Still New and Happy To Be Having Fun

**MadColtsFan** · 12-15-2010, 01:07 AM

I have recently returned to sports card collecting. It is amazing how much sports card collecting has changed. The local hobby shop has disappeared. A new paradigm has emerged to rejuvinate interest. There is more manufacturer competition. This forced manufacturer innovation in game used and short print, especially autographed, memorabilia.

While the guy who was known as hobby shop owner, who could be located and trusted, turned into a dinosaur, the internet emerged to allow traders to network accross great distances thus eliminating the middle man. But without a doubt, the single biggest factor was the emergence of online auctions for sports cards (and other memorbilia) and the ongoing emergence of clever ways to participate.

When I started trading, I had to get a monthly Beckett's Magazine for each sport in which I wanted to research value. Back then, I wondered how I could ever get these cards. Now, I get real time prices, worldwide inventory and an impossible number of new cards.

Though manufacturer's have innovated manufacturing techniques to make cards both more appealing and harder for counterfeiters to foil , why have certificates of authenticity from professional graders flourished?

I will be dabbling in $10 and up trades.