Baseball Card Collecting, How This Hobby Turned into a BIG Business

The fondest memories of my childhood include when my grandfather used to press 2 quarters into my hand and motion to me with a finger to his lips, to remain silent. Grandpa knew I was collecting baseball cards and the household budget didn't provide for my baseball card fixation. I can clearly remember being a 7 year old on a mission the next morning, rushing through breakfast, brushing my teeth and hair and dressing quickly. Trying not to cause any suspicion, I would sneak out the door while Mom was busy fixing breakfast for my younger siblings and I would make a beeline for the corner Mom & Pop convenience store. The store was the usual tiny store, offering milk, bread and many household items that could be purchased cheaper at the supermarket. And of course they sold baseball cards. I can still see myself walking into the dimly lit store, heading directly to the candy case and scooping up 5 packs of Topps baseball cards. Mrs. Krolein would be waiting for me by the counter and she used to laugh when I handed her one of my two quarters... at a nickle a pack, she knew I'd be back in a couple of hours for 5 more packs.

Out on the stoop I'd sit with my packs, tearing them open one at a time, popping the pink, sugary slab of gum into my mouth, while trying to will my favorite player's card to be hidden inside. I remember going through the packs quite quickly, mumbling to myself "got it, got it, need it" as I went from card to card and pack to pack. I can clearly recall opening the first pack of cards that contained my hero at the time, Mickey Mantle. The Mick was the most sought after card on my block and once the word got out that I had one, everyone wanted to see it.
It was a great summer, as all of my friends collected cards. We'd spend our days playing baseball and our evenings flipping and trading cards before heading in the house for the night, where I'd sort my cards, removing the doubles for the next days trades. For a mere nickle, we could dream this would be the pack, the pack that had our favorite players card... or maybe a Mantle.

Today you can't buy a pack of cards for less than $3 and at that price, you are buying the most inexpensive cards issued. Gone are the days of the Topps Co. monopoly on baseball cards. Now you need a scorecard to track the companies and all the multiple sets they issue. Back in the early 80s, baseball and it's Player's Union decided to take advantage of the their biggest asset, the marketing of the players. They sold the licensing for baseball cards to multiple companies and these companies paid HUGE sums for the rights. The Topps Company, which had a monopoly on the industry for so long, found themselves competing with upstart companies, Donruss, Upper Deck and Fleer. Many more companies joined the fray in later years and quite often disappeared quickly and quietly.

To attract the market share, the upstart companies needed to be creative and they were, they took baseball cards to new heights for collectors. The upstart companies produced autographed cards and later, game used uniform and bat cards, along with limited edition subset cards. The players were compensated very well for their autographs and the companies needed to pay extra for their services, along with the fees that went with purchasing uniforms and bats for their game used cards.

The player's agents, never ones to be shy about getting their client more money began charging higher fees for their client's services and baseball cards and memorabilia became an expensive big business. Card collectors and investors alike saw the potential profits and suddenly baseball cards became THE thing to be involved in. Collectors saw the possibilities of starting card grading services, much like the services that were widely accepted in the coin collecting industry. Investors search for anyone with baseball cards, waving a fistful of dollars in the faces of anyone with vintage cards. Older unopened boxes of cards were sold at unheard of prices. Of course when any industry sky-rockets like baseball cards did, the sharks circle the waters waiting for novices who want to invest. Dealers whispered tales of doctored cards, counterfeit cards and autographs as newcomers to the hobby shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for both vintage and new cards. The collectors of sports cards, once a dying hobby, were now quitting their jobs to become full-time dealers and cards that could be purchased for a few hundred bucks now sold for several thousand dollars. The cards and memorabilia that meant little to anyone other than the collector, were now looked at like stocks and real estate. And there were plenty of buyers willing to take high-end collectibles off your hands... to turn or "flip" for a profit.

Nowadays, knowledgeable collectors buy cards graded from specific grading services such as PSA and SGC because of the rampant amount of doctored cards. Even some of the major auction houses have unknowingly and knowingly sold doctored baseball cards and there's been whispers that some of the cards were sent to card doctors to be cleaned up before going to auction. Baseball card companies aren't much better, they think nothing of hacking up a Babe Ruth game used bat or uniform to make a few rare cards and charge up to $50 and more. While a few lucky collectors will have the thrill of a lifetime when seeing a swatch of cloth that the Babe, the card companies prey on the lottery mentality of today's collectors and use the potential of opening a Ruth card as an advertising ploy.

I still collect even today and I enjoy watching my boys collect cards. They collect for the joy of collecting, as I did when I was a young boy and should they ever be lucky enough to open a pack containing a rare piece of baseball memorabilia, I hope they will feel the same excitement as I did with my first Mantle, rather than the thought of how much money their rare card is worth.

I still have that Mantle card, the memory of the sunny morning when I opened that pack makes the card priceless for me... so much so that I can almost still taste the gum.