As the card collecting hobby exploded with pandemic fueled growth, the amount of stories on the topic were also exploding, coming fast and furious from mainstream media to sports media to more niche hobby media locations. With the hobby coming off of its peak, those stories have also trended downwards.
But we did get a recent article on the State of the Hobby published by the Athletic ($) focusing on interviews of various hobby insiders or those that work at the highest levels on the business side of the hobby such as Ken Goldin, the VP of Marketing at Panini, the co-owner of one of the big 3 online retailers (Dave & Adam), etc. There were some mixed messages throughout, but the overwhelming opinion was that either it was great or still really good even if we weren’t at the heights that were reached in the last year.
What felt lacking in that article, and generally in a lot of the articles of the past few years, was the average collector’s opinion. I set out to get some of those opinions.
Current View of the Hobby
It’s become somewhat of a meme on social media to declare that “the hobby is dead”. Sometimes people are actually being serious while at other times it’s an opposite-style joke attached to sky-rocketing prices on something like the recent Star Wars Sapphire product or the most expensive trading card ever sold with a t206 Honus Wagner getting $7.25 Million in a Goldin Auction or lengthy lines at the just completed National Sports Collectors Convention (The National). So what do some regular collectors feel about the current state of the hobby?
“The scarcity of product on retail shelves and the immense buy up of product during the pandemic was such a whirlwind of mixed positives and negatives for so many of us. It inherently made our collections and all cards and memorabilia much more valuable, but the joy of just ripping wax was met with financial stresses. To me, the collectors that have/had self control are going to continue to thrive, and just like any other point in the hobby, those that spend foolishly will continue to spend themselves into ramen noodles and bologna type budgets.”
With only a few exceptions, I personally have seen products on my retail shelves on a regular basis over the last 6 months, which is a complete change from the two years prior. The social media posts of retail flippers lining up waiting for restocks are pretty much non-existent. To Blaine’s second point, it was a comment I heard often in my discussions with this group - you have to be smart with your money in the hobby right now. Spending indiscriminately and not doing your homework is absolutely going to get you crushed if you care at all about the the value of the cards you end up with.
“What I keep wondering to myself is if this is the junk wax bubble 2.0? Sometimes it depends what morning it is. Some mornings I’m like, yeah it is. And then there’s some days I wake up and I’m like, but now we have parallels. Like I know there’s only 250 of these, or only 2021 of those. And that prevents it.”
“I’m pretty skeptical of cards remaining where they are. I think the pure volume of parallels and all of that makes it really hard to see (remaining at current levels). If we’re hitting…a recession…I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but less money then means less money to spend on the hobby. And this is strictly a hobby for a lot of people. And the moment they (investors) see these cards going down, people are going to panic. ”
Card Ladder Indexes Quarterly % Change snapshot on 8/10/2022
The value of base cards has absolutely tanked. In fact, almost every single Card Ladder Index is down over the last three months with the exception of Pre-War Vintage. While parallels are supposed to create an artificial scarcity that prevents the Junk Wax Era from recurring, at what point are the sheer volume of parallels going to negate that scarcity? In products like Prizm, it sure feels like sooner rather than later. In Mat’s second point, as the hobby generally continues to drift lower, there is definitely potential for panic. I haven’t seen that classic and widespread “capitulation” phase that would signal a hard bottom of the market, but even if I don’t think it will happen and honestly don’t want to see it happen, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Keep an eye out for a large amount of collectors looking to sell of the entirety of their collections for bottom dollar.
“In terms of people that are currently in the hobby, I don’t think many of them will leave. People have been doing this way too long. And fortunately I think people have invested way too much time and money to want to just hang up the gloves and call it a night, that they’re done.”
As the market took off, I saw about a third of the collectors in the various hobby communities I participate in slowly but surely drift away or completely disappear with the pandemic boom. The majority of the ones that I spoke to said it was due to the exponential increases in prices for everything from sealed products, breaks, and singles. With an influx of new collectors during the pandemic, I’ve likewise seen a similar number of those folks exit the scene after blasting through their money and learning a lot of the hard lessons. Also adding in that the short-term flipping game has dried up outside a few specific instances, the majority of those participants have moved on to other more lucrative ventures.
With the pre-pandemic and pandemic collectors whittled down, it does feel like Justin’s comment rings true. I don’t anticipate a huge exodus still to come in the hobby. We’ve already seen a lot of that happen slowly and organically over time.. There is probably still some capitulation sellers that will be looking to get out at the bottom that may grab headlines, but the reality is while the dollars involved may be big, the amount of people doing it will likely be small. I could be wrong though, and that would set off short term panic like Smada mentions above.
“I just think we’re at a place where obviously things are in a little bit of a state of flux because of the economy, because of the stock market, because of inflation, and cards and the industry are directly tied to that. And I think we’ve seen that people’s discretionary spending is down, it’s all linked. So when something like that happens and you have to take a step back and think a little bit harder about how you’re spending your money and where you’re putting it.”
This is a huge lesson that pretty much everyone in the hobby has to learn. The question is almost always how painful will that lesson be. Fortunately I learned it, for the most part (2020 Bowman Chrome notwithstanding), prior to the pandemic so the financial impact was less for me than it would be for collectors learning this lesson during the pandemic. Now more than ever, as Ant expresses, with the economy in flux and the highest prices for cards we’ve ever seen, you really have to understand what you are spending your money on and why you are spending it there. You can no longer get away with flying by the seat of your pants. Buying sealed product and flipping it for twice what you paid due to scarcity or grading base rookie cards and selling for a profit is no longer a guarantee. It’s actually more the exception than the norm now.
“I think stuff is going to continue coming down in price. I just never saw it as being sustainable what they (card manufacturers and distributors) were charging for things. Unfortunately a lot of people have been priced out. I don’t see as many kids unless they have the means for it or their families do, which kinda sucks cause you always need a youth movement.”
Diego gets to see this a lot first-hand as he works at a Local Card Shop (LCS) and goes to various card shows. Our hobby will have to figure out, and sports like baseball in general, in how to keep kids engaged if and when the money making opportunities for the average collector vanishes. As the hobby skews older, which it tends to do in less popular times, the energy feels like it dissipates. And high prices are most impactful to the younger elements of the hobby. It’s a conundrum on how to keep prices down, keep the hobby engaging, and still preserve the ability to keep cards having some monetary value.
Future View of the Hobby
Fanatics was a very common theme in regard to the future of the hobby as it is literally the 800-pound gorilla in the Hobby (and they were barely a whisper a little over 12 months ago). They basically have the largest stake in the game and rumors abound that it will shortly grow even larger. Here are some of the thoughts of these collectors on the future of the hobby.
“Honestly, the future is in Fanatics hands. They could easily destroy the hobby and return us to the junk wax era, or they could capitalize on realizing they have exclusive rights to licensed, cardboard, and NFT’s for the majority of major sports and continue to grow the game in ways Topps and Panini perhaps never got to actualize. Whatever happens, I’m here for it.”
“The whole Fanatics thing. I feel kind of positive about it right now. I think Topps is kind of all over the place and I hope that Fanatics overseeing that will rein it in, (hope they will) have a good plan.”
“I hope that Fanatics do what they need to do. I don’t quite know what they need to do, but I hope they go in the correct direction because they have legitimately every single sports card license except for International Soccer. They need to think like collectors and think less like businessmen. ”
“(Fanatics) is the great unknown and it’s a little bit scary. What’s going to be the real driver of how things go and are we going to enter another junk wax era or not is, does Fanatics care about the long term health of the hobby? Or do they see this as a five or ten year play where they’re just like “we’re going to just print stuff and sell stuff and be happy with what profits we make over the next few years?” ”
A lot to unpack here on the Fanatics topic. Plenty of unknowns and uncertainty around where they will be taking the hobby. As Blaine and Justin said, they essentially have the majority of sports currently in house or will at some point in the future. With the rumors coming out of the National that Fanatics purchasing Panini is a done deal with mostly just the details to iron out, the only major property not in house will be the NHL. This gives Fanatics unprecedented power and control over the hobby.
As the old adage goes, “With great power comes great responsibility” and I think everyone here expresses the hope that Fanatics take that responsibility seriously. Or, as Ant said, does Fanatics purely view this as a business venture, regardless of the “good of the hobby” fluff that has been disseminated up to this point? As Justin said, “They need to think like collectors and think less like businessmen.”
Given Fanatics strong points with distribution and marketing and access to their own gigantic customer base of sports fans, their ability to potentially grow the hobby far exceeds anyone that have been players in the space before. As Smada said, he is positive about the future of the hobby with Fanatics potentially being able to leverage their expertise, have an actual plan unlike the semi-chaos we have seen from Topps recently.
I think it’s hard to argue that the future direction of the hobby isn’t going to be significantly driven by Fanatics.
“I know what I like, I’m going to keep getting what I like, and I’m not going to dwell on the future. I’m making sure I’m spending within my means and getting what I enjoy. I don’t know how many people out there are like me. Hopefully there’s a lot that are, that don’t care about Fanatics and Garbage Pail cards and Star Wars cards. They could come and go, but baseball hopefully stays the same, and as long as it does, I’m happy. ”
“I don’t think the hobby is going anywhere. I am hoping that things go back to a level where people just enjoy collecting for the sake of collecting. If it’s worth a couple bucks, it’s worth a couple bucks, but I really don’t want it to be about money anymore.”
A couple of forward looking thoughts from Adam and Diego that are more purely collector-focused comments. Regardless of where Fanatics takes the hobby or how much influence they have, collectors will find a way to enjoy it. Adam will continue to collect Topps Chrome baseball (trust me, that’s never going away) and spend responsibly. Diego has hope that, while the money element will never go away, it will become less of a driver. The main driver will be collecting cards that you love rather than collecting cards that will make you money. While the two can co-exist, the balance has been significantly on the side of the money equation since the market boom. A return to a more balanced equation would be welcomed by most average collectors in my opinion.
Final Thoughts
The trading card hobby is an unprecedented place. We’ve never seen the amount of money injected into it. That money comes not only from collectors, but the corporate and venture capital spaces. Will that continue to happen? It seems like the irrational exuberance may be disappearing, but there is still a lot of smart money at play that will drive change.
As with anything in life, there have been winners and losers in the hobby with the boom. And as the hobby evolves, there will continue to be winners and losers, but will it be any different than what we’ve seen since the hobby took off? What the average collector I’ve spoken with in this article and elsewhere have said is that we hope that collectors will end up in that winners category, or at least not in the losers category.
Thanks to the collectors that took time out of their days to speak with me (see their info below). There were many others on my list, but I had to cut it off at some point - I’ll come knocking on your door this time next year when I revisit this topic.
The Collectors
Blaine H. - been in the hobby since 2016 and collects St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Lions, and Boston Celtics
Adam G. - came back to the hobby in 2020 and collects New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Topps Chrome. Adam can be found on twitter
Mat Adams a.k.a Smada - President of Prospects Live and an avid collector of vintage focusing on PSA slabs of Hall of Famers. Smada can be found on twitter
Justin P. - came back to the hobby in 2020 and collects Yankees, specifically Derek Jeter, Pokémon, and International Soccer. Justin can be found on twitter and instagram
Anthony (Ant) D. - came back to the hobby in 2019 and is an active collector of Bowman prospects, Formula 1, and short prints. He breaks in his free time as Terrier Card Breaks and can be found on twitter
Diego P. - came back to the hobby in 2017 and is a collector of Yankees and Pokémon. He works at a Local Card Shop in Florida and breaks in his free time as The Sin Bin Breaks (twitter), part of the Wiscardsin group of breakers (twitter)