Collectors of baseball cards striking out

[oakman29]

Oakman, that's an amazing story!

Thanks,and the only reason I had the cards with me.I wanted to trade up for some Mickey Mantle Cards,Blew that idea out of the water.I still have a 1954 Mickey mantle card in NM but will never be for sale,he was my hero growing up.

[oakman29]

I remember the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim. It took me seven hours to get in the front door. I sold 12 cents worth of football cards for $300 to pay for my hotel room and gas. It was down hill for sports card from that high point. Card companies started packaging used sports memorabilia with cards in a lottery-like system. Card packs cost more than a comic book. I feel sorry for all those amateur investors who were expecting to send their kids to college with all the sports card that they bought.

 

I was there too! My friend and I were in line,and I had a briefcase full of rookie cards from Sandy Koufax,Nolan Ryan,Johnny Bench to the current batch of rookies at the time.I think one big one that year was Ken Griffey Jr.Just Like with my comics I was a completist,and had every rookie card from the 60s on,and was showing them to the guy ahead of me in line.Up walks a man,looks over my batch of cards and wants to buy the whole lot.I gave him a price and he pulled out 15 thousand dollars out of his briefcase.I was floored just like that! in ten minutes I was 15K richer.Then he asks if I had more cards like this at home,I said yes.He came over that evening and cleaned me out with another 10 thousand dollar purchase.That was the last time I had baseball cards.

 

Did you spend it all on Pop Rocks and Slurpees?

No I'm an old man,Think I was thirty at the time.Way past the slurpie and pop rocks,but that's when I bought my AF 15 for I think 300 dollars.

[ComicConnoisseur]

I remember the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim. It took me seven hours to get in the front door. I sold 12 cents worth of football cards for $300 to pay for my hotel room and gas. It was down hill for sports card from that high point. Card companies started packaging used sports memorabilia with cards in a lottery-like system. Card packs cost more than a comic book. I feel sorry for all those amateur investors who were expecting to send their kids to college with all the sports card that they bought.

 

I was there too! My friend and I were in line,and I had a briefcase full of rookie cards from Sandy Koufax,Nolan Ryan,Johnny Bench to the current batch of rookies at the time.I think one big one that year was Ken Griffey Jr.Just Like with my comics I was a completist,and had every rookie card from the 60s on,and was showing them to the guy ahead of me in line.Up walks a man,looks over my batch of cards and wants to buy the whole lot.I gave him a price and he pulled out 15 thousand dollars out of his briefcase.I was floored just like that! in ten minutes I was 15K richer.Then he asks if I had more cards like this at home,I said yes.He came over that evening and cleaned me out with another 10 thousand dollar purchase.That was the last time I had baseball cards.

 

Did you spend it all on Pop Rocks and Slurpees?

No I'm an old man,Think I was thirty at the time.Way past the slurpie and pop rocks,but that's when I bought my AF 15 for I think 300 dollars.

You look much younger in pictures you shown. I thought you were in your 30s now. Maybe I got you mixed up with another board member ?

[etanick]

"kids don't care"

[oakman29]

I remember the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim. It took me seven hours to get in the front door. I sold 12 cents worth of football cards for $300 to pay for my hotel room and gas. It was down hill for sports card from that high point. Card companies started packaging used sports memorabilia with cards in a lottery-like system. Card packs cost more than a comic book. I feel sorry for all those amateur investors who were expecting to send their kids to college with all the sports card that they bought.

 

I was there too! My friend and I were in line,and I had a briefcase full of rookie cards from Sandy Koufax,Nolan Ryan,Johnny Bench to the current batch of rookies at the time.I think one big one that year was Ken Griffey Jr.Just Like with my comics I was a completist,and had every rookie card from the 60s on,and was showing them to the guy ahead of me in line.Up walks a man,looks over my batch of cards and wants to buy the whole lot.I gave him a price and he pulled out 15 thousand dollars out of his briefcase.I was floored just like that! in ten minutes I was 15K richer.Then he asks if I had more cards like this at home,I said yes.He came over that evening and cleaned me out with another 10 thousand dollar purchase.That was the last time I had baseball cards.

 

Did you spend it all on Pop Rocks and Slurpees?

No I'm an old man,Think I was thirty at the time.Way past the slurpie and pop rocks,but that's when I bought my AF 15 for I think 300 dollars.

You look much younger in pictures you shown. I thought you were in your 30s now. Maybe I got you mixed up with another board member

Why Thank you!

[Wipple]

I recently got back into comic collecting and have wondered if there is a place to trade cards for comics. As a young man I moved from comics to cards and have amassed a pretty cool collection. So if there is a place like that out there please share.

[Walls]

I remember the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim. It took me seven hours to get in the front door. I sold 12 cents worth of football cards for $300 to pay for my hotel room and gas. It was down hill for sports card from that high point. Card companies started packaging used sports memorabilia with cards in a lottery-like system. Card packs cost more than a comic book. I feel sorry for all those amateur investors who were expecting to send their kids to college with all the sports card that they bought.

 

I was there too! My friend and I were in line,and I had a briefcase full of rookie cards from Sandy Koufax,Nolan Ryan,Johnny Bench to the current batch of rookies at the time.I think one big one that year was Ken Griffey Jr.Just Like with my comics I was a completist,and had every rookie card from the 60s on,and was showing them to the guy ahead of me in line.Up walks a man,looks over my batch of cards and wants to buy the whole lot.I gave him a price and he pulled out 15 thousand dollars out of his briefcase.I was floored just like that! in ten minutes I was 15K richer.Then he asks if I had more cards like this at home,I said yes.He came over that evening and cleaned me out with another 10 thousand dollar purchase.That was the last time I had baseball cards.

 

Did you spend it all on Pop Rocks and Slurpees?

No I'm an old man,Think I was thirty at the time.Way past the slurpie and pop rocks,but that's when I bought my AF 15 for I think 300 dollars.

You look much younger in pictures you shown. I thought you were in your 30s now. Maybe I got you mixed up with another board member

Why Thank you!

 

No, from the picture's of Oakman I saw I totally knew he was an old guy.

 

[Brian48]

Baseball as a sport is not dead, although I prefer watching football more these days myself. The problem is, baseball card collecting is either dead or dying with the younger generation. My son whose nine, absolutely loves baseball. Will be playing in Little League this year. Loves Jacoby Ellsbury (his favorite player), but can care less about about collecting baseball cards. He'd much rather have a glove, Sox jersey, or some other type of memorabilia associated with his favorite team and player. He can dive into his hero worship a lot easier by playing *AS* Jacoby Ellsbury in MLB 2012 on an xBox.

 

I know that there are some big prices being paid for some modern sports cards and variant titles, but these are "artificially" scarce items produced with an intentionally limited run and are sought after by an increasing smaller target audience with a lot more disposable income.

 

If I were to give my kids (9 and 11) $5 each to go to the corner store, they'll spend it on a few candy bars and/or "maybe" [ONE] pack of cards, but most likely it will NOT be a $3-4 comic book in the middle of sweeping year long story arc written in a sophisticated writing style intended for young adults. It's just not going to hold their interest.

[JuliusSeizure]

I wish it would hurry upand die so I can start buying the comics I love for pennies in the dollar.

 

 

part of me definitely hopes for this. The up side is that the books you want will be cheaper. The downside is the money you've put into it, if you hope of getting that money out someday.

 

I'm with you two, philosophically. But the other downside is that the comics will get a lot harder to find. The price points that are currently viable drive a sort-of robust marketplace. If most BA Marvels, for example, were dollar books, what selling outlets would find it worth their while to exist?

[oakman29]

I remember the 1991 National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim. It took me seven hours to get in the front door. I sold 12 cents worth of football cards for $300 to pay for my hotel room and gas. It was down hill for sports card from that high point. Card companies started packaging used sports memorabilia with cards in a lottery-like system. Card packs cost more than a comic book. I feel sorry for all those amateur investors who were expecting to send their kids to college with all the sports card that they bought.

 

I was there too! My friend and I were in line,and I had a briefcase full of rookie cards from Sandy Koufax,Nolan Ryan,Johnny Bench to the current batch of rookies at the time.I think one big one that year was Ken Griffey Jr.Just Like with my comics I was a completist,and had every rookie card from the 60s on,and was showing them to the guy ahead of me in line.Up walks a man,looks over my batch of cards and wants to buy the whole lot.I gave him a price and he pulled out 15 thousand dollars out of his briefcase.I was floored just like that! in ten minutes I was 15K richer.Then he asks if I had more cards like this at home,I said yes.He came over that evening and cleaned me out with another 10 thousand dollar purchase.That was the last time I had baseball cards.

 

Did you spend it all on Pop Rocks and Slurpees?

No I'm an old man,Think I was thirty at the time.Way past the slurpie and pop rocks,but that's when I bought my AF 15 for I think 300 dollars.

You look much younger in pictures you shown. I thought you were in your 30s now. Maybe I got you mixed up with another board member

Why Thank you!

 

No, from the picture's of Oakman I saw I totally knew he was an old guy.

 

Where did you find a picture of me in my thirties,you guys are good.

[oakman29]

I think you guys missed it.I PAID 300 DOLLARS FOR AN AF15 IN 5.0! I think I made a pretty good investment choice on that one.

[crassus]

Great thread. I think in terms of culture we can count on superheroes staying around as a genre of stories for sure, but I would go with the skeptics on the durability of the back issue market. There are new readers coming in but they seem to favour trades, and the North American comic market is veering now towards Euro-style publishing, increasingly producing more and more hardcover collections, more *books* and (maybe?) less "floppies". And the fact that trades follow fast on the heels of the end of any given story arc looks a lot like movies that spend a few weeks in the cinema and then quick to DVD. At a certain point why not just start with the DVD.

 

 

[whomerjay]

The market for older cards is still red-hot. Shows like the one seen are obsolete. Why go to a show when anything you want is on the internet.

.Last year I sold an almost complete set of 1965 to 1969 Topps and got well above guide for it from a dealer. Had I broken it up and sold the sets by the year, I'd have gotten much more, but I needed to raise fast cash, and had bought it for a pittance just a few months earlier.

Post 1980 baseball cards are worth as much as 1990s comics, but 1940s thru the 1970s still sell. I have no idea if cards or comics will be worth anything in fifty years, but I'm fairly sure I won't be very active in the hobby by then anyway.

 

In some ways I bet the hobby is more enjoyable now that the large speculator element is mostly gone.

 

I need to get back into baseball card collecting now that the prices are down. Would like to work on those old sets I never completed as a kid.

 

Would the WTB section tolerate a post asking people to trade me their pre-50's cards for comics? I know this Collectors Society board once had a baseball caard section. Not sure why it went away.

[DawgPhan]

baseball/football card collecting is still a decent amount of fun. I recently started putting together a 1973 topps football set and plan to put together some of the 70's baseball sets. Great pictures, great names, and no chase cards. just 700 pictures of jobbers like Tommy Casanova. tons of fun for basically noting.

[hockey&comicsguy]

I don't follow card collecting that closely but I used to collect right up to the point they started the whole "insert" card craze with autographs and game used pieces of jerseys, bats, hockey sticks, etc......First off, the idea of cutting up game used memorabilia and stuffing it into cards makes me cry. The thought that they take a Lou Gehrig jersey and cut it up into a bunch of pieces makes me want to punch somebody actually.

 

As others have stated, old cards still do really well. Try to buy up nice copies of early Mantles, Ted Williams, and such.......you'll be spending thousands of dollars.

 

And then there's this new market for insert cards. The prices are inflated, they're manufacturing rarity by limiting pieces to 10 or 5 or 1. They cut up documents signed by Presidents and such and insert them into baseball card packs. For instance, currently on ebay is the "Mt. Rushmore" card. It's a double sided card that has signatures from Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt. And I believe it came out of a pack of baseball cards. WTF does it have to do with baseball? So they basically cut up four documents just to stick the famous signatures onto a baseball card. And it's double sided. It's just goofy.

 

A number of years ago I remember a set of maybe Upper Deck basketball cards that were $300/PACK!!!! And you got like 3 cards in it. It came in a velvet box or something. You got an autographed card, a game used jersey card and something else. Almost all of the pieces were highly limited. Not sure you're going to get too many kids plunking down cash for that.

 

It's all too gimmicky now and there's far too many sets and subsets and 1 of 1 versions that you simply cannot ever complete much of anything (if completionism is your goal).

 

I remember when you bought either Topps, Donruss, Fleer or Upper Deck and that was it. Now each year each company releases like 10 different sets. The whole thing is nuts.

 

But give me some 1950's baseball cards any day. Some of the old Topps sets are some of the best looking cards ever produced and there's still plenty of value in them.

[the blob]

The scary part of that video was, it said that the baseball card market has priced out the kids and only for adults now. Prophetic?

 

That part I don't get. Yes, the packs with the really expensive chase cards are too expensive, but with $10 most kids can go to most shops and come home with a stack of cards out of the card bins full of HOFers and superstars from the last 30 - 35 years. I'm buying cards for 10-50 cents now that were probably $3-$5 during the boom...And I pretty much only buy pre-78 stuff (although occasionally I'll buy an 80's RC of a legit HOF out of the 10 cent box). I'm not a card collector per se, I just buy some old cards now and then going for stars I recognize when they're cheap and in nice shape.

 

Same is true of comics, though to a lesser extent. Buying your weekly fill of new books is expensive, true, but if you are a kid buying back issues it is not an expensive hobby at all.

[underthebigw]

Baseball is dead.

 

How do you guys figure this?

 

Back in the 90's, I had to listen to my father in-law gleefully announce that baseball was no longer America's past-time (he's a perpetual grump, and hates anything to do with sports, if it doesn't involve a gun or boat). He thought basketball had replaced it.

 

Now, teams are drawing record numbers, merchandising is bigger than ever, playoffs are expanding. And frankly, basketball is now worlds away in popularity from baseball and football.

 

And, just to keep it relevant, that report is way flawed. On the other hand, there are striking similarities between the two hobbies and two industries. Lots of lessons to be learned.

[Kevin.J]

I can see this happening to our comic marts now in the North of England, over the last 10 years they get more and more depressing, with less dealers and even less customers. ( The further south you go the better it gets )

This has also happened with British comics in general.

I only collect American comics but I remember going to see a collection and along with the US stuff, I bought an old collection of British comics dating back to the 1920s and earlier.

Not knowing much about them, I did a bit research only to find the market was flooded with them and they were almost worthless.

99% of the people who collected this stuff was now very elderly or dead and the relatives have long since cashed the collections in.

Massive supply and no demand = game over.

I collect American comics for myself and will continue for the rest of my life, but no one else in my family is interested in them. I can see them getting cashed in when I am gone.

There is a poll for ages of readers elsewhere on here and I think it was coming out that the average age was 36-45 with the under 20s almost none existant in comparison.

I think that this is not only likely to happen, I think it is only a matter of time.

 

Good post. As the saying goes, just because it's old doesn't mean it's valuable.

 

However the under 20s just don't have the disposable income that thirtysomethings have, nor would they necessarily seek out sites about dedicated collecting such as this one.

 

Granted, comic shops from the late 80s onwards began to rely more and more on peripherals and merchandise, so not that much has changed. However comic shops generally still aim to be near campuses or at least be in a trendy area - Gosh Comics for example have done very well with their move to Soho, with a lot more late teens / early 20s customers in there buying monthlies.

 

When I was a kid there was about 8 comic shops in my city all selling back issues as well as new stuff. I can remember shops in the 1970/80/90s, they had a great selection of back issues and reading copys of the new stuff. Buyers were all around chatting and recommending titles to each other. You felt welcome and the people working there were happy to see you and knowledgeable about the subject.

Now there is only a Forbidden Planet & a Travelling Man neither of which sell back issues. The staff are just shop assistants and know nothing about comics.

The personal touch is gone. The kids are gone. The buzz is gone.

Can you imagine kids today enthralled in such a way or even a comic shop allowing them in to read like this.

You will never see this again.

 

 

 

[october]

Would the WTB section tolerate a post asking people to trade me their pre-50's cards for comics?

 

I have posted twice in the WTB section asking for people willing to trade video games for my comics. Worked out pretty well and didn't get any negative feedback.

[chrisco37]

Baseball is dead.

 

How do you guys figure this?

 

Back in the 90's, I had to listen to my father in-law gleefully announce that baseball was no longer America's past-time (he's a perpetual grump, and hates anything to do with sports, if it doesn't involve a gun or boat). He thought basketball had replaced it.

 

Now, teams are drawing record numbers, merchandising is bigger than ever, playoffs are expanding. And frankly, basketball is now worlds away in popularity from baseball and football.

 

And, just to keep it relevant, that report is way flawed. On the other hand, there are striking similarities between the two hobbies and two industries. Lots of lessons to be learned.

 

I said that more to get a rise from some of the hardcores.

 

Still I think it's, at best, the #3 sport. Further down if you break football and basketball into pro and college.