Sports cards: A dying hobby

[BigDGarciaFan]

remember back in the days when sports trading cards used to be the big? you opened a pack of trading cards hoping to find a great superstar like Joe Montana, Reggie Jackson, Magic Johnson, etc. then later the cards would be abused, dropped, ripped to bits, stolen. look at it now, not that many people seem to be interested. it would be great to get back in the habit, this time get serious about it.

whatever major superstar you find, you have to put the card in a plastic case, then sell it or give it to a friends(as a gift). whatever cards that are leftover, you donate to a 'sports card shop' or just keep the rest until its value go up.

best place to find cards would be at walgreens($3.99 starter collector trading cards I think). youll find cards, mostly from the 90s and some from the 80s. also go to goodwill, the worse goodwill in your town is the place to find piles of cards, so get them before the goodwill employees dump them in the trash or a even a careless customer will buy them for his kids to abuse.

youll also find some college football or basketball team trading cards(for example; Duke, Texas, USC, Michigan, ND, etc. those college cards are rare finds. I found a unopened pack of ND football cards(haven't been opened yet) from the walgreens set, I still have it and not ready to sell until its value go up.

so if you have the chance, start up on the trading card collection, save the industry, and please, do care for them just like the lego blocks.

 

[RonSpringsdaman20]

I miss my collection... I had an insane baseball and football card collection. I also have some classic Wheaties boxes wrapped in cellophane.

but my collecting days are over... I may buy a few packs for my nephew, start things back in motion.

 

[joseephuss]

The industry did itself no favors by vastly overproducing cards in the 90s. That bubble burst due to their greed.

The internet has taken away or replaced some of the interest of trading cards for kids. Now a child can look up their favorite players and teams on many web sites and will find more photos and stats than they ever could on a trading card. I don't think the trading card business will ever be what it was. Baseball itself isn't what it was and it is the sport most associated with trading cards.

About a year ago I donated a bunch of cards from the early 90s to Goodwill. I tried to give them to a couple of card dealers in town. They didn't want them. I wasn't trying to sell them. I just wanted to clear up some space, but the dealers weren't even interested in getting free stock.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

The industry did itself no favors by vastly overproducing cards in the 90s. That bubble burst due to their greed.

The internet has taken away or replaced some of the interest of trading cards for kids. Now a child can look up their favorite players and teams on many web sites and will find more photos and stats than they ever could on a trading card. I don't think the trading card business will ever be what it was. Baseball itself isn't what it was and it is the sport most associated with trading cards.

About a year ago I donated a bunch of cards from the early 90s to Goodwill. I tried to give them to a couple of card dealers in town. They didn't want them. I wasn't trying to sell them. I just wanted to clear up some space, but the dealers weren't even interested in getting free stock.

You hit it. Too many cards produced by too many companies looking to strike "gold".

 

[bounce]

I LOVED it as a kid when there were four main ones - Topps, Donruss, Fleer and then Upper Deck. Score and some others were around. I loved going to card shows in hotels on the weekends. I got the 1989 Upper Deck with the Griffey and that was my meal ticket. Still waiting to cash that in. I still have a giant tub and notebooks in storage, and while I'm sure it's mostly worthless, it'd be weird to just junk them.

 

[big dog cowboy]

At one point in the early 90's I had well over 100,000 sports cards. About the time all the companies tried recreating the 89 UD fever and mass produced until they damn near killed the hobby I started dumping them. It took a few months but eventually I sold or gave away all but a handful of cards. Like bounce just said, I went to every card show, bought the Becketts each month and all that jazz. Now 20 years later I still don't miss them and glad they are in storage somewhere. I walked away and walked away for good. The card companies can only blame themselves.