Funny cartoon that sums up pre-pandemic and current collectors

[docsilvey]

https://i.redd.it/9nawqtecb2ba1.jpg

[docsilvey]

Disclaimer: This was meant as a general statement about a certain niche in the hobby. Not for all collectors obviously.

[MiamiMarlinsFan]

Hmm… cool… but I see it more as romanticizing the past than an accurate representation of it. All good though.

[mchenrycards]

Hmm… cool… but I see it more as romanticizing the past than an accurate representation of it. All good though.

I actually disagree with this. As someone who has collected the better part of 50 years and collected before inserts were a "thing", hitting your favorite player or team in a pack, or even a card that you needed for the set was how the hobby truly was. This cartoon, at least the card "collecting then part" was highly accurate and not a romanticized version.

[MiamiMarlinsFan]

I actually disagree with this. As someone who has collected the better part of 50 years and collected before inserts were a "thing", hitting your favorite player or team in a pack, or even a card that you needed for the set was how the hobby truly was. This cartoon, at least the card "collecting then part" was highly accurate and not a romanticized version.

I won’t argue with your recollection of the past. I’ve only been collecting since 2016. But honest question… no one cared about the value of their cards in the 80’s? I feel like we’ve seen old newspaper articles going back to the 60’s that talk about kids being excited their cards worth money (relatively speaking).

While I’m new to cards, I’m a long time comic book collector, and I can tell you people definitely carded about the value of their comics in the 80’s.

[mchenrycards]

I won’t argue with your recollection of the past. I’ve only been collecting since 2016. But honest question… no one cared about the value of their cards in the 80’s? I feel like we’ve seen old newspaper articles going back to the 60’s that talk about kids being excited their cards worth money (relatively speaking).

While I’m new to cards, I’m a long time comic book collector, and I can tell you people definitely carded about the value of their comics in the 80’s.

You ask a great question about value by collectors.

I will not say that pre-1980 nobody cared about value. There was a premium placed on super stars like Mantle and others but if you look at pre-1980 advertisements for cards, stars were generally double value over "commons" and the highly collectable players such as Mantle and Ruth had an even higher value. for example, any of the 1933 Goudy Ruth cards (there were four in the set) generally had a value of around $250 for great condition cards. I purchased my Ruth and '34 Gehrig for 40 dollars each from a collector who walked in to sell some stuff he had and was shocked to walk out with 80 bucks in his pocket. Based on the condition these cards were in, the amount I paid was about right. That same weekend I purchased two 1941 Play Ball of Ted Williams as about 20 dollars each. This show was a card show my dad and I decided to host in 1979 at a local grade school where there was only 8 tables and four we mine as I could not find any other dealers.

We ran several card shows from 1977 through the 80's and pre-1980 there really was no market for old cards for people who just didnt collect anymore. I cannot tell you how many times we purchased paper grocery bags full of cards filled with stuff from mostly the 50's and early 60's and paid on average, about 100 bucks per bag. People came out of the woodwork to sell us these cards as they just could not believe someone would pay good money for them as the card market was literally just a niche hobby.

So what changed in 1980? Becket came out with their first annual price guide which actually assigned a standard value to cards. It was the first time a price guide would be produced and it shocked the hobby into existence as it legitimized the hobby. In 1981, Fleer and Donruss was allowed to produce cards with gum in the packs due to a lawsuit against Topps brough by Fleer to break the cards with gum monopoly. The first printing of cards for both new companies contained an incredible amount of errors that were made short printed when the second and subsequent printings of these cards had all the errors corrected. This volatility of the pricing on these errors spawned several price guides that came out monthly and even weekly, causing the card market to explode. I remember several 1981 Fleer errors such as the "C" nettles and others being valued at greater than 25 dollars each which, by 1981 card standards was an unheard of price. At this point, people started buying these price guides and going back and looking at their collections from when they were kids and realized the cards now had value because the price guide said so and so the great card boom of the 1980s really took off. It was only at this point did the general public take any interest in these cards because their value was quantified.

I look back on this time frame and wish I had kept every card I ever purchased as during much of this explosion in pricing I sold off the collection and invested in my growing family and paying our bills. By the time I sold the collection we had complete sets from the entire 1960's and '70's and about half of the 50's. It was a great time to be a collector who honestly, really didnt care about value as most of us who collected before the boom did it because we enjoyed the hobby and not because there was a money factor involved.

[MiamiMarlinsFan]

Awesome info. Thanks for sharing! We’ll probably never see pre-Covid boom pricing again (even when you factor in inflation), but I think we’ll get close within a few years.

[Jolten Joe]

I wouldn't say collector's in the 80's didn't care about value there just wasn't anything back then that told them what the value was outside of the huge annual price guides that were 9 months outdated by the time they came out. There wasn't internet and Beckett didn't start until the late 80's or Early 90's. Hell auto's outside of in person/ttm didn't exist until the first pack pulled auto's from 1990 Upper Deck.

[Handsome Wes]

You ask a great question about value by collectors.

I will not say that pre-1980 nobody cared about value. There was a premium placed on super stars like Mantle and others but if you look at pre-1980 advertisements for cards, stars were generally double value over "commons" and the highly collectable players such as Mantle and Ruth had an even higher value. for example, any of the 1933 Goudy Ruth cards (there were four in the set) generally had a value of around $250 for great condition cards. I purchased my Ruth and '34 Gehrig for 40 dollars each from a collector who walked in to sell some stuff he had and was shocked to walk out with 80 bucks in his pocket. Based on the condition these cards were in, the amount I paid was about right. That same weekend I purchased two 1941 Play Ball of Ted Williams as about 20 dollars each. This show was a card show my dad and I decided to host in 1979 at a local grade school where there was only 8 tables and four we mine as I could not find any other dealers.

We ran several card shows from 1977 through the 80's and pre-1980 there really was no market for old cards for people who just didnt collect anymore. I cannot tell you how many times we purchased paper grocery bags full of cards filled with stuff from mostly the 50's and early 60's and paid on average, about 100 bucks per bag. People came out of the woodwork to sell us these cards as they just could not believe someone would pay good money for them as the card market was literally just a niche hobby.

So what changed in 1980? Becket came out with their first annual price guide which actually assigned a standard value to cards. It was the first time a price guide would be produced and it shocked the hobby into existence as it legitimized the hobby. In 1981, Fleer and Donruss was allowed to produce cards with gum in the packs due to a lawsuit against Topps brough by Fleer to break the cards with gum monopoly. The first printing of cards for both new companies contained an incredible amount of errors that were made short printed when the second and subsequent printings of these cards had all the errors corrected. This volatility of the pricing on these errors spawned several price guides that came out monthly and even weekly, causing the card market to explode. I remember several 1981 Fleer errors such as the "C" nettles and others being valued at greater than 25 dollars each which, by 1981 card standards was an unheard of price. At this point, people started buying these price guides and going back and looking at their collections from when they were kids and realized the cards now had value because the price guide said so and so the great card boom of the 1980s really took off. It was only at this point did the general public take any interest in these cards because their value was quantified.

I look back on this time frame and wish I had kept every card I ever purchased as during much of this explosion in pricing I sold off the collection and invested in my growing family and paying our bills. By the time I sold the collection we had complete sets from the entire 1960's and '70's and about half of the 50's. It was a great time to be a collector who honestly, really didnt care about value as most of us who collected before the boom did it because we enjoyed the hobby and not because there was a money factor involved.

Yeah, I think in the 80s it was a "I bought a pack of 10 cards for $1 last year and now my Canseco *by itself* is worth 75 cents! It's just going to go up in value! I mean, look at what some of these Mantles are going for - and my dad says he used to just put that on his bike spokes!"

Now it's "I spent $120 on a box and I might be lucky to grab $20 for this Julio Rodriguez SP... But if I keep buying I might get a 1/1 Bobby Witt that is worth $1,000 and could be literally a couple hundred thousand if he A) gets better and B) the hobby doesn't implode."

[MoreToppsPlease]

I actually disagree with this. As someone who has collected the better part of 50 years and collected before inserts were a "thing", hitting your favorite player or team in a pack, or even a card that you needed for the set was how the hobby truly was. This cartoon, at least the card "collecting then part" was highly accurate and not a romanticized version.

Agreed. Interesting how some/certain people don’t get this/have been socialized to think differently.

Hobby fun is often simple.

[ThoseBackPages]

this is awesome!

i am stealing this meme