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Updated: 11:15 PM Jul 10, 2007
The Demise of Baseball Cards
What once was a booming industry, now is on the decline. So where have all the baseball card collectors gone? Posted: 9:50 PM Jul 10, 2007 |
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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.
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Many kids grow up collecting baseball cards, and some continue into adulthood. Some experts we talked to say interest seems to be evaporating.
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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.
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"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."
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She says it's not because prices have gone down. It's the demand for rare baseball cards.
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"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."
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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"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."
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Erickson says another reason he stopped collecting baseball cards is the popularity of comic books and football cards.
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The card trading industry is in such bad shape the leading baseball card distributor Topps is now up for sale.
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