Why we don’t buy and sell shiny cards

 

In the modern era that we live in, it is now relatively easy to get your hands on so called ‘shiny’ baseball cards, cards that are mass produced to try to replicate the cards for decades ago and also to look like they are worth something. Unfortunately, the value of these cards are almost worthless and signify a bad deal for any keen collectors.

In the 1980’s, sales of baseball cards were going through the roof, and this continued through the 1990’s.  However, by that time, these cards from had fallen by as much as 90% in value. Additionally, most baseball card shops had closed down. In the 1950’s, there were maybe only a couple of companies that sold baseball cards. However by the 1990’s there were so many companies selling cards that it eliminated the value of the cards. The introduction of ‘yearly sets’ from companies meant there were thousands of the same reproduced card in circulation.

In recent years, the average amount spent on a pack of cards has increased. Whereas some packs may cost $4, some cost upwards of $50. To many, including me, this is not an amount that is acceptable to spend on a pack of baseball cards, especially when you do not know what you may get.

Baseball card collecting became very popular in the 1980-1990s, and because of this children and adults alike bought vast quantities of cards. This meant the companies had to produce bigger quantities of each card and because of this, the ‘rarer’ cards didn’t actually become rare at all when compared to the ‘rare’ cards of decades before. This in effect means that the ‘rare’ cards of the 1990s will now take twice or three times as long to reach any sort of value.

So many other markets have tapped into the ‘card collecting’ market it is now no longer seen as special. New collectors are reluctant to go into the baseball card market because for many it is now seen as a children’s playground hobby. The baseball cards of today will never make the profit of those in the 1950s, and maybe what is needed is a lull in the whole card collecting world to straighten it all out again…only in the newer cards that is. For a better “investment”, buy vintage baseball cards.