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#1
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Hobby in Trouble, Part XXXVII
From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death? Anyone
care to offer suggestions? As I've predicted before, card collecting cannot survive the fact that cards become less and less identifiable with each new set and insert subset. The massive offering of cards is drowning in its own anonymity. It defies the rules of collectibility. You can't offer 200 different cards of Jason Giambi each year and expect anyone to care about any single one of them. Set collectors have no steady medium by which they can "build" most of the sets available, other than buying massive box quanitities all at once. You think you have a nice card? No one cares because by the time others can learn what it is, it is old news. True collectibles maintain their interest for years. How many cards in the last 10 years have held our interest for an extended period? Very few. When cards within a single set became overproduced in the late 1980's, the shift was to sets of smaller production runs. That worked for a while. But now the problem has become too many sets, too many parallels, too many inserts, too much game-used. In order to try to create identity, the whole concept has become one giant gimmick-fest. There are so many gimmicks (clever subset set naming, fancy printing techniques, etc.) that it's an embarassment to participate without feeling like some kind of sucker. There needs to be a new structure within the hobby. One manufacturer needs to say enough! and have the guts and self-discipline to print only THREE sets per year: 1) An 750-card set similar to the pre-1995 Topps sets. The set should focus on the 25-man roster players, and have very few "special" cards. The cards should be released in 3 series, and late enough to limit the number of traded/freeAgent players showing up on the wrong team. Series 1 in February, Series 2 in April, Series 3 in July. Each series can feature ONE unique novelty insert set featuring all-star caliber players: stickers, booklets, coins, etc. You should be able to buy a pack of 10 for one dollar. This set should be generously produced. The target audience would be the nostalgia/vintage crowd, the younger crowd, and the parents who want to appease their kids with cards at a reasonable price. I know that this sounds like sacrilege, but these cards would have NO INTENDED INVESTMENT VALUE. 2) One super-premium set featuring the top few players on each team (about 100 cards), plus the top dozen or so rookie prospects. Extremely limited one-of-a-kind inserts. Limited edition, expensive. One pack of 4 for $5. Inserts seeded as the 4th card in 1 pack out of 100. Target audience: the most serious collectors and investors. 3) A moderate-premium "season review" set of about 450 cards, including the starting players and new/rookie players that emerged during the season. It should include a limited insert set of the top two dozen players and the top 5 rookie/emerging stars from the current season. Released in September, prior to the playoffs. One pack of 10 cards for $3. Inserts seeded as the 10th card in 1 pack out of 10. Complete base factory set available for purchase in November (for Christmas sales season) at a significantly higher per unit cost (to maintain motivation for set-building at the lower per-unit cost). Important: Resist the tempation to produce too much, and too early. At first, this will cost the manufacturer market share, which will make them nervous. But once established, it will become the manufacturer of identity, which is the only thing that will rescue the hobby. With this standard, across the 3 sets the top stars would have at most 5 different cards (exluding the "novelty"inserts") of varying scarcity, from very common to extremely rare. The ultimate objective for the manufacturer would be that essentially EVERY collector would have one or more of these three sets in their collection, regardless of whether or not they also collected any of the dozens of other sets/manufacturers on the market. |
#2
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Dave C. wrote: From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death? Anyone care to offer suggestions? Snipped to save bandwidth Is this post 15 years old? I've been reading this type stuff since 1989. Upper Deck is to expensive and will destroy the hobby. In 1990 Leaf came out and only 10% of what Donruss produced was printed (no exact numbers where ever released, at least that I saw). Heck, people were insenced when Fleer and Donruss started doing cards in the early 80's. The hobby is not dying. People are being pickier on what they buy, joining trade groups. I pick a couple of baseball sets and a football set each year for the fun of putting the sets together. I've found shops that bust boxes and get singles or go to shows where someone has this year's singles and usually have other stuff at home. I'm a member of Sportscardfun.com and have almost three hundred trades over the past four years with people all over the world. If things were as bad as you say, there would not be anyone purchasing cards. Always remember, this is collecting; a hobby. Not an investment club. Just my opinion - and as you know, opinions are like a-holes; everyone has one and they usually stink. Jeff in Seattle |
#3
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Considering the current steroid controversy and the refusal of MLB
to address the have (about 6 teams) and have nots (about 20 teams!) of baseball, its no wonder interest in baseball cards especially are in serious jeopardy. Between overproduced game-used, parallel cards and dwindling fan interest because of non competitive teams such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and MANY other teams, collectivity has to take a hit sooner or later. I mean be realistic.......The Yankees, Red Sox, or perhaps 1-2 other teams are almost locks to win a playoff or world championship this season. Anybody who knows baseball knows that the "true" world series last year was the Yankee/RedSox series. Those were your two best teams. Im not so sure Florida would have beaten the Red Sox had they made it (thanks "Grady".....LOL). How comforting it must be to be a Detroit, Milwaukee, or Tampa Bay fan to realize your team has NO F_____G chance to compete from opening day. Better yet...... lets go run to the local hobby shop to pick up that special Detroit. Tampa, or Milwaukee "game-used" card. Gotta make some serious corrections in both the hobby and in baseball for it to survive as we know it. Otherwise in the near future you my have only a system similar to Japan's=A0where teams are clustered in a few major cities (Tokyo for example). Nuff said. Dan. |
#4
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How comforting it must be to be a Detroit, Milwaukee, or Tampa Bay fan
to realize your team has NO F_____G chance to compete from opening day. Two years ago KC would be on that list. Now moest people are picking them to win the Central. Kansas City didn't increase in market size. They didnt signifigantly increase payroll or revenue. What's keeping the Tigers, brewers, for thier fate too? ........... Mark Trail on terrorism: "Thanks to a couple of kids and a bear, they are no longer a threat". |
#5
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Funny you mention Milwaukee just when the new Beckett has an article
about them being "hobby hot". Between overproduced game-used, parallel cards and dwindling fan interest because of non competitive teams such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and MANY other teams, collectivity has to take a hit sooner or later. |
#6
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From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death?
Anyone care to offer suggestions? The new card hobby is a joke. The interest in rare vintage cards along with their investment potential will never die out unless we run out of oil and chaos reigns as a result. |
#7
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Gotta love those vintage cards. Boring and repetitive photography,
ugly card designs, players you never saw play so you have no attatchment to them outside of a baseball almanac and a huge price tag. OK, all vintage cards don't suck. But many things about them do. Mainly the price tag. "Rich Davis" wrote in message ... From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death? Anyone care to offer suggestions? The new card hobby is a joke. The interest in rare vintage cards along with their investment potential will never die out unless we run out of oil and chaos reigns as a result. |
#8
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players you never saw play so you have no
attatchment to them Kinda hard to get attached to primadonnas that have no use for their fans and make more in an inning than most people earn in a year. |
#9
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It comes down to this. Can one make a living or get rich from the hobby. In
which case I'd say, please, get out of the hobby. Ron A "Dave C." wrote in message news:V6T3c.2878$C51.36165@attbi_s52... From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death? Anyone care to offer suggestions? As I've predicted before, card collecting cannot survive the fact that cards become less and less identifiable with each new set and insert subset. The massive offering of cards is drowning in its own anonymity. It defies the rules of collectibility. You can't offer 200 different cards of Jason Giambi each year and expect anyone to care about any single one of them. Set collectors have no steady medium by which they can "build" most of the sets available, other than buying massive box quanitities all at once. You think you have a nice card? No one cares because by the time others can learn what it is, it is old news. True collectibles maintain their interest for years. How many cards in the last 10 years have held our interest for an extended period? Very few. When cards within a single set became overproduced in the late 1980's, the shift was to sets of smaller production runs. That worked for a while. But now the problem has become too many sets, too many parallels, too many inserts, too much game-used. In order to try to create identity, the whole concept has become one giant gimmick-fest. There are so many gimmicks (clever subset set naming, fancy printing techniques, etc.) that it's an embarassment to participate without feeling like some kind of sucker. There needs to be a new structure within the hobby. One manufacturer needs to say enough! and have the guts and self-discipline to print only THREE sets per year: 1) An 750-card set similar to the pre-1995 Topps sets. The set should focus on the 25-man roster players, and have very few "special" cards. The cards should be released in 3 series, and late enough to limit the number of traded/freeAgent players showing up on the wrong team. Series 1 in February, Series 2 in April, Series 3 in July. Each series can feature ONE unique novelty insert set featuring all-star caliber players: stickers, booklets, coins, etc. You should be able to buy a pack of 10 for one dollar. This set should be generously produced. The target audience would be the nostalgia/vintage crowd, the younger crowd, and the parents who want to appease their kids with cards at a reasonable price. I know that this sounds like sacrilege, but these cards would have NO INTENDED INVESTMENT VALUE. 2) One super-premium set featuring the top few players on each team (about 100 cards), plus the top dozen or so rookie prospects. Extremely limited one-of-a-kind inserts. Limited edition, expensive. One pack of 4 for $5. Inserts seeded as the 4th card in 1 pack out of 100. Target audience: the most serious collectors and investors. 3) A moderate-premium "season review" set of about 450 cards, including the starting players and new/rookie players that emerged during the season. It should include a limited insert set of the top two dozen players and the top 5 rookie/emerging stars from the current season. Released in September, prior to the playoffs. One pack of 10 cards for $3. Inserts seeded as the 10th card in 1 pack out of 10. Complete base factory set available for purchase in November (for Christmas sales season) at a significantly higher per unit cost (to maintain motivation for set-building at the lower per-unit cost). Important: Resist the tempation to produce too much, and too early. At first, this will cost the manufacturer market share, which will make them nervous. But once established, it will become the manufacturer of identity, which is the only thing that will rescue the hobby. With this standard, across the 3 sets the top stars would have at most 5 different cards (exluding the "novelty"inserts") of varying scarcity, from very common to extremely rare. The ultimate objective for the manufacturer would be that essentially EVERY collector would have one or more of these three sets in their collection, regardless of whether or not they also collected any of the dozens of other sets/manufacturers on the market. |
#10
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"Dave C." wrote in message news:V6T3c.2878$C51.36165@attbi_s52...
From the looks of this ng, is the hobby suffering an agonizing death? Anyone care to offer suggestions? It's not the hobby its this ng. Most collectors migrated to the Beckett message boards and other web forums long ago. |
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