|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2015 19:52:39 GMT -5
One big thing I think is that comics have new fans coming in from the movies and TV shows, but there aren't really any new sports card fans. I mean, some maybe, but there's nothing really pushing it like with comics. Back in the day, baseball cards and comics were kind of part of the same scene in terms of how and why you purchased them. You know, go down to the drug store, buy a comic for 12 cents and a couple packs of baseball cards. Just as distribution changed for comics, it changed it mostly the same way for cards. So without something pushing people to go seek them out, younger potential fans just aren't going to encounter it. Comics are a huge part of pop culture right now. But sports cards have nothing to generate new interest. Yeah. The MLB would have to promote collecting as a hobby. Having signing events at the stadium. Free card days. Having 7-11 Slurpees with a free card. Get them in happy meals. They used to give them away on the bottoms of packages of Hostess Cakes and in bags of Wonder Bread...    And yes MLB did promote them as collectibles and there were card giveaways at stadiums (now we have bobblehaed nights instead) -M |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2015 19:53:05 GMT -5
Step 1: Go up to any kid anywhere Step 2: Say "Hey kid, here is an issue of Spider-Man #1 and here is Cal Ripken Jr. on a card. You can have either one". Kid grabs Spidey and runs off. Or, man-child from the 90's will grab it and take it home to his kid(s). Movies are the key. Everyone is jumping back on the hype. The economy is improving and people are taking notice of comics again. It amazes me that issue like X-Force #2 have sold for $10 or more! That is a $2 book and there are millions out there. If anything, I am happy that this era is getting some love. Older stuff is getting overlooked a little bit. Jump on while you can. I don't think the pool of collectors are expanding though. I think the reason X-Force #2 is increasing in price is because the same pool of speculators, hoarders, and flippers are selling those comics to each other for more and more money. Same goes for most classic comics though. There's not a huge group of people that want this stuff. Just a serious small group of collectors willing to take out loans or sacrifice groceries for something at auction. The comics I think are not in this scenario are the mega keys of the Golden Age. Of course fans want these too, but I think the real people setting these records are investment funds for multiple investors with fractional ownership of the comic as an asset. And the more investment funds successfully invest in comics, the more they will, causing things like Pep 22, Tec 27, and Action 1 to multiply in value more and more. But with regular Golden Age comics falling behind in relative value. I also don't think the investors will bother with anything after the Silver Age, but I do think they'll start hoarding AF 15's and Avengers 1's when they've priced themselves out of Golden Age keys. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2015 19:53:39 GMT -5
Yeah. The MLB would have to promote collecting as a hobby. Having signing events at the stadium. Free card days. Having 7-11 Slurpees with a free card. Get them in happy meals. They used to give them away on the bottoms of packages of Hostess Cakes and in bags of Wonder Bread... -M Yeah, my favorite series in the 80's was Mother's Cookies. |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 28, 2015 22:06:05 GMT -5
There's alot of reasons for Baseball cards..
They were massively overprinted. In the 80s and 90s, packs of cards were sold in every store, pretty much everywhere. They were cheap, too. there are literally thousands and thousands of unopened boxes out there.
There were the other companies that popped up, and ultimately failed. While they made it for a while, essentiallt Topps has the market for baseball cards again, while Upper Deck is stuck with minor stuff, Donruss/Panini does Basketball, and Fleer I think is out of business. Never mind the short lived Score and Pro-Set.
It was a bad time for the sport...yes, but more importantly, the way people collect cards has changed. Back then, there was just a set, and you collected it. Nowadays, the 'base set' is practically disposable.. the value comes in the game used, autographed, hand numbered variant whatevers that are insert sets.
Take this year's Topps.. the 'base set' can be had for $15 for series 1, and $25 for series 2 (Kris Bryant's RC is in the 2nd half). Meanwhile to by a box of either cost twice as much, because you might get a relic/autograph/etc. some of those go for $100+.. it's essentially because a lottery.
Thus, new collectors look back at those plain, boring sets and have no interest. I got to card shows on ocassion, and dealers won't even touch anything in the 80s and 90s.. you can find old stuff (say, before 1975), and the current year (sometimes a year or two back), but that's it. Nothing really holds any value that's not a game used/auto special thing. I few really high end rookie cards perhaps, but that's it.
In fact, there was even a movement for people to literally burn their 80s and 90s overstock, in the hopes to reduce the glut a bit.
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
|
Post by shaxper on Jun 28, 2015 23:42:41 GMT -5
Yeah. The MLB would have to promote collecting as a hobby. Having signing events at the stadium. Free card days. Having 7-11 Slurpees with a free card. Get them in happy meals. They used to give them away on the bottoms of packages of Hostess Cakes and in bags of Wonder Bread... And yes MLB did promote them as collectibles and there were card giveaways at stadiums (now we have bobblehaed nights instead) -M I had a few of these and loved them. Incidentally, they used to have similar cards at the bottom of some baseball card boxes, too. I remember that once, I bought the last five packs from a box, so the store owner let me keep the box so that I could cut the card out from the bottom. |
|
|
|
Post by Randle-El on Jun 29, 2015 10:49:06 GMT -5
I think there's both demographic and anecdotal evidence showing that baseball's fan base is aging, and new fans (kids) are not taking to the game as they have in past generations. The game is seen as being slow and boring by kids of today, who have been conditioned to enjoy entertainment that is fast-paced and provides instant gratification. From perusing my Facebook feed, lots of my parent friends have their kids involved in swimming, hockey, basketball, football, soccer, martial arts, lacrosse... I don't think there's single one doing Little League.
|
|
|
|
Post by The Captain on Jun 29, 2015 11:18:34 GMT -5
Over the past couple of years, I have been putting together sets of both baseball and hockey cards that I collected as a kid in the late 70's and early 80's. The baseball cards have been very easy to acquire, both with getting entire sets on eBay (the 1983 set, with HOFer's Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, and Wade Boggs rookie cards, along with the traded set from that year with the Darryl Strawberry and Julie Franco rookies, cost me less than $60 shipped, which works out to approximately $.067 per card for around 925 cards) and with putting them together piecemeal from both eBay bulk lots and local shops (I have compiled a near complete set of the 1979 Topps set for less than $100, needing just one more card to finish it, although it is the most expensive one in the set at around $15). A set of 1984 Topps baseball cards, including the traded set that has the Dwight Gooden rookie, can be had on eBay for around $45 shipped, and the prices just go down from there; I have seen late-80's factory-collated sets going for $20 or less.
The hockey cards I'm after are the O-Pee-Chee sets, which were Canada's version of Topps' cards. They had the same basic card design, but these sets are larger than the ones released in the US (running 396 cards instead of the 264 distributed in the states) and, since they were only widely distributed north of the border, they are much harder to come by. As well, the rookie cards for Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Andy Moog, and a number of the other stars of the 80's and 90's have held a lot of their value, with some running $50 or more depending on condition (OPC was notorious for poorly-cut and poorly-centered cards in the time period I'm collecting, so finding EX-NM and NM cards is difficult to do).
|
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
|
Post by shaxper on Jun 29, 2015 20:15:35 GMT -5
I think there's both demographic and anecdotal evidence showing that baseball's fan base is aging, and new fans (kids) are not taking to the game as they have in past generations. You could make the same case for comics, but at least kids are still fans of the properties, if not the books themselves. There's still a gateway for them. While I suspect the lion's share of the problem is the doping scandal mrp pointed out earlier, I suspect a part of the underlying problem also goes back to the rise of television. Baseball is the perfect sport to follow via radio (and, in fact, that's still how I tune in) because the slow pace allows you to give attention to other things, talk with friends and family members, or review stats on your favorite players. Watching baseball on TV is painful because television does not invite multi-tasking. You immerse yourself fully in the visuals, and there just isn't all that much to see, as compared to watching Football, basketball, hockey, or soccer, where the action is plentiful and fast paced. Maybe the doping scandal was the final push over the edge for a pasttime that was already losing touch with America. Personally, baseball remains my favorite sport, and really the only one I follow. I would probably be into football, hockey, and soccer as well if Cleveland had any teams worthy of note for those sports. Basketball just isn't my things, though, so I'm absolutely living in the worst possible city for my sports preferences  |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2015 23:20:34 GMT -5
Have there been comparable doping scandals in other sports? Because the entire sports cards market seems to be in a slump. Baseball has always been the king of collectible sports cards, but a baseball scandal shouldn't impact basketball cards. I think baseball cards (and comics as well) are just something that lost favor with the general public for one reason or another. There's still a small market for modern sports cards, and key sports cards are still valuable, but many 80's sports cards that may have been keys at one time are the Howard The Duck's and Fish Police's of today. Another scandal in sports memorabilia is counterfeit signatures though. I read a while back it was a major problem and a staggering amount of merchandise was counterfeit. Much worse than other hobbies that might involve autographs. And as mentioned, I think comics are being saved by movies, but I do not think they have a necessarily larger market. Just a market willing to spend more.
When I was a kid I liked sports cards and comics. But I liked comics much more. Because while you can pull your sports cards out of their boxes and sleeves and look at them, that's all there was to it. A comic you could open up and read and enjoy. So my comic collection was much larger than my sports card collection, which probably never surpassed 100 cards or so.
|
|
|
|
Post by MDG on Jun 30, 2015 11:01:28 GMT -5
Have there been comparable doping scandals in other sports?  |
|
|
|
Post by Randle-El on Jun 30, 2015 14:04:10 GMT -5
Perhaps unsurprisingly, mixed martial arts has also recently had a string of doping-related incidents. It's a big deal for MMA because it has been trying (and succeeding) to cultivate an image of legitimacy for years, but something like widespread doping could easily harm the progress it's made.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2015 14:15:54 GMT -5
And NFL football has had many steroids incidents (among other scandals).
-M
|
|
|
|
Post by DE Sinclair on Jun 30, 2015 14:35:32 GMT -5
And NFL football has had many steroids incidents (among other scandals). -M You have a gift for understatement. |
|
