The Fall of Baseball Cards

Posted By on July 3, 2020

This is the second part in the two-part article on baseball cards penned back in 2012.

I had collected baseball cards as a youngster in the fifties. Unfortunately, I gave my collection to a good friend in 1957 when my family moved from the small town of Lunenburg in Nova Scotia to the city of Edmonton, Alberta. At that point, my life was over – or so I thought, and I wanted my best friend to have my cards. Even more unfortunately, they were lost in a fire that later badly damaged my friend’s home.

As a teenager in Edmonton I didn’t acquire any cards. In fact, I don’t recall seeing them in the stores of the city. In any event, I expect my money was more important for other things at that point.

After a hiatus of twenty-eight years, I began collecting cards again in 1985. I purchased a 1981 boxed Fleer set from a card shop in Los Angeles. For the next ten years our son Jamie and myself went on a bit of a collecting binge (but I can stop at any time, mind you). During that time I easily acquired about 30,000 cards, mostly in boxed sets at very reasonable costs. Jamie also purchased many cards, probably in the 20,000 range.

At the same time, we collected individual cards – mostly of players that were playing with star quality and players we tried to predict would become stars. Hence, with Ben MacDonald, Andy Benes, Alex Fernandez cards, I proved that even then success was difficult to predict. I did, however, collect quite a few Tony Gwynn cards and Jamie quite a few Kirby Puckett cards during this span, but most of my focus was on collecting Dodger cards.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=tony+gwynn+rookies&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-34000-13078-0&mkcid=2&keyword=tony+gwynn+rookies&crlp=_20190708&MT_ID=&geo_id=&rlsatarget=kwd-77103307805731%3Aloc-32&adpos=&device=c&mktype=&loc=5157&poi=&abcId=&cmpgn=301084139&sitelnk=&adgroupid=1233652105981608&network=o&matchtype=p&msclkid=87fe50dba2b41c7323080e23268f183b&ul_noapp=true

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1984-Fleer-Update-Kirby-Puckett-ROOKIE-RC-U-93-PSA-10-GEM-MINT-PWCC/402301037777?hash=item5dab02acd1:g:f0UAAOSwXXxe7T3L

Jamie and I were elated when Kirby Puckett and Tony Gwynn were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001 and 2007 respectively. Having bought many of their cards over the years, it almost felt as though we helped them get there.

After about ten years in hot pursuit of cards of our choice, things changed. There now seemed to be an indefinite number of companies producing cards – Topps, Bowman, Fleer, Donruss, Score, Sportflics, Leaf, O-Pee-Chee, Upper Deck, Studio, and it became difficult to acquire all of those sets.

To complicate matters, it became difficult to even find boxed sets after 1995. Cards shows in our area had disappeared, card shops closed up, eBay was just getting off the ground and was not yet an option for buying cards, and entirely new marketing schemes took over. Card companies began releasing two or three completely different series every year and made them available only in packs of ten (or so) for $2.95 or more per pack. Each series contained special cards that were almost impossible to acquire in order to complete that set. Their goal, of course, was to get you to buy more packs of cards in your effort to get those elusive special cards and you ended up with a lot of doubles or triples that you did not need – and you were still missing that special card; a scheme if ever there were one… and a scam.

The cost of collecting a set of cards in that manner and the frustration of so many companies producing cards caused us to change our collecting habits. We began collecting only individual cards when we could find them, and I continued to pursue Dodger cards. We thought that our concerns were peculiar to us because of where we lived in rural Nova Scotia. Little did we know that the path that we were forced into was a path that was being followed by thousands of card collectors around the world.

How did this all come about? A number of things happened. After World War II Topps was the only company still producing cards. Topps enjoyed decades with no real rivals, until a legal decision at the beginning of the 1980’s opened the doors for other would be manufacturers to enter the fray. Fleer, Donruss and other companies started production thinking a baseball card boom was in the making. At the height of their popularity in the early 1990’s, card manufacturers produced an estimated 81 billion baseball cards a year. “That’s about 325 cards for every man, woman, and child in the United States,” notes Dave Jamieson in his book, “Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession”

The boom turned out to be a bust as card companies were bought out or went bankrupt. Last year, Major League Baseball decided they were only going to renew their contract with Topps, so we are back where we started with Topps a sole distributor of baseball cards. Well, not quite, as Panini and Upper Deck have an arrangement with the Major League Baseball Players Association giving them the right to make MLBPA-approved baseball cards, but without team logos or nicknames on their products. Who would want baseball cards without “Dodgers” or “LA” or the Dodger logo on display?

What caused the glut on the market that killed the industry as an investment industry as some had envisioned? A court decision, yes, but there were other factors. In 1979, James Beckett published the first comprehensive book of its kind entitled Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide (which now comes out annually and even has a monthly on-line subscription) that put a published price on individual cards, thus changing how people, young and old, looked at cards. This publication may have had an influence on the belief that baseball cards could be an investment opportunity such as precious metals and, as such, should be produced in large volume.

As Dave Jamieson wrote in Mint Condition – 

“It was greed on the part of card makers because they rolled out so much product that it diluted the power of the cards and killed the golden goose. It was greed on the part of the baseball union, because they sold a lot of rights – and made a lot of royalties on those rights – until they had too many card makers. Then you had greed on the part of dealers, surly guys who didn’t care to talk to the nine-year-olds who came into their shops, and were there just to sell cards. Finally, collectors were swallowing up everything thinking it was going to turn to gold.”

Another suspect in the fall of the baseball card was the baseball strike of 1994-95. The strike opened the door for other sports to fill the void in interest and in purchasing cards. Young collectors turned to Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Ho cards in droves. For me the reason for the decline is that card collecting no longer was a hobby. It had priced itself right out of the range of the very clientele that had supported it’s growth for more than a century – kids. The newer cards became more and more fancy, more glossy and, of course, more expensive – especially autographed cards.

Can the golden days of baseball card collecting be recovered? Probably not; but Dave Jamieson has the best idea yet: 

“…restore it to what it once was. They should convince everyone, children and adults alike, that baseball cards are exactly what they were before the boom times of the 1980’s and ‘90’s – cheap play things suitable for tacking to the wall, flicking on the playground, or stuffing into a shoe box.”

This article has 40 Comments

  1. The best card that I recall owning was a Piazza rookie. Bought it for $5, and sold it for $125 in college (because in college when you don’t have a brain, $125 seems like it could pay for an endless supply of Natural Light)

    1. Dodgers get thrown a cookie. Plenty of time to have the old girl spruced up for the big game. But, will JT and Kersh still be Dodgers in 2022? Their contracts will be up. What will the 2022 Dodgers look like? Will they still be the class of the NL West? So many questions. So few answers.

  3. Thanks Harold for the continuation of your article on card collecting. I still have unopened boxes of entire years series up in my attic. My son bought them for a couple years in a row (1990 +/-). He bought them for “investment reasons”. But here, 30 years later they’re not worth much because of the over production you mentioned.

    Buying cards in the 50’s, a few packs at a time was the way I bought mine. The opening of each pack was so exciting. So happy when you found cards that you didn’t have yet and so disappointed when you got doubles. I don’t think it will ever be that way for kids again.

    I had two paper routes, one morning and one afternoon. I spent most of my money on cards until 1957 when R & R records started eating up a good part of my earnings. Unfortunately, I gave all my base ball cards away but still have hundreds of 45 rpm records.

    BTW, I mentioned yesterday that I only collected Topps cards. I do remember having a few cards that showed a picture of a player set inside a T.V. screen. Do you know what company made those cards?

    1. Hodges my friend, those are 1955 Bowman cards. I have some Dodgers in those cards including Erskine and Furillo. I always thought they were pretty cool cards. I have a Bowman reprint, or what one would call a fantasy card of Kershaw in that type of card. You can find them on Ebay. The reprints are cheaper, and they look pretty good.

  4. We tossed cards against a wall and the card closest to the wall won all cards tossed. Leaners were always the best toss. We also dropped cards and called heads or tails. A lot of kids that did not follow baseball bought cards to play. That led to some tossing more valued cards while others who knew the players would toss less valued cards. It was fun for both though.

      1. We played that game a lot. I told the story yesterday of how I lost all of my cards but one, and then won them back. I , like most kids kept them together with rubber bands, so the value of what I had would not be what it could have been were they still mint. But I got a lot of hours of joy opening them. I also took the time to read all of the info on the back of all of the cards I got. Even the lesser players. I wanted to know Pumpsie Greens stats in case he ever got traded to the Dodgers. I think one of the more exciting days was when the new cards came into the store. The day you found out the 1960 set was in the store, and that 5 cent pack with those picture cards in it was a thing you just had to have. So, there went my lunch money on 10 packs. Some doubles, inevitable since they released them a series at a time. When I would get my first Dodger, I would be very excited. Wow, I got a Larry Sherry card, hero and MVP of the 59 series, and he lives on my street! Awesome. The joy they brought then was real. Today I collect them because they bring memories of a much simpler time. And the game and team I loved.

        1. As I have mentioned countless times, Larry Sherry was my first Dodger hero. I do not go back to the Brooklyn days. I did not really begin to collect baseball cards until 1960 ( turned 8 in June) after the ’59 WS and all I wanted was a Larry Sherry card. It took me until late in the summer before I got one. That was the most important card for me at the time, and it was in mint condition before my parents threw away all 2,000 cards I had catalogued, after kicking me out of the house. Both of those memories will survive any dementia I might encounter.

          1. You can get a Sherry card on Ebay for a very reasonable price, and it will be an original Topps card. Just watch the condition on the advertisement. I bought a VG for about 2.50.

  5. Let me tell you a story about that Jackie Robinson card. Some 20 years ago we went to a flea market in the mall in Halifax one Sunday afternoon. I came across a group of 1955 cards that were in such good condition that I thought they were reprints.

    I went through the cards stacked in a pile and picked out five cards for $2.00 each. They were: Jackie Robinson (#50), Jim Gilliam (#5), Johnny Podres 9(#25), Sandy Amoros (#75), Karl Spooner (#90). That would be Spooner’s rookie card.

    On the way home Jamie asked to see them. I took them out of my shirt pocket and mentioned they were reprints. I had not looked on the back of the cards. Jamie quickly indicated they were not as there was no reprint designation on the card. By shoving them in my pocket I actually put a tiny crease in Jackie’s card.

    I am not sure what other cards were in the pile of probably at least 50 cards. It saved me from feeling guilty as I truly thought they were reprints. There was no point to drive back as by then the flea market would have been closed.

    If I had realized what he had I would have advised the seller, a man probably in his 30’s, and suggested he go to a card dealer for appraisal.

    I still can’t believe I stumbled across a gold mine and didn’t check the back of the cards.

    1. H. Wow.

      I think you need to go to your room and think about what you have done.

  6. When my friend in his school gave me his brothers cards, there were a lot of cards from the early 50’s. He brought me a team at a time, saving the Dodgers for last. Seeing a 54 Snider for the first time was a rush. But what he had that was really cool were almost all of the 55 and 56 Dodgers. All the stars. Campy, Duke, Hodges, Jackie..what a rush. There were some 57’s in there too, but not many since that was the year his brother had quit collecting and went on to more adult pursuits…I>E. the more expensive type….girls. When my foster father made me throw all of my cards out in early 1965. I kept all of my Dodgers. Hid them away so he would not know I had them. I gave those cards to his nieces son before I went in the army. He did not keep them as far as I know, and they are all gone. Worst feeling in my life up to that point was dumping those boxes of cards in the trash. Mays, Mantle, Aaron, all of those memories committed to a dump.

  7. Mike Trout not sure he wants to play. He has a new baby on the way and is still considering his options. He did report to camp.

    1. Not sure I can blame him.

      From the Times:

      “As California began to rapidly reopen the economy, officials in Santa Cruz County decided the safe thing to do was keep its landmark beaches largely closed in the afternoons to prevent crowds that could spread the coronavirus.

      But the public increasingly ignored the rules and demanded their summer on the sand, swimming, sunbathing and just hanging out. Unable to stop the crowds, county officials simply gave up.
      “People are not willing to be governed anymore in that regard,” health officer Dr. Gail Newel said as the county rescinded its beach closure order last week.”

      It’s happening in a lot of places. And as the people got stupid, the virus surged. California joins Arizona, Alabama, Florida Texas and several other states as they hit rolling highs on this holiday weekend. Play baseball? I don’t know…,

  8. Found this on Facebook. Message to all the rabble rousers in the country today.

    March 17th we were all Irish.
    May 5th we were all Mexican.
    How about this July 4th we all act like Americans.

    And that is about as political as I wish to get on this board. Wishing everyone a happy and safe Independence Day celebration.

      1. I am Canadian by birth and American by choice and I need to act like I am proud to be an American and I am. I guess everyone decides on their own, Bum. But I hope to see the holiday celebrated proudly.

        2. Our original 13 colonies had their differences but together they united to create America. That America is often been called the Grand Experiment maybe said best by the opening sentence of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

          “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

          The Declaration of Independence includes these words: “We foremost hold truths to be self evident, that this nation was conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

          I too am proud to be an American and fully appreciate all who have protected and died to make sure America endures. We celebrate with picnics and fireworks and barbecues. It is one of our holidays where we find our flags and display them. It is one of my favorite holidays.

          My question was meant as a reminder that the direction of America is still not fully agreed upon.

          Does America move in the direction where we believe that all people are born free and equal before the law, that we all possess at least certain minimal rights that have to be mutually respected, and that we are capable of self-governance?

          Or, does America move in the direction where we believe our liberties are granted as a privilege, that only some are capable of self-governance, and that not everybody should enjoy the full blessings of liberty.

      2. I am surprised you would say that Bum. An American is many things and many races. A real American has a deep love of country. We as a people have worked hard, and pretty much been the breadbasket to the world. Our political system is a mess at this point, but that does not change the majority of the people here. Who jumps in first with relief efforts when there is a disaster in any country in the world? The US. What we need to act like are civilized people who care for our fellow citizens, obey the laws, and do not use chaos to loot, burn police cars, and generally act like a frippen mob. There was a song when I was young, sung by a Canadian, The song was called ” The Americans, A Canadians opinion and the artist was Gordon Sinclair. Very hard to find on any type of disc or record. I think you can probably find the 45 on Ebay. You ought to listen to the words of that song. It tells you exactly who we are, and how we all should act.

        1. Just went and read Sinclair’s song, Bear. All I can say to you and him….Spot On! to borrow a phrase from my friend, SoCalBum. Thanks Bear.

          1. I remember the first time I heard it. I was still in the Army, and feeling pretty un cared for since everyone hated the Viet Nam war and all it stood for. I had just returned from spending 3 years in Germany. The only thing that boosted my spirits over there was the fact my family was with me. I was stationed at Ft. Bliss when I heard it. It really got to me. For the first time in a while someone was being positive about what we do, and who we are. I have always been patriotic, and that made me feel more so. I do not always agree with how some of our leaders act or do things. But at least I know most of the peoples hearts are in the right place. I love watching NCIS, and although it is nothing more than a TV drama, some of the stories strike a chord. Especially those where one of the victims is a homeless vet. They gave so much, and now live on the streets. For the most part forgotten by the nation they served. As many as 50,000 might be homeless on the streets any one night. That is one reason I wrote the song I did. I do not want them forgotten. I also like the patriotic theme of the show. And one of the best moments to me was when Ziva, the Israeli Mossad agent became an American citizen. I am lucky to have been born here, but I welcome those who take the time and effort it takes to become one of us.

  9. I had a collection of Topps 1959 (two missing cards) and a complete 1960 (with an extra Willie Mays). Last year I put them up for auction with Heritage Auctions. They did an outstanding job for me. They make sure your type of collection is the only one up for auction to maximize your price. It was fun to go back through them when preparing them for the auction. Brought back a lot of memories. I’ve been in love with baseball since 1957 and especially the Dodgers. Anyway, the cards sold for just over $5000. It was a blast watching the bidding live on internet (All internet based auction). The bidding really starts the last 1 1/2 hours. A good friend of mine who referred me to Heritage had sold an unopened box of Topps 1959 for $50,000 (less 10%). I had a hard time believing someone would pay that much money. So he turned less than a $2 investment into a $45,000 net return.

    I’m not very optimistic that MLB will be able to complete the season and the playoffs. If there are many positive tests in a short time frame there will be a “close things down” knee jerk reaction and ask questions later. That is probably only going to happen once and then it’s over. Hopefully, that won’t be the case. It’s strange times indeed.

    And, Jeff thanks so much for keeping this site alive. And, to the contributors that keep it interesting even with no baseball right now. I enjoy the diverse personalities on board.

    1. Great story Ted.

      The only full sets I had I purchased in ‘83, the year my son was born. I had several boxes, of 3 different sports. When I moved from Eureka in ‘89 I put them all in a sealed box and with a few other things in boxes and I stored them in a close friends attic in Anderson Ca. When my son turned 16 I went to get them and that box was gone. Everything else was still there, but the cards were gone. Not sure what ‘83 cards would have been worth but I thought it would have been a cool gift.

  10. In the mid-’80s I gave my collection of Hartland Statues, including the infamous Dick Groat, to a friend when his son was born. What was I thinking?

  11. Great stories about everyone’s cards! I am about ten years younger than those of you who collected in the 50’s. I always wished I had the chance to see the Dodgers play in Brooklyn, where my father was born. He moved to LA as a boy in the 30’s, and brought his love of the Dodgers with him. As a boy in the 60’s, I would walk about a mile to the nearest grocery store to buy a pack of Topps with what little pocket change I had. I will never forget the disgusting, sweet taste of the gum inside, which I often just threw away. And I can also relate to the feeling of excitement at opening the packet to see what was inside, and the joy when you got a really good one. I had a friend whose father bought him a complete set of Topps cards every season. His father could afford it. My friend showed me the room where his father kept the boxes neatly stacked. My friend was barely allowed to touch them. They were probably worth a fortune if his father sold them at the right time. But who took more pleasure in his cards, my friend or me? My cards were in terrible condition from all of the awful, ridiculous things I did with them. They were probably worth little, even had I sold them at their peak. But they were well loved, and I’m the one with the memories. The gold rush for cards, of course, was a speculative bubble. Like the tulip bubble here in the Netherlands in the 1600s, where one prized bulb could fetch an astronomical price. It burst, of course. What goes up must come down. Fundamental law of economics.

  12. Another marketing ploy Topps used starting in the 70’s I think, was issuing a traded set after series 7 hit the stores. It had all of the players who had been traded during the prior winter and who had not been issued a card with their new team, You could purchase the entire set for about 9 bucks. They did that for many years and those sets are readily available on Ebay.

  13. Good news on the draft front. The Dodgers have signed Jake Vogel for $1.622 million. Well over slot, but for the future Brett Butler, you take a risk

  14. Reports that Jake Vogel signed for $1.6M. Leaves just less than $1.2M to sign Beeter

    1. I assume that AF had this all planned out on his chess board and knows that Beeter will settle for that amount, at least I hope so. Really happy to see we got Vogel to sign.

    1. I have a lot of my baseball spreadsheets, although they do not match those that you shared. But I will keep working on it.

  16. According to MiLB, the Dodgers have released the following minor league players:

    RHP Kieran Lovegrove
    RHP Tyler Ferguson
    RHP Ricky Knapp
    LHP Casey Crosby
    LHP Ben Holmes
    C Jose Lobaton
    C Hamlet Marte
    INF Jake Peter
    3B Eric Peterson
    OF Blake Gailen
    OF Starling Heredia

    Heredia was signed in 2015 and is still only 21. Got a $2.6M bonus. Other than that I don’t see any names on the list that are a big surprise.

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