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I just can't catch a break around here. I know that there are people out there who read my article every month, and my editor has the stats to prove it, but there has not been one single comment made about of my latest articles. I thought last month's would really get your creative juices flowing because you have a budget and a three decade time span to look at toys you want to give to yourself just to have something to play with in the past.
This month I want to steer clear of the normal toy collecting stuff and ask one simple question: What has happened to Baseball Cards? This can include any sport in America like Baseball, Football (Not Soccer), Basketball and Ice Hockey.
I remember back in the late 80's and early 90's when times were good and the Internet was still being worked on by college computer whizzes, and I was just starting in Junior High (7th and 8th grade around here,) I had a budget of $20 a week to spend on whatever I wanted. Most of the money at first went to comic books, but I quickly grew tired of Wolverine, the Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants, X-Force, Batman, Superman, and whatever else was out there. Eventually I moved on to collecting Baseball, Basketball and Football cards.
I was kind of lucky in one respect because there were two new companies trying to make a name for themselves in the whole sports card collecting field. Those companies were Upper Deck and Skybox. Unlike Topps, Donruss, Fleer and Bowman; Upper Deck had pictures on both sides of the card as well as stats for the previous years that player had played. Upper Deck also had this little round Hologram on the back of the card that was exclusive to the company so that they could not be counterfeited as easily as those from the other companies. Skybox started out small at first, focusing mostly on the NBA teams from around the country and they had full color pictures on the front and back of their cards as well as the stats from the previous years. The one thing that really made the Skybox cards stand out was the cardboard that they made their cards out of. It would be hard to duplicate those cards because they were printed on such heavy card stock.
By the mid-1990's though, things started getting gimmicky with all the sports card companies. First there was Upper Deck's special Micheal Jordan Baseball card that came randomly inserted in packs. I was lucky to get one of these cards and might one day sell it if I get hard up for cash. Then there was special foil cards put out by companies like Topps that came in their more expensive Stadium Club packs. Then there was the random autograph card that came out for all the companies, and finally the game used jersey and bat cards that had either a small square of jersey or a splinter of the game used bat for that player.
I managed to get out of the sports trading card game rather quickly in the mid 1990's and back into my first love, and that was toys. Although my $20 did not go as far as it once did, I had some of my favorite GI Joes to pick up that were released as new versions of themselves as well as seeing that my second favorite toy line, Star Wars, was being re-released by a new company. Plus there were new lines coming out like the Power Rangers, and that was hot as can be and still are to this day.
I recently got nostalgic for my Baseball cards and went looking for them on line. I know one of my favorite companies, Upper Deck, was still in business because they are putting out the Yu-Gi-Oh CCG so they have the market cornered in this post Pokemon age of CCG's. I know the market has hit an all time low for them unlike the early 1990's when there were at least a few sports card shops in every town and you could trade cards with your best friend if you knew just what to offer him. I looked at places like EBay as well as some on-line distributors and was shocked. They are still offering the autographed cards just only like 1-2 a box but it's only select players. The game used jerseys and bats now come in a separate line that comes five cards to a pack, 12-15 packs a box (depending on the company) and again it's only select players. What happened to getting packs of cards that are like 10 cards a pack and 24 packs to a box? I don't care about autographed cards, and find that they are mostly of players I have vary little interest in. Plus packs of cards used to be $2.00 at the most, now they are charging $5.00 a pack for five cards.
Thanks but no thanks, nostalgia trip. I'll stick with something that's been in my life a lot longer than your collectable sports cards, and that is role playing games.
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