The hobby of collecting baseball cards is a tradition almost as old as the game itself. But some say the baseball card industry is on the decline.

Many kids grow up collecting baseball cards, and some continue into adulthood. Some experts we talked to say interest seems to be evaporating.

Years ago, the baseball card business generated more than 1.2 billion dollars a year. Alyssa Leystra, an employee of River City Hobbies, says that's not the case anymore.

"The sales of sport cards have gone down quite a bit especially recently. We used to buy cards, but we don't so much right now because they're not selling."

She says it's not because prices have gone down. It's the demand for rare baseball cards.

"Most of the prices are pretty set because of the rarity of the cards. They're just selling less, so less people are willing to pay the money for them."

Opinions differ on why the popularity of collecting baseball cards has disappeared. Some say it may be because of the baseball strike in the mid-nineties.

"Baseball, I mean it was fun for a while when the packs were cheap. That's why I started getting into it. But with basketball being as popular as it was and then Upper Deck started making some really neat stuff back then, so that's kind of why I switched over," says collector Brian Erickson.

Erickson used to collect baseball cards, but he says the price of a pack of cards has gone up so much he can't afford them.

"It was fun because you'd get a couple autographed cards here or there but it was ridiculous. I couldn't afford twelve dollars a pack or what ever it was."

Erickson says another reason he stopped collecting baseball cards is the popularity of comic books and football cards.

The card trading industry is in such bad shape the leading baseball card distributor Topps is now up for sale.