[tdog4468]

All of the obvious already stated plus there are more things to factor in as well.

1: Down Economy.
In a slow economy the first things to take a hit in price are traditionally Luxury Items. Things ppl dont need or consider a necessity. Sports card, comics and all collectibles are Luxury Items and thus will take a hit in value as ppl that dont have the money to buy force stores to lower the price so they can sell.

2: Player Expectations and not meeting them.
Bo Jackson, Jose Canseco, Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, Drew Bledsoe, Tim Salmon, Larry Johnson, Chris Webber, etc etc etc
Names look familiar? Check the value of them in the old Beckett/Tuff Stuff and compare now. If you were collecting then and bought vintage and established stars then you made a wise choice. If you bought rookies of these guys, you got hosed.

3: Supply and Demand.
For ALOT of reasons plain and simple there are NOT as many collectors in this hobby like there was back in the early 90's. Those cards from the 90's are now being sold by people that now have no interest in the hobby to a bunch of people that either A: never heard of them or B: dont care about who they are. Now that there is an over flux of 80's-early 2000's cards out there that nobody wants. Hence price must come down.

Flaw with item 1 is this:
At the national seminar a few years ago the card companies presented infromation in the collecting habits and trends of us the collectors. What was at the forefront of their presentation was that people who do recreational things (like collecting cards) will continue to do it even with less money. So they don't care about a slow economy they know people will still purchase and collect.