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Thread: The Hobby is Dead

  
  1. #1





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    Unhappy The Hobby is Dead

    I have noticed, especially in the past year or so, that the same 50 members are on all of the hockey card trading sites. Most of those 50 are also the top 40 or so seller on eBay for hockey cards.... and these are the ones that I run into year after year at the same trade shows.... Haven't you noticed that the boards are showing fewer and fewer posts? Not just on a great site like this.. but on ALL the others... is the hobby nothing more than a collection of "gool ol' days" stories from the 90's?

    With the [apparent] demise/absorption/sale/amalgamation of ITG into Leaf (and the silence of ITG's Brian Price - god I loved his blog), the loss of Panini (money NHL money NHL money... that is what killed Panini hockey)... and what should prove to be a "hahahahaha we won" attitude from UD... I am going to call it.

    At 1:59 am on September 15, 2014... the Hockey Card Collecting Hobby died.


    Sure, there are small pockets of collectors here and there.... god knows Wayne can sell 1/8 of the print run of UD Series I up in Edmonton... but is it alive? At very best the Hobby is a zombie... a ghost of its former self endlessly dragging on as it's collector base cruises through their 30's into their 40's, 50's, 60's and beyond. I don't even know if there are mainstream hockey fans, let alone hockey card fans, anymore, under the age of 30.

    Has this hobby gone the way of the Coin hobby (where the base metal content of the coin is 95% of it's value?)... or worse yet stamps (have you received an eBay package with stamps from the 1950's being used as postage? I have ALL THE TIME).


    So is it then fair to say that, except to us ardent resilient 50, hockey cards are worth nothing? If you saw 5 Mike Modano UD RCs at a garage sale for $1, would you snag it? How about 50... 500? Lets get out of the 90's print run insanity... lets go for YG's. How many of us have a hoard of 250 or more YG common cards we would be lucky to get a buck each for?


    If the hobby is dead... if it is us rare few left... then what now? Panini lets you make your own autograph card now (executive cuts)... ITG used to have those awesome Made to Order cards (never did get one of those... sigh).... there are super patches... HOF autos of players dead for 50 years... super limited 1/1 cards... but there is only 50 of us. When I had a shop in Red Deer my #1 selling product was Victory (followed closely by UD Series I) and my #1 selling card was Sidney Crosby Diary of a Phenom cards ($1/pack for victory and 2 for $1 with top loaders for the Crosbys).


    It has been a good ride. I still love my 80's rookies... and still have my Bourques and Messiers in top loaders. I still hold a hand full of Paul Coffey RC's and think.... Gretzky/Kurri/Coffey.... not to mention the old days when a Beckett disciple could go "ok 26 x $80... WOW!" I still love to look at my Gretzky rookies... in inch think lucite screw downs....

    I still chase for Red Deer Rebel ITG cards... and those pesky Topps Archives cards... as well at the GOTG board cards (stupid multicoloured set)...For what I collect... I have had 3 responses on 5 sites in the past 2 years... and a neat card comes up on eBay once every 2 months.....


    So what do you think. Please take a moment and give me your 2 cents. Cheer me up if you can!
    Last edited by Rraincock; 09-15-2014 at 04:10 AM.

  2. #2




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    The hobby is nowhere near dead. The camaraderie amongst collectors has dropped off big time though. I used to trade frequently a couple years ago. It got to the point though where it seemed everybody "collects" the same players. Guess what? I'm not trading my Crosby or Toews or Stamkos cards for your no-name guy just because I need it for my PC. Sure, I'd love to add that card to my collection, but it's a trade that makes no sense for me value-wise. So I figured, why should I trade these good cards away only to have the other person sell them for lots of money, when I could just cut out the middle man and buy a bunch of cards I like?

    That's why I started buying and selling, as I can add way more cards to my collection. I don't scan and show off any of my PC, because a Show and Tell thread will likely get 5 responses, two of which say "cool cards" and 3 of which say "I'm interested in card x".

    However, through selling, I have found that there are TONS of people out there collecting hockey cards. I have sold to someone in every Canadian Province, every US State, and many countries around the world. Many of these people are fantastic to deal with and I will gladly try to find cards they need for their collections.

    Many of these fine people also do not belong to any message boards, and often it's because they encounter a large amount of people trying to trade junk for their good stuff. I'd say the hobby is strong. The forums are filled with many people that I don't have the time of day for. There are many good ones, but they are far outweighed by the bad ones.

  3. #3




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    Yeah that's true, there are a lot of people that aren't fun to deal with. Don't you hate when someone is interested in one of your cards with a certain value and they ask you to check their trade list and they have a ton of 1$ inserts? You just feel like asking them: Is this a joke!

    But they're still a few out there that are nice to deal with.

    The hobby is probably not dead yet but not heading in the right direction. I believe 2014-15 will be a really bad season for card collectors. No more Panini and average RC's in UD products. I will certainly be buying less this year.

  4. #4




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    I don't think it's dead, but 2008 didn't do it a favor and a lot of people are still trying to recuperate from that time. Factor that in with stagnating salaries and rising costs and you'll find that a lot of people don't have extra cash to invest into their hobbies anymore. UD got their monopoly back too, so let's not expect a price break anytime soon either.

  5. #5




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    Things i have learned about this hobby that make it more enjoyable for ME!!!....

    1) I don't collect the latest and "greatest" things/RC's
    2) I pretty much gave up trying to trade ... I don't want card X I sell ..it's worth what it sold for .... I want Card XYZ I buy it , it's worth what I paid
    3) I bust wax that I enjoy opening ex Anthology ( I love the variety of hits ) , Retro when it became cheaper ( Liked the variety of the inserts ) , just did some ITG Ultimate at the cheaper price was great fun . See what i did there .. one from each company
    4) I PC Gilmour and Lanny McDonald and random Leafs Cards ... I don't try to get every card on the planet . I grab things I like and can afford

    I guess my point is ... do what you enjoy and don't try to keep up with the neighbor with the flashy new cards and there are "idiots" in every facet of this world , you can't avoid them it's how you deal with them that matters .

    With all that said ... I am concerned about the UD exclusive , I did enjoy some Panini products and this ITG/Leaf business .... well I think when we see Ultimate release will say a lot about that situation .

    Anyway enough of my 2 cents

    Cheers

  6. #6




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    It's also the off-season and there's not much to talk about, so there's that.

  7. #7




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    The hobby is far from dead. You get out of the hobby exactly what you put into it. I'm closing in on 11,000 Habs cards and still going strong trading and buying where ever I can.

  8. #8
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    The hobby is far from dead. You get out of the hobby exactly what you put into it. I'm closing in on 11,000 Habs cards and still going strong trading and buying where ever I can.

    ^^^^^ The big bolded part.


    I agree completely. This hobby is far from dead.


    I do think there are issues with the economics of it, but they'll correct themselves over time.

    To respond to a couple of the direct points in the opening post.....


    No, I wouldn't buy a Mike Modano RC for $1. I wouldn't buy it for a dime. Why would I?? I own one already, so what exactly am I supposed to do with another copy? I don't need it for a set... I don't really collect anything that it would relate to... so why am I (or anyone??) supposed to want it?

    I do not have a hoard of 250+ YGs sitting at home (unless you count the complete sets I've built) but you're right: Anything older than 13-14.... if you've got common / no-name filler type YGs... you'd be very luck to get $1 for them. So what? Because Upper Deck "short prints" them, inserting them 6 per box... people are supposed to want those cards years after the release? They're not particularly rare, and the only people who really want them are those of us that are building the sets. Guess what?? I stopped building my set of 2011-12 Upper Deck back during the 2011-12 season, as did 98% of people that actually want to build that set. So while some people might think that a YG of Erik Condra or Jonathan Blum should be considered a "hit" since it's a rookie card.... why should anyone because expected to care much about those cards? (Sorry to any Condra or Blum fans out there. I picked a couple of guys at random)


    You mention the glory days of the 90s. What the 90s should have taught all of us is that collecting cards is, and should be, a hobby. It's not an investment. Of course you can get lucky on the purchase of wax, hit something really big, and make back a ton of cash - but for the most part you will not. You cards are NOT going to go up in value over time. Will some of them? Of course. Most of them will drop though.

    Even one of the most coveted cards of all time, a Wayne Gretzky Rookie, has lost tons of value over the years. It guides for $900 (something like that) which is roughly the same as it did 15 years ago. Some people would say that means it's maintained its value.... it's actually lost a lot. How much more did you get for $900 back in 1999 ??


    What's happened to this hobby is change. The internet has made the world a very small place. A card that's #ed /10 is pretty easy to find right after the release. This has given collectors much more power in building the collections they want. Instead of being limited to the one or two local shops, and the odd cards show for purchasing (or trading with our friends) we've got eBay, forums, and a whole long list of other options. What does this mean?? It means we don't have to accept anything less than what we want EXACTLY.


    I collect a pretty wide variety of stuff. Bill Ranford, All Time Edmonton Oilers, Upper Deck Series 1/2 sets, along with a few other random sets from over the years. Working away at a master set of 1994-95 Score at the moment. How many people collect the same thing as me?? How many people have anything I'm going to be interested in for trade? if they do... do I have something that matches up??? Why is that important anyway? Most of the online trades I'm still able to make are right around release times, when set builders are looking for stuff (and I'm looking for stuff for that set too). I bust 3 or 4 boxes of UD Series 1, you do the same, and we trade to help fill each other's sets.


    As for this becoming an older man's hobby.... I think to some degree you're correct (go to a card show, and men between the ages of 30-50 is going to be the biggest demographic) but it's not without younger collectors. Kids have more options, more things to do today.... and there just isn't as many that are into cards as there was when I started.


    But a dead hobby? The products are still flying off the shelves.... so I think it's still very premature to be writing some sort of eulogy.

  9. #9




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    People my age (early 30s) who collected as a young kid are coming back now that we have some money to play with. Just talking from why I am back into collecting... I opened a rubbermaid that had 100,000 cards in it 2-3 years ago that I hadn't opened in 20 years. I tossed 80,000 cards in the dumpster and traded/sold/rebought cards I wanted to be in my PC. Now I have a lean and mean collection of players / sets that I display :) I love collecting as it's as much about the cards as it is meeting/talking to people on the boards here and at local shows / card shops.
    Collect what you like. Simple.

  10. #10




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    Traffic on most types of forums have been down for years. The fishing forums that I participate on have nowhere near the same levels of traffic that they had before. There becomes a point in the life of forum/community where everything has been discussed, at least with regards to past issues and the search function can find you pretty much anything.

    And there may be 50 hard cores that show up on these forums and at shows but there are many many more buyers out in the market. I just lost a vintage card yesterday that sold at 3x the previous sale, and all quality vintage is selling very well right now. Vintage is a very big part of the hobby and if you are burned out on modern you should check it out.

    And Modern can't be doing that bad, I see crazy prices on NT cards. I mean someone just paid $800 for a Felix Potvin card. Look at these closed NT sales:

    http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...+hockey&_sop=3

    Which leads to the bigger point, that they hobby has changed and for some that may be a bad thing. If you PC a player that never makes an impact in the NHL, you should expect your collection to be worth close to zero. If you collect future HOF's, and current HOF's from popular releases, my guess is there will always be strong demand.

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