The Baseball Card Industry is in a Serious Slump
Industry experts say card sales have dropped 80% from over a billion dollars in the early 90’s to about $200-million dollars last year. The trend has caused most card makers to shut down, and where there were once 5-thousand card shops in the u-s, today there are fewer than 500. I spoke to industry insiders, retailers, distributors, and collectors to try to figure out what is causing the slide, and lots of factors play into it. Traditional collectors got into the hobby for love of the game, then, over the years, came those who saw it purely as an investment which drove up demand and prices. Half a dozen card companies produced huge quantities – which people bought up as a kind of gamble. But for most, it didn’t pay off. The weak economy, player strikes, and the steroid scandal have all driven down interest and value. A Barry Bonds card once worth 50 or 60 dollars is barely worth $15 now.
On top of that, industry analysts say the future looks bleak because of competition from other card-based games. My son bypasses the sports cards and heads directly for the “magic” and “Pokemon” cards. If he’s interested in knowing more about the giants or a’s or a particular player’s stats – he goes online.
It’s not that the card makers, like tops and upper deck, aren’t trying. We saw some very interesting boxes that hearken back to the days of the old tobacco baseball trading cards, using today’s players on nostalgic backdrops. A box cost about a hundred dollars, which the store manager says isn’t a bad price – problem is, he said, the companies aren’t marketing their product well enough to let people know it’s out there. Others debate that point, saying in a shrinking market, mainstream marketing dollars are increasingly hard to come by.
The good news is – collectors are still out there – just not as many, and they’re not buying as often. We met a young man who began collecting cards with his father, and now specializes in “relic” cards that may feature a players autograph, jersey swatch, or chip of bat they’d used in a game. But there are more sellers than buyers these days, and the store, filled floor to ceiling with dusty trading cards and comic books, was mostly empty. As one collector told me, “I think we’re going to see the cards fade away. I hate to say that, but 20 years from now, people may not know what a baseball card is.”
Based in San Francisco, Claudia Cowan mainly reports on major news on
the west coast, but has traveled as far as Jerusalem on assignment for
FNC. She also covered the highly publicized trials of Scott Peterson
and Michael Jackson.
I own a card shop in New York and i feel that there is still a large market for collectors.
The price for a collector to pay for a box of cards or a pack is extremly high due to the fact that the card companies are charging to much money which makes it unappealing and unaffordable for any one young or old to get into the hobby and be able to buy and collect cards for years.
I think there needs to be more incentives and awareness of baseball or any other sports card collecting. I enjoy my card shop but it is getting very hard to stay afloat if i can’t afford to sell cards at a decent price. Maybe this would bring back those collectors and also create new ones.
The industry has problems, many of them self-inflicted and others simply caused by the development of the video game and availability of the internet.
It’s hard to believe, though, that no one will collect modern era cards. Contraction may occur but fathers and sons still connect through them and it’s a way for fans and youngsters to touch the game itself. Mass marketing to kids is something that needs to improve.
The vintage baseball card market is extremely healthy and strong. Checked prices for 1952 Mickey Mantles lately?
eBay killed the card industry. Where rare cards used to be hard to find, now they are all over the internet. It used to be that if you had a rare card, you were one of a few people in your area that had it and that preserved the value. Now you can just go to eBay and find hundreds of them – thus reducing their value.
This makes me very sad.
I’m a collector of cards and have been since I was 10.
Sad that the love of money drove the industry and not the love of the game.
Something sort of magical about cards. The thought that you are connected to the player. That you share a special bond at that moment.
That some day you can have your picture on a baseball card. What little league player has never had that thought.
Baseball cards are a right a passage.
The baseball card industry, sale and distribution, has always been corrupt. From dealers gleaning the best cards from boxes, to dealers and individuals who alter cards to improve their value, to corrupt graders who either intentionally or carelessly allow those who pay the most to get the best graded cards. It is best to let this corrupt industry die and say good riddance.
Either the columnist or whomever typed this article from an on-air report is illiterate. I’m shocked at all the errors — like writing redundantly $200 million dollars, or spelling the name of the most famous baseball card company, Topps, as “tops”. And she says that she spoke to “industry insiders, retailers, distributors, and collectors.” Really, she did all that research? And this article represents what she figured out? Is this person a real journalist or a blogger in her mom’s basement, as the saying goes?
It may have been a billion dollar industry in the early 90’s, however all that was produced back then was pure junk. The card manufacturers at the time, Pinnacle, Score, Upper Deck, Topps, Fleer, Donruss, etc. all knew that people were keeping their cards “mint” unlike our ancestors did. They just kept producing and producing and now everybody has this firewood in our basements. The numbers may be down in production today, but the quality of today’s cards exceeds the previous cards made in the 80’s and 90’s tremendously. The industry is not hurting, it is just different. With boxes priced up to $800 for 5 cards, it is no longer a kids hobby…which is sad. Fortunately, the companies that produce cards still produce some lower priced items to keep the kids in it a bit.
And, as far as your child passing the sports cards to go to Yugioh, Magic and Pokemon…that has nothing to do with the baseball card companies. Get him/her off the Xbox and make them go out in the yard to play ball. He/she will then get into sports cards. By the way, please proofread your article. The company is “Topps”, not “Tops”.
For those that think this industry is dying, look around a bit more. Ebay, Youtube, Blogtv, Youstream. Cards are EVERYWHERE! Sometimes we just need to open our eyes.
Thanks – can you follow up with an article on the typewriter industry? That would be just as great.
In addition to the Ebay theory- it’s quite clear to me as a fan/collector in the late 80’s that there must still be warehouses full of unopened 1987 and 1988 topps cards somewhere- after all they were available in bulk through Price Club and all the membership warehouse supermarkets back then. These cards are now effectively worthless. You have late night QVC type shows offering every card you ever wanted from the 1980’s for only hundreds of dollars. I will buy the occasional pack for my son, and seek an autographed card of a favorite player here and there, but certainly there is no reason to expect that an “average collector” these days is going to see a decent return on buying baseball cards.
What a shame! I’ve been collecting since 1972. I started because of love of the game. Now I don’t buy very much do to having a family and the economy. Maybe dads (and moms too!) aren’t passing this on to their kids, the love of the game and baseball cards. We collectors hope that it doesn’t go away for good. That would be a shame. Watch “Baseballs Golden Age” on the Fox Sports Networks. That is how we honest to goodness collectors feel about it. It’s not the value of the card, it’s the love of the game no matter if its baseball, football, hockey or basketball. The cards help you enjoy and follow the sport better.
It is really a very sad that my favorite game is makin trouble, so sad..
Mr.Christian Schultz
I agree with you. I have thousands of cards THAT ARE NOT WHAT THEY SHOULD BE NOW.YOU WANT THEM. WHAT A SAD DAY FOR BASEBALL CARDS
After being an avid collector of cards in the ’80s and early ’90s, it got too cut throat for me and too expensive. They got greedy. A pack of Topps, Fleer, Donruss cards…heck, they were 25-30 cents for 15 – 18 cards, gum and an insert (game piece, puzzle piece) of some sort. Of course, things will go up in price. I don’t expect a soda for a nickel but heck, $3 for 6 cards or something. No gum, no extras, no thanks. And all my once valuable cards are now dropping. I knew something was up a few years ago when I saw a dealer at a Norfolk Tides games selling PACKS of Stadium Club cards from 89, 90 for $1. Really sad.