An interesting take on the sports card industry from the Seattle Times

[Mike]

This was published about a month ago, but I thought it's a good read still.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023252137_baseballcardsxml.html

A few interesting factoids from the article, it says sports cards went from being a billion dollar industry to less than half a billion in just over a decade (1991 to 2000s). In the same time period 90% of sports card shops went out of business or changed from being primarily sports cards to something else (the article says there were 5000 dedicated sports card shops in the 1990s and now there are around 500).

The article also talks about high-value classic cards and how many people in the business rely on dealing in high-value cards as a mainstay of their business. It doesn't really talk about the hot items of today, however. It also gives a list of reasons that sports card collecting has declined so far, but all in all I think it's good that the industry gets press still, even if it's not entirely positive.

 

[CamaroDMD]

Very interesting read. I got into this hobby as the decline was beginning and it has been interesting to watch it happen. With the newer products...I personally don't see a lot of long term potential or value stability. It seems that today...card companies are in sort of an "arms race" with each other to try and produce the next really cool thing. Tomorrow's new and special cards (with multi autos and GU, ect) will make today's cards boring and that trend will continue. I remember when a jersey card was a really rare thing. Then, they became common...but then it was multi colored jersey pieces. This was followed by patches...then multi GU cards.

Every year they have to out-do themselves. I'm concerned in the long run this will hurt the hobby as today's modern big ticket cards will quickly get forgotten tomorrow.

Heck, autographs are so common today...99% of the time the card itself isn't signed. Players sign sheets of stickers which get applied to the card. That way, the companies can pump out all these autos so much faster. It's really unfortunate IMHO.

 

[LindaKay]

I believe it. It was such a big thing for a while, but it has definitely slowed down. At least there are still some of us who are keeping it alive and well.