May 08, 2009
Baseball card collecting is a hobby that is on the wrong side of their demand peak these days. Most collectors are adults who have collected since they were kids (not least because packs cost $5-20 and up to hundreds of dollars!). The iNTERNETS CELEBRITIES checked in on how a local card shop is doing and the result is quite nostalgic if you ever collected cards or comic books. Or, just experience the excitement vicariously on youtube.
There was nothing quite like that feeling of excitement and dread of opening a pack of cards as a kid. I used to play Magic: the Gathering and that 10 minutes spent opening $10 worth of cards and figuring out what was rare or uncommon or worthless was a pretty giddy time. I got some cards at GenCon that were no longer printing but the publisher had released some old boxes...I probably opened those way too quickly without savoring that moment. I did get a Chromium though!
In my distorted view, I think the best collections are those created at very low cost (or free) per collected item. Anytime you have to expend gobs of money to collect the item, the fun and excitement of "the hunt" are greatly diminished. Also, premium collections are inadvertent and arise organically from the ether. Examples: as a kid, while my dad would play rec league softball, I would dig around under the bleechers for old bottle caps from beer and soda bottles. "Whoa! This Pepsi cap must be 10 years old!!". I put the caps in a jar. Now, I have a low-commitment collection of Olympics mascot plush dolls. Included are Misha (1980 Moscow summer games), Sam (1984 LA summer games), and Hodori (1988 Seoul summer games). Total cost, about $3. Value today: $8M.
ps: I'm practicing writing in the wooden style of bureaucratic douche-nozzles. Success?
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I collected when I was a kid, but that was before the strike gave me a summer to realize I really didn't like baseball. Olbermann still collects, though, so I feel like, as a good liberal zombie, I should still care about it. Plus it was soooo much work to find even 6-or-so-year-old-at-the-time Alan Trammell rookie cards, I wish all that work was worth something.
posted by jonthegeek at 07:03PM CST on May 08