It's not a growth industry that's for sure. LOL
I've been in the hobby a long time and like others have said I just try to find the parts of the hobby I enjoy.
People have been complaining for years now about one aspect of the hobby or another. For the most part, card companies just don't listen. Not surprisingly there are less and less collectors.
Card manufacturers have these funny habits of 1) generating a new type of card that becomes valuable and then over-producing them to the point that they lose their value (see: error cards, insert cards, jersey cards, numbered rookies, etc...) and 2) making boxes with fewer, fancier cards that are increasingly expensive. Let's be real, anytime you create a product that is a tin of randomly selected small pieces of cardboard with pictures of players on it and charge $400, that product is going to lose against all sorts of other ways to spend $400 of a sport loving consumer's disposable income. It's a very niche market card companies are trying to appeal to.
The vast majority of cards released over the past 25 years have never increased in value. Unless someone's buying a T206 Honus Wagner, or something along the same lines, I have no idea where people get the idea that cards in general are an "investment". There are much better ways to try and make money.
I don't think the hobby's dying, but iI don't see it ever being the popular pastime it was in the early 90's. That said, a lot of people still have that boom-era get rich mind set. The hobby would be much better if people let that go and just treat it as something fun for kids and overgrown kids to do in their spare time. Eventually, pretty much everyone figures out there's no money to be made.
I've been in the hobby a long time and like others have said I just try to find the parts of the hobby I enjoy.
People have been complaining for years now about one aspect of the hobby or another. For the most part, card companies just don't listen. Not surprisingly there are less and less collectors.
Card manufacturers have these funny habits of 1) generating a new type of card that becomes valuable and then over-producing them to the point that they lose their value (see: error cards, insert cards, jersey cards, numbered rookies, etc...) and 2) making boxes with fewer, fancier cards that are increasingly expensive. Let's be real, anytime you create a product that is a tin of randomly selected small pieces of cardboard with pictures of players on it and charge $400, that product is going to lose against all sorts of other ways to spend $400 of a sport loving consumer's disposable income. It's a very niche market card companies are trying to appeal to.
The vast majority of cards released over the past 25 years have never increased in value. Unless someone's buying a T206 Honus Wagner, or something along the same lines, I have no idea where people get the idea that cards in general are an "investment". There are much better ways to try and make money.
I don't think the hobby's dying, but iI don't see it ever being the popular pastime it was in the early 90's. That said, a lot of people still have that boom-era get rich mind set. The hobby would be much better if people let that go and just treat it as something fun for kids and overgrown kids to do in their spare time. Eventually, pretty much everyone figures out there's no money to be made.