On Card Collecting And National Trading Card DayAug 03 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Dedicated to all who collect sports cards, and to all who have collected.
Saturday, April 3, 2004 was a special day for a number of sports card collectors. A number of card stores all over the United States and Canada participated in a special promotion to celebrate the hobby. For the first time, five card companies, two hobby publications, and card sellers throughout North America participated in the first National Trading Card Day. The companies who made cards for the event are well-known in the card hobby - Donruss Playoff, Fleer, Press Pass, Topps, and Upper Deck. Six different sports are represented on the cards - baseball, football, basketball, hockey, auto racing, and golf. The athletes included are stars of both the past and present, including Sammy Sosa, Michael Vick, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky. All companies except Fleer produced special card wrappers for their cards. Beckett and Krause Publications, who produce a number of hobby books and magazines, teamed up to create a booklet for the event. Three of my local card stores participated in NTCD activities. I had the time to visit two of them.Even though my first stop, Cheap Seats Cards, usually opens at 10:00 on Saturdays, they opened early to let in the throng of shoppers who were, in part, lured to the store by hourly drawings and chances to win gift certificates. All of the early arrivals were winners anyway, for a number of shoppers, including myself, received a collection of 48 cards that were made for this event and the booklet, which explains the basics of collecting and collecting resources. The store was standing room only for that first hour, as customers came to get their cards, make purchases, and wait to see if they were winners. Some people left with more than they expected, such as T-shirts and other sports-related memorabilia. I happily left with my purchases and freebies. Even though I didn't win anything in the drawings, I did win simply just by going. From there, I headed to Dolton Hobby And Collectibles. This store was also busier than usual for a Saturday, thanks to the cards. The excitement of Cheap Seats, though, wasn't in this store. The free cards and booklet were here, but not the drawings. People who came to Dolton Hobby, however, did experience the same attentive service that is the norm from the staff of the store. They show that good service can speak well for itself, even without additional prizes. I've been a regular shopper here and at Cheap Seats for many years. Both stores do whatever they can to meet the needs of their customers. On occasion, both have been able to make deals with fellow customers so that I could complete certain sets. I, in turn, have provided my doubles to these stores so that others could fill in holes in their sets. They show that camaraderie exists between collectors and customers alike. Those who collect find reward in building sets or collecting their favorite players year after year. It's not just the thrill of the chase and the love of sports that keep us going. It's also about collecting a little bit of sports history. In the sports world of today, players change teams now more than ever. In the sports card landscape, the companies tend to change their strategies as often as some players change uniforms. Once upon a time, these companies made one product per season, and that was it. In the nineties, they started expanding the number of card products they made available to collectors. As a collector, I admit this expansion was fun at first. The fun didn't last, though, as companies added more lines of cards than any one collector could amass. Every year, companies seem intent on introducing something new and exciting to the hobby. All I've seen is collectors losing interest in collecting. I will attest that fewer card stores operate today than did a decade ago. These changes mean I have fewer contacts in card collecting than I once did. I miss those collectors and stores who no longer participate in the hobby. The changes have even impacted some companies. Some companies have been purchased by others. Others went bankrupt, and Pacific has ceased to make cards for Major League Baseball and the National Football League. Pacific, though, continues to manufacture cards for the National Hockey League. It's good to have several companies competing for hobby business, as has been the case for about fifteen years. However, they now offer too much product and too many gimmicks. After all, how many cards of any player does a collector need in any year? It's reached the point where a star athlete can be the subject of over 1,000 cards during the course of his career. Few card lines survive for years on end. Products such as the Topps Heritage and Fleer Goudey cards were in the market for awhile, but are now long gone. Will collectors remember current lines, such as Topps Total and Topps Bazooka, with any fondness five years from now. Even Topps Stadium Club, introduced in 1991 and a longtime mainstay of the hobby, is no longer being made. I know I echo the sentiment of a lot of collectors who have come to believe that more is less. Promotional and variation cards, which used to be harder to find, aren't the special collectibles they once were. Donruss Playoff has inundated the pages of Beckett books and magazines with samples of their cards. When Topps introduced the Bazooka line of basketball cards during the 2003-04 season, they made two cards with the same number for ten veterans and all thirteen rookie lottery picks. In their base brand product, they made a set of 249 cards that they inserted into packs and released before the start of the 2003-04 season. When they issued a factory set during the season, they changed about sixty cards, and added sixteen more rookies who didn't appear in the packs. Moves like these make every card a common, whether a star player is on the cards or not. That is not a tribute to any athlete who plays any sport. Companies have, as a result of their gimmicks, made cards more of a business venture and less of an investment. Any smart collector will say the best investment is the enjoyment derived from card collecting. Collectors only have so many dollars, and I don't know anyone who can afford to acquire every set. Even if they could, where would they find the space for all of the products that have been released over the years. More cards have been made over the last fifteen years than in the decades preceding the card boom. I know that other business ventures, such as gum and other sports memorabilia, help to pay the costs of keeping the presses running. However, any collector can walk into some card stores or shop online and easily find unopened sports product from the late eighties and early nineties. Sports cards aren't just a business; they have become a business excess. One day out of the year to celebrate the hobby isn't going to change it. In fact, one collector friend of mine had the opposite experience of mine during National Trading Card Day. If I were in control of the hobby, I'd want fewer card lines, larger sets, and no memorabilia. Getting an autographed card in a pack might be nice to some people, but it is not a kind gesture from an athlete to a specific collector. I don't understand why anybody would want a piece of an athlete's uniform. Further, just because a uniform has been worn by an athlete, collectors have no assurance that it was worn by the athlete himself. One TV show I watched showed athletes wearing jerseys at a hobby-sponsored event, but in some cases, these players were wearing the jersey of a star teammate. I'd want to put the trade back into trading cards. It's an aspect of the hobby that has grown more and more absent. Someone needs to keep more of an eye on the hobby future, and not so much on the present. I don't see a younger generation collecting cards in the way older generations have embraced collecting. Some change is good, for familiar routines can go stale. The most refreshing move card companies could make is to bring old collectors back, and attract new collectors. I hope companies will slow the presses and realize that collectors have more than enough card choices. They try too hard to appease collectors who want the chance to find cards with memorabilia. It's too bad that finishing a set simply isn't enough for some people anymore. They're not happy just getting a piece of pasteboard. They want a piece of the game. As long as they want a piece of the game, someone will be happy to give them that piece. I'd be happy if more collectors and companies understood the trade concept of trading cards. I don't trade as much anymore, but not for lack of effort. It's just that traders are harder to find. It would be a shame if that trend were to continue for me into 2005. For a list of the cards issued during the 2004 National Trading Card Day, visit this website: http://www.beckett.com/ntcd/  |
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