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The Slow Death of the Baseball Card »

Posted by: wayjer 2 years ago
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Like generations of young boys before him, Ernie Homberg loves baseball cards. High prices and technology have turned children away from the hobby. This year, there's been a push in the industry to repair the damage to the hobby. There are a lot less sets and some packs cost just 95 cents.

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Comments: 17
  • Avg rating: (+8/-4 4)Drinkcokeplayagain
    Drinkcokeplayagain
    Aug. 13, 2006, 9:09 p.m.

    look baseball cards like everything else are just fads, once people are done with technology maybe they will go back to baseball cards.

    • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)wayjer
      wayjer
      Aug. 13, 2006, 11:27 p.m.

      Drinkcoke,

      you say that, but it has been a fad for my entire life, my dads life and his dads life, so you cant compare it to parachute pants from the 80's, it has been much more than that since the 50's.

      • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)lilspeedymat
        lilspeedymat
        Aug. 14, 2006, 12:18 a.m.

        ITs sad yes but still everything changes!! part of life! i suggest selling u baseball cards now before they worth nothing or keep the maybe they wil lstop and be worth more loL!! hey im not big on card stuff!!

        • Avg rating: (+6/-5 1)shaun0
          shaun0
          Aug. 14, 2006, 3:11 a.m.

          I've still got the collection I started in 1988, when Kirk Gimpson limped his way to glory and I fell in love with the drama of the sport as a six-year-old kid. The cards will never die, even if it takes diehards like me to keep the tradition alive.

          • Avg rating: (+1/-0 1)ZeroSyztem
            ZeroSyztem
            Aug. 14, 2006, 6:06 a.m.

            As much as i would love for cards to come back into popularity they wont. Their time has come and gone. They have been gone for years and im not seeing many looking back...

            • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)pewter
              pewter
              Aug. 14, 2006, 9:20 a.m.

              The problem is that it has become a business. Just like anything else fun, money has ruined collecting. Kids cannot afford to collect. I am sure many remember the days when we put the card in the spokes of our bike tires and we flipped and pitched them.

              • Avg rating: (+0/-4 -4)DrDash
                DrDash
                Aug. 14, 2006, 10:14 a.m.

                I think the card companies themselves started ruining it. It was simple back a while, cards for all the players, then the companies wanted to sell more and more, producing silly special cards, extras sets ect ect. If they had kept it simple (and cheap) it would still be popular. I also think baseball itself is not as popular as it once was. The NBA and NFL are the biggies nowadays.

                • Avg rating: (+7/-0 7)Yankeeboy
                  Yankeeboy
                  Aug. 14, 2006, 12:09 p.m.

                  the NBA and NFL suck. Baseball will always be Americas favorite past time and nothing will change that. As for the cards, I think that the companies are trying too hard to get peoples attention by advertizing game-used cards and autographs in like every box. I think that they should remember that money doesnt grow on trees and some people dont want to put $70+ into a couple of cards.

                  • Avg rating: (+8/-2 6)Tree17
                    Tree17
                    Aug. 14, 2006, 1:26 p.m.

                    Baseball cards were not just a fad. They were a tradition. But someone needs to tell the baseball card companies that they have overpriced their market. Their market are young kids-- young kids who get five dollar allowances.

                    I miss baseball card collecting. It was one of my favorite hobbies. But, I quite after I had worked so hard to collect every Bret Farve rookie card. I have all of the Beckett listed rookie cards and one unlisted. I still believe I made a sound investment, but when I discovered the SCORE card company had release a sub-set, special edition, shor-print 3rd year Bret Farve card (not even an XRC) valued at $2000, I thought, what's the point? I should have been going for the impossible to find sub-set card instead of the rookie, which is traditionally the most valuable card of any individual player!

                    ...

                    • Avg rating: (+1/-0 1)Tree17
                      Tree17
                      Aug. 14, 2006, 1:34 p.m.

                      Greed is destroying baseball cards just like how it is destroying baseball. A pack of baseball cards needs to cost $0.99 for 12 cards as opposed to $1.20 for six! Card companies need to get rid of the special sub-sets, the fancy designs, the special edition die-cuts, the glossy finish, all the supposed technological advances that add cost, and go back to the simple cardboard, hand drawn design card wrapped in wax-packs!

                      It would also be wise for card companies to update their valuing system, encouraging more trading like what happens in the stock market. Card values should change every minute, not every month!

                      Honestly, card companies are choosing to die. Any smart company that does not want to go bankrupt would do some market research, ask former card collectors about what is wrong, and make changes for the future.

                      Card collecting is a dying tradition. It was never a fad.

                      • Avg rating: (+5/-0 5)starwalker
                        starwalker
                        Aug. 14, 2006, 1:34 p.m.

                        Hey guys, I have a thick ass photo album from 1987 to 1995, filled with baseball cards that I would like to get rid of for a fair price. If anyone interested just email me at irocdis1@irocdis.com with you phone number and I will give you a call. Please put Baseball Cards as the subject for the email.

                        • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)emckane
                          emckane
                          Aug. 14, 2006, 1:45 p.m.

                          I'm afraid that the era for baseball cards has passed, just like the good music of the 40's, 50's, 60's.

                          It was fun for kids to buy bubble gum cards with all the players and trade them with friends. Bubble gum fell out of favour and the the players demanded a cut of the action and that pretty much doomed baseball cards.

                          The makeup of the American culture has also changed and collecting baseball cards is not popular with the new breed. The new America is more into abortions rights, removing prayer from schools, pornography and 50" plasma tv's than into the simpler things that make it fun to be a kid.

                          And just who would want to collect a cards of the current juiced up bunch who cheat at every opportunity.

                          • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)locoboy
                            locoboy
                            Aug. 14, 2006, 1:50 p.m.

                            1) Market cards to the kids not the adult collectors. 2) Downsize the licensing of the manufacturing of the cards to a couple companies, one set each, not a zillion different types of cards. 3) Limit the number of star players, so everybody doesn't have the stars. Then the cards become valuable to the kids and they trade each other or play games to win a card they don't have (wasn't this the idea behind trading cards before corporate greed saturated the market?) 3) Get the corporate minds out of this business, we all know their job is to suck every penny out and move on to the next "fad".

                            Michael Mills

                            brandawareness.ca

                            • Avg rating: (+0/-0 0)Tree17
                              Tree17
                              Aug. 14, 2006, 2:51 p.m.

                              I don't mind every set having every star. I miss being able to complete the whole set! When there was 400 to 700 cards to collect I was in cloud nine!

                              I don't mind short prints. The 1989 Hoops Basketball card utilized short-prints so effectively. Sometimes you had to work extra hard to find that no-name player no one would otherwise want. But, the result was that you got to learn about more players than just those who graced ESPN highlights.

                              It would be excellent if baseball card companies could somehow utilize fantasy sports with cards.

                              As I mentioned before, what if card companies valued their cards like stock investments. All of those online investing companies (Ameritrade, E*trade, Fedelity, etc.) would love the opportunity to encourage kids to save and invest if they could price the cards as opposed to just Beckett. Maybe I could trade my Ken Griffey Jr. rookie for a stock of Google.

                              Baseball cards won't die if card companies become creative and cheaper again.

                              • Avg rating: (+4/-6 -2)pbilyj
                                pbilyj
                                Aug. 14, 2006, 4:11 p.m.

                                I have collected baseball cards since the mid 1970's. My mother got me & my brother started in 1976. I remember that the packs of cards back the cost only 15 cents a pack with 15 to 18 cards a pack & Topps was the only choice for Baseball cards. In 1981 Fleer & Donruss started printing baseball cards & now you had a choice, but still, packs were a reasonable price, & the Fleer & Donruss cards were printed on better cardboard. We used to get boxes from our local Cash & Carry & got 10 boxes for $125.00 Boxes cost $50.00 up to $100.00 or more depending on the product, & when the price guides come out, you check your cards to see what they're worth, BAM, you just paid $100.00+ for 18 packs, and your return on the cards you got is between $25.00 to maybe $35.00. The kids today when they get a jersey/bat card is heart broken when they find out the card is only $8.00 or cards #'d to 1/1 or 1/10 & there are different series of the that card. That's what's killing Baseball Cards.

                                • Avg rating: (+1/-0 1)djbowyer
                                  djbowyer
                                  Aug. 29, 2006, 4:05 p.m.

                                  Baseball cards have been overpriced for way too long. MLB and the MLBPA should want to practically give these things away. They have complete control over the card companies and should use it to ensure the future of the game.

                                  Here's what I mean...

                                  Billy Grabarkewitz was an infielder in the league for several years but never a star or big name player. He was the first baseball card I ever got as a Kellogg's 3-D card in 1971. Don Sutton was my second. I knew all the baseball players from the seventies, not just the stars. That's because I could get about twenty cards for a quarter. I had lots of cards. I was a little obsessed with baseball and it carries over to this day. I think if MLB and the MLBPA wanted to help the game, they would find a way to get kids invested like I was in my childhood. Take the money out of collecting and put the spirit back into it.

                                  Also, fantasy baseball should be free. It gets people involved in the game. Isn't that the goal?

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                                    wayjer

                                    I am a huge music fan, I tend to lean towards rock and have always kept up with the newest rock. I enjoy computers and ...

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