On Sports Card Collecting

Various '90s baseball cards; image from here

I thought it might pass them by, but I was wrong: my boys are into collecting sports cards. It started a few months ago, when they started paying attention to (and obsessing over) professional football. Then basketball. Now baseball. Along with that has come an interest in sports cards. This post recaps my own memories of the hobby and where it stands today.

Collecting in the Junk Wax Era

I started collecting baseball cards in the late '80s. My friends and I would eagerly get packs of Topps, Donruss, and other brands of cards. It seemed like sports card stores were everywhere, and the industry was booming. Our dads told us to keep our cards (and in good condition), telling cautionary tales of the cards they once had (and destroyed or threw out) and their present value. Everyone kept their cards; and they are worth almost nothing, even thirty years later.

It turns out I was collecting in the 'junk wax era' (generally accepted as 1986-1993). During this timeframe, the big brands produced a ton of product (in wax-paper packs), flooding the market and rendering many cards nearly valueless (even today). A quick eBay search reveals you can gobble up complete sets from this era for $15-25 today. But then (as now), I don't care; collecting was fun. Trading was, too, unless you got hoodwinked (I recall getting ripped off by a friend for a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card . . . not cool).

I collected mostly baseball (which was the industry focus back then), but some basketball, football, and even soccer cards. In this era, I remember Topps (1987-91 in particular), Donruss (1988-92), Score (1988-89), and Fleer (1988-92) as the main brands. Then things got fancy; Upper Deck (1989-91), Stadium Club (1991-92), Fleer Ultra (1991-94), and other premium products entered the market. These were of better stock/finish than the main brands, and had that higher-quality look and feel. The hobby was getting expensive.

I don't remember much else, outside of collecting every Cal Ripken Jr. card I could get a hand on, seeking desirable cards (generally rookies), and spending hours looking over statistics on the card backs. (In those pre-Internet days, baseball cards were a primary source of information for such things.) I also recall large (500+ card) sets, a 'series 2' release for some sets (released after trades happened during the season, to account for changing players or rookies), and various oddities (like a 1989 Billy Ripken card being valuable because of an obscenity, initially unnoticed by the card publisher, on the bottom of his bat).

Collecting Today

Though the bubble burst on sports card collecting, it is an industry that still exists with a smaller, if dedicated, fanbase. Many card makers went out of business or were bought out by others. Topps is still around; Donruss is, too, (under their own name or their owner, Panini's). And there are a score of others (though not Score; they sold out to Panini in 1998). The other differences as I see them:

- there are now a lot of 'specialty' sets; it's not just "Topps 2023 baseball," for example, but they have variations (Topps Chrome and others). It is very hard for me to determine which, if any, are the 'basic' set.

- sets seem smaller. They no longer include every (or nearly every) player on a team.

- there are a lot of inserts in packs, from autographed cards, special versions, or even game memorabilia (my son got a card with a small piece of a game-worn jersey in it). It feels 'ritzier' than the old days.

- they routinely publish retired players in various sets (in the eighties, only current/active players were in sets for the most part).

- the Internet age makes tracking down single cards easy (and often a cheaper route than buying packs).

I may add reference sites to this post as I come across them; I've linked to a few above. The general rule for collecting today applies across eras: be responsible. I have been tempted to buy a few old sets (okay . . . I *did* buy a few old sets) because they are so cheap and bring back fond memories. But any hobby like this can balloon fast and create unhealthy obsession. 

Trading Card Database: a nice site that catalogs sets throughout the years

Cardboard Connection: lots of information about card sets, including checklists