OT - rise and fall of baseball cards
Man, does this bring back memories. I was a Beckett Monthly subscriber for several years. This Griffey Jr. card was the ultimate.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/090812&sportCat=mlb
August 15th, 2009 at 12:57 AM ^
Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:03 AM ^
Slate had an article out earlier this week on the new Topps potential monopoly on trading cards. It's a interesting read. Apparently something similar happened way back in the day and Topps lost out on the anti-trust suit, creating the boom in the market. Since then, everything has been targeted to older, rich buyers instead of the kids.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:39 AM ^
Yeah, they lost their monopoly in the early '80s, which allowed Fleer and Donruss to enter the market. Later, Score and Upper Deck came aboard. At first, all the brands seemed to coexist okay, but then in the '90s they all went nuts and started adding "premium," "super-premium" and even more pricey brands, until there were like 20 different sets for collectors to go after (most of which cost several dollars a pack). I threw in the towel at that point.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:30 AM ^
the little cardboard rectangles with a player's picture on one side and his stats on the reverse? Like reliving another life...
...pogs anyone?
August 15th, 2009 at 7:33 AM ^
I was young enough in the '60s o collect 'em. Had about 7500 million of them, probably dating back to 1965 (my Dad was excited to have had two boys about as close in age as the Talbott brothers and started buying them). TOPPS with, as the old joke goes, a piece of slate purported to be "bubble gum."
I'm sure we had a ton of gems, and they were in mint condition, as they were stored in an old television box in the basement.
Then one day we moved and the cards simply got tossed out. I'm certain my father threw away a lot of potential bail money on that fateful day.
It's what turned me into a "numbers geek." Those were the days when baseball numbers meant something. You could name all 12 guys who had 500 career home runs (now there are like 8000 of them), and all 12 guys who had 3000 career hits (IIRC, Al Kaline was the 13th guy to get 3000 career hits, with a weak double down the right field line).
Those cards were a lot of fun for kids who grew up with baseball as The KING, and who grew up without such fun stuff as computers, cell phones, X Box, and AK-47's.
I know here are guys here who clothespinned baseball cards to the spokes of their bikes to get that "motor" sound. Lots of fun!
August 15th, 2009 at 4:27 PM ^
My dad was the same way. He had like every card and could name all the details the same way. My grandfather kept telling him to hold on to those cards...and then threw them out once my dad left for college.
I was just looking at my old collection just the other day. It was definitely not as big as some of my friends' collections, but I have a few gems.
August 15th, 2009 at 7:55 AM ^
I hate all these card makers. They cost like $3 for 5 cards for most pack now. Who's going to pay that?
August 15th, 2009 at 8:13 AM ^
If my house was on fire my dog is one hand and my thousands of baseballs cards will somehow be in the other. I will take partial burns to save them, kids these days don't know what they're missing. I still have a Mark McGwire beckeet after he hit 70 in a protective cover cause I thought it was a collectable, thanks alot steroids.
August 15th, 2009 at 11:59 AM ^
i get the urge to buy a pack of basketball or baseball cards... i loved collecting them, cataloging them, making games and teams out of the cards i had, stuff like that. as soon as they started selling cards with little slivers of jersey or wood or leather or whatnot, that was the end. cards ceased being about the players and the stats and more about value and commodity. you were encouraged to not open packs, or buy armor for your cards... the decline and fall is a sad one.