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Monday, August 10, 2009
Baseball Cards
Craig’s post could have been written by me (minus all the smart legal jargon):
As a childhood baseball card dude I’d rather like, on sentimental grounds, to see order and brand scarcity injected back into the card market if at all possible. Indeed, I blame Upper Deck for kind of ruining much of what I liked about cards back in the day. But I’d much rather see baseball’s antitrust exemption disappear than a small part of my childhood restored, so I’m rooting for Upper Deck in this one.
I stopped collecting sometime in my early high school years. Probably when I was 13 or 14 I guess. Every year, I’d buy a pack or two, just for the fun of it. Then Upper Deck came, everyone was on the “get rich quick” bandwagon, and I bought the full sets for the first time ever (before then, I’d buy packs). I did it for a couple of years, and those boxes remain unopened back home. I even bought a box (non-complete set) of unopened packs of cards of 1985 or 86 or something. And I have yet to open it. It’s all so very stupid.
Think about it. The reason we buy cards as kids is because it is fun. The reason they have value is because we had fun with it as kids, and those cards were thrown out by our mothers. Now, those people buy unopened boxed and unopened complete sets to simply sit there until we can unload them off to.. who exactly? Other people just like those? Who are going to sell them to… who exactly? Since the fundamental value of a card can only exist at the point that someone finally enjoys the card, if no one is enjoying them, there can be no value. Those cards all are going to get thrown away at some point (inventory costs won’t be supported indefinitely). When that happens, some will think there will be a run on the prices. But, why would that be, if there is no fundamental interest in the cards?
I have no doubt that the reason for the problem is the glut. Not in manufacturers per se, but in the non-uniqueness of a card. For example, how many Derek Jeter cards are there in 2009? I mean, look at all the various series and sets and companies out there. On how many cards is Jeter on there? Can I guess something like 12? I want one card. One. Exactly one.
Heck, I’d be happy to sell the NL rights to Topps and the AL rights to UD, and then swap every year. And in no way can they show the same guy more than once, other than to put them on a “leaders” cover, like “ERA leaders” or something. And in those cases, you have to put at least two players on the card.
I’m much more upset at the devaluation of baseball cards than at the steroidification of the athletes. Scary. I sound like a Holy Collector. Please ignore me if that is true.
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