would so many garbage players be lifted up to greater heights than Mantle/Mays/Gehrig/Foxx/Musial/etc.? I know how it works. I saw the death of stamp collecting (father was a stamp dealer until about 1980). Sportscards are going in the exact same direction. I hope I live long enough to see it happen. Unless I get hit by a bus, I will.
It's like comic books, you need to hunt selective (learn to snipe bid on eBay) Just go after the KEY'S, instead of entire runs/sets, or else you'll quickly run out of room! With baseball cards stick to 1950's to 1980's, everything before is too expensive, everything after is worthless
And rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and rise and fall, and so on.
This should be the rise and fall of the baseball card store! Cards are still very strong. It's called ebay now. Times change. All commerce is going online now!
Inserts killed the modern cards. Vintage cards still are going very strong and if you don't thinks so find the most valuable insert you can find an then compared the price to a Honus Wagner tobacco card or a 1952 Mickey Mantle....
I am happy to say that baseball cards are making a comeback! prices are going up and as long as topps keep their trademark deal with mlb it will keep going up!
Greedy dealers and also card companies themselves flooding the market with a bunch of different types of card sets and series and it makes following it a chore. I had a simple choice back then: Donruss, Topps, Score, Bowman, Fleer or Upper Deck now it's Topps Legends, Topps Masters, Topps Vintage, Topps this, Topps that. Who could keep up with up with any of it and who has the money to buy packs that priced way too high. No kids are going to be able to buy it. All we have now are grown adults with money who are looking to score some big loots out of the pack.
That translates to Pokémon cards too. Our artwork is a lot prettier, and appeals to kids more. I'm sorry to say that the reason kids don't collect baseball cards, is because, if they collect anything at all, they are collecting Pokémon.
The nostalgia from my childhood may be nice, but I know they're not worth anything. I just view it as clutter now. In fact, I actually feel bad for all the suckers who wasted so much money on what they thought would be a great investment.
the magic is gone with the new stuff. give me gum and wax pack. too much over the top designs. baseball is a timeless game. the cards should be timeless as well. probably why the topps heritage did well. it was simple design.
