Baseball Card Death

Any male that grew up inside the past due 1980's-early 1990's is aware of all approximately the phenomenon known as "Baseball Card Death." The trouble is, he doesn't realize that he is aware of this. And who can blame one's selective memory loss here. Think of the large percent of your disposable income that you blew on baseball playing cards, which possibly have little utility for you right now as they take a seat to your basement among the spiders, centipedes, and mice. Do you actually need to be reminded of the giant investment mistakes you made? Well, we are able to play the function of Alanis Morissette, "And I'm right here to remind you..." In the early 1990s baseball cards have been higher than money, higher than gold, hell, they were imagined to pay for college tuitions due to the fact they had been this sort of solid funding.

As all of us knows, however few can undergo to admit, not anything could have been in addition from the lousy fact...... We've scoured the internet for articles or postings...Essentially something we may want to find with a negative slant on baseball cards. We cannot discover anything! People seem very keen on speaking approximately their successes, and all of us recognize that returned inside the day EVERYONE changed into talking approximately how a good deal the whole lot they owned "became worth." But did every person REALLY cash in on their "baseball card riches?" Did everybody bail at the right time and in fact pay for his or her tuition, buy a second domestic, or re-make investments inside the inventory marketplace?

Our instincts inform us the solution is for the maximum component, "no." This site was created mostly as a beacon of objectivity..And negativity if you will, toward an group that appears focused on "talking about the coolest old days." We are uninterested in hearing about "what your cards were worth" or "how they may come again in price in case you just preserve them." Let's listen some objectivity and reality for as soon as and file WHAT goes on NOW and no longer what WAS inside the past. Let's explore the unhappy state of affairs that has engulfed all of us who has a shoebox (or many shoeboxes) complete of cards like ourselves.

Delusions vs. Realities

Every yr, I nonetheless buy  or 3 packs only for the heck of it, simply to see who I get," says Dave Kelly, 51, a Library of Congress reference librarian who focuses on sports and activity."

"I still collect them like I did after I became 10," says Baltimore Orioles pitcher Alan Mills, 34. "It can be going to the 7-Eleven, getting some apple juice and picking up a few playing cards."

"He's nevertheless mad at me. He thinks I threw away his baseball cards," says one exasperated mother. " 'They'd be well worth hundreds of thousands now.' I'm quoting him: 'Millions now.'"

"Just as timeless is the similarly irresistible urge for America's mothers to toss 'em, or so we declare. Moms are the last scapegoats for the lost treasures of our children."
-----Dodd, Mike. USA Today, three/27/01

We Say..........

Are you kidding? "Worth hundreds of thousands now?". Granted, pre-Nineteen Eighties cards are worth a lot greater than the overflooded examples we mentioned in advance. But the entirety needs to be either in pristine condition, or ridiculously rare for a collector to even reflect onconsideration on shopping for the rattling aspect from you. Seriously now...Put the Price Guide away, and in fact exit there and attempt to sell these "treasured" cards. This is all about REAL call for for the playing cards, no longer quoted prices. Cards from the Nineteen Eighties-Nineteen Nineties are all however WORTHLESS now at the complete.

We're sure we are able to find a few examples of cards which might be really worth a couple of dollars, but this is just it, a couple of bucks. Gone are the days of the numerous versions of the Billy Ripken "Error" card that were going for loads of bucks on the time. Does all of us even care about him at this factor? Don't you sense stupid now for looking to "complete that set" via scouring the cardboard suggests for the Don Slaught '89 Donruss card or that elusive Topps Checklist? WE SURE DO AND FEEL LIKE COMPLETE IDIOTS AT THIS POINT.

Try contacting a dealer who touts on his website: "We buy unopened packs, units of all baseball cards!" like we did. Here is what transpired in our notice to them:

"Hello. I even have some of unopened, a few sealed, units of early Nineties playing cards. Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, Topps, and so on. Additionally I actually have some oddballs like "Traded Sets", Collect A Books, and a few others that have in no way been opened. What is the protocol for doing enterprise? I'm located in XYZ City, and would be glad to ship pictures.Thanks"

RESPONSE: "Hi there. We simplest buy vintage playing cards pre 1970. Thanks for taking into consideration us."

UNREAL. Even professional sellers are not inquisitive about the many lots of playing cards we carefully wasted time filing away as a kid, and to consider all the Sundays we pissed away at "card suggests." How many Hiltons and Holiday Inns do you spot for your neighborhood these days with symptoms advertising and marketing "Baseball Card Show This Weekend"? Not to mention, how many "Card and Hobby" stores do you recognize of which can be still thriving businesses? And how about the weekend "Flea Markets" and "Shopping Mall Card Shows" with tables devoted to both sets and singles at overinflated costs? YES, that is what we idea. Times positive do alternate. For the "expert supplier" to no longer even provide a bid for our cards, suggests that they're WORTHLESS. Further evidence in this be counted lies with Ebay, the famed online auctioneer. We have run a number of 7 day auctions recently for sealed, unopened, SETS of cards. We're no longer speakme about random assortments of loose playing cards. For example, the 1990 Upper Deck, Fleer, and Donruss units were all supplied individually by using us, for a beginning bid of forty nine cents! And we did now not get hold of ONE bid, over a 7 day period! Not one! We honestly LOST money listing these pigs due to the fact eBay nails you with a list fee for every public sale you participate in. If this doesn't pressure the "WASTE OF TIME, MONEY, AND EFFORT" factor home to you card aficionados, we do not know what is going to.

REALITIES

Those taking the "maintain" method with respect to their
collections are certainly kidding themselves. Think of
it on this attitude. The cards that you have from the
1980s and Nineteen Nineties had been as soon as considered treasured....Properly
according to expenses that you PAID for the playing cards and quoted
prices in courses like Beckett they were. How a lot of
you genuinely offered your playing cards for the ones identical quoted charges?
Hey we're now not ridiculing every body, we did not sell one! We were
"net customers" of baseball cards for the better a part of a decade.

1. For the market to "get better", baseball itself first desires
to be revitalized most of the adolescents of nowadays. Do you see it
happening? And if the solution is sure, then the baseball card
market desires to re-invent itself someway. The closing time we
checked kids had been buying new X-Boxes and inquiring for I-Pod
Nanos for Christmas. And those kids are more or less the identical age
as we had been throughout our "baseball card segment." Baseball playing cards
will by no means overtake ultra-modern low priced, and easily obtained
technological devices. And why would they? Think approximately the
chance of this going on. Secondly, the people who drove up
the costs within the early 90s had been young children (who're in their
twenties now) and vintage men (and likely some hideous girls
too) who ran the "Card and Hobby Shops." The inventories of
those "kids" grew through the years as they bought packs,
attended card suggests, and many others. And these clients had been in the main
"customers." The consumers' collections grew occasionally to unmanageable
amounts, making storage itself even difficult. The consumers can best
absorb so many baseball cards below the pretense that "they may be
going to be well worth something sooner or later" before this insanity have to
come to a halt. Today, we've got thousands of disgruntled "former
creditors" who are sitting within the wings, storing their worthless
cards and looking ahead to a sunny day.

Most of these unlucky souls
have moved directly to other things, thank goodness, and optimistically have
carried these precious training from their baseball card investment
debacles forward with them via lifestyles, with a view to avoid comparable
predicaments whether or not in enterprise, the inventory market, real property, and so forth.
Over the direction of the overdue 80s and 1990s, card shoppers kept taking in
playing cards, and the shopkeepers were the sellers. Now any shopkeeper who
made a sale and refused to replenish that inventory probably made out
quite nicely. But people who idea the increase would final for all time likely were given
their ass passed to them as they re-invested the earnings on their card
income in greater stock. This stock have become more worthless as time
went on, became increasingly hard to promote to card buyers amidst
waning public interest. Let's positioned this in perspective. Upper Deck playing cards
were the hottest thing round in 1989-1991, with Ken Griffey Jr. Playing cards
now what a disappointment he turned out to be, don't forget all of the
hype??) commanding masses of greenbacks.

Today, we can not even sell a
sealed, mint SET of the cards from the ones years for 49 cents. (A reader
has requested for rationalization in this. Yes, the 12 months that the Griffey Jr. Rookie
card got here out, 1989, the Upper Deck set sells for approximately $70.00. We've
attempted to promote a brand new, sealed, untouched set from 1990 at 49 cents and
obtained no bids, no longer to mention our failed attempts at promoting Donruss
and Fleer mint,unopened units to no avail. Whatever the case, we are
sure that you all take into account that the Griffey card by myself changed into valued
inside the masses in its high. And now the complete set is best really worth $70?
On an excellent day? What befell? Why is not any one addressing this?) The
phrase depreciation doesn't healthy this situation, its more like a momentous
dive.

2. For the card market to rebound, there wishes to be a resurgence of
interest. This resurgence can't probable come from those who are already
stockpiling cards in hopes that their costs will bounce back. New shoppers,
new aficionados need to go into the marketplace. Please get back to us you can
argue logically that those gadgets will rebound to overdue 80s-early 90s mania
costs and the reasoning at the back of it. The "rare" aspect is genuinely
non-existent in phrases of playing cards at this factor for the reason that there are dozens of playing cards
to be had for most gamers in numerous units and subsets from the deluge of manufacturers.

Three. Statistical facts are obliterated mechanically and as a substitute effortlessly nowadays. Remember when Jose Canseco's "forty-forty membership" became a huge deal? No one
even gives a rattling about that anymore. How approximately the infamous overdue
Nineteen Eighties Topps "30-30 Club" member playing cards, with Howard Johnson being
one of the "esteemed" participants. Do young baseball fanatics nowadays even recognize
who the hell Hojo is? My point is that facts are broken 12 months after 12 months,
and the juiced baseball and possible steroid have an effect on on the game significantly accelerates this. Jesse Barfield.... (be aware NOT within the Hall of Fame, and who
the hell even recalls him at this point) hit some thing like forty nine homers in
the late 80s. This became taken into consideration a TON lower back then. As we now recognise, modern day "advanced" ballplayers can hit nicely greater, hell, even shortstops can crank 40
like it's no person's commercial enterprise. Remember when Don Mattingly turned into a large deal?
Unless you're a die-difficult Yankee fan, you possibly view Don Mattingly as
barely more than a commonplace player these days notwithstanding a number of the stats he
put up. We don't forget paying $27.00 in 1989 for his Topps rookie card. Big mistake. Since the cardboard isn't always technically "mint", we doubt we can promote this
card for $2.70 today. Any consumers obtainable? If so...Sold to you at $2.70.
The underlying point here is that the value that is constructed into cards as the
participant breaks or units new statistics, diminishes as his document is damaged in
future years and he progressively fades into obscurity.

4. Today, the baseball card enterprise
has constructed this facade of "card grading" into their
by no means-ending tunnel of greed. Now, we as collectors
are predicted to pay to mail our cards to
"grading companies", let their specialists pore over
our cards for weeks on stop (and we're positive that
they do not do this despite the fact that that is the affect
this is given), and then send us an legitimate certificates
with our card encased in plastic to tell us that we are
grade "PSA eight.Five". This technique is NOT cheap both! In
many instances you'll spend greater at the grading process
than your card is really worth! The awful news is not too many
cards obtainable are PSA 10 or in "best" graded circumstance,
despite the care you took to keep them over the years. We
endorse you to look at finished public sale results on eBay and
you'll see for your self the massive discrepancy among card
values of numerous graded ratings. If it is no longer in pristine circumstance,
you're now not going to make a great deal on it.