Is the Hockey Card Hobby Healthy?

[mikesilvia]

Or is it twirling into its unavoidable doom? It may seem real healthy despite the worst financial global crisis since 1930’s, despite collapsing economies, despite layoffs and desperate people with no help in sight. But the hockey card products keep on selling.That in itself should be a great proof the hockey card products are healthy, [...]

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[30ranfordfan]

Great points.

There is another point I'd like to bring up, that I think will also really help the eventual down turn of the hobby. Sort of relates back to the "super rookie" phenominom the article talked about, but a much larger scale.

This era of short printed rookie cards, I think, is going to kill things. While SPing cards like Upper Deck Young Guns certainly means that my Crosby RC will hold, and probably gain, its value over time..... it also means that I had to WAY overpay to get many of the other cards in the set, especially if I completed it during the 05-06 season.

Look at the current crop of rookies (the 08-09 guys). I have a feeling that as Stamkos imporves, the prices people are paying now for his cards will end up looking like pretty good deals. Steve Mason? If he continues to get better, sure.... no worries about the prices we're paying.

But looks at some of the lesser names. How much was a Justin Pogge YG running during the season? $10 ?? He might be a bad example though, becuase it always seems like Leaf rookies get a bit of a premium :) What about someone like Wayne Simmonds? (from LA). What are you going to pay for his YG? I think it books for $8 (common YGs all do) so you can probably pick it up for $4-$5 pretty easily. Maybe even $2-$3 if you look hard. Does anyone expect to be able to sell it for more than $1 in a couple of years???

Now, I may have picked a player that ends up blossiming, and turns into a 30 goal scorer. Who knows. But I can say with reasonable certainty that aroung 80 of the 100 YGs cards from 08-09 Upper Deck will all regularly sell for $1 or less in 2 or 3 years time. That is a horrible return on investment for anyone hanging onto these singles. The big wave of people who have taken up the hobby (hockey specifically) since the 05-06 season.... how long are they going to stick around when they see their collections falling further and further in value each year?

I get why Upper Deck made the switch almost 10 years ago. (SPing RCs). It was a good way to make sure that cards retained their value, and it was a good way to drive up the cost of wax. The problem is that only a small percentage of the cards they make have this hold true. This isn't just a problem with Young Gungs. This is true with all the sets that are being produced. How much would you expect to pay for a common player's FW Auto RC from a couple of years ago? Nothing. A buck or two, that's it. SPx Jersey / RCs ??? Again..... after they year they were realesed, these cards bottom out in prices.

I don't know what the solution is. When you SP all the RCs, you inflate the values of the no-names, and they're sure to bottom out in a short time. If you don't SP them, they'll just never be worth anything.

Ice and Black Diamond might be the kinds of sets that get it right. You SP all the rookies, but you tier them. The biggest names get extra short printed.... where they common ones (with a couple thosand copies) arn't really short printed at all. I don't think you could do this with every set though. It would end up meaning that very few RCs of the best players each year ever actually get made.Certainly not enough to go around, the prices for the big names would reach much higher levels, and you'd have people leaving the hobby in frustration. You also couldn't go back to not SPing them. Not if Upper Deck wants to still charge as much for their wax (and that, ultimatly, may be the problem). How could you justify $100 a box for Series 1.... when the best card was a $5 RC?? You couldn't.

I don't know. Between poor long term value in the RCs, the over production of 'Game Used' cards, and how few cards / per pack / per box you get with most sets anymore.... I do really agree with the article. There is an inevitable collapse comming.

[bidds55]

As a hobby, our hobby is fine. As a business however, "the hobby" is struggling mightily. I'm hearing of shops closing, we've all seen the collapse of the once might beckett, and rumours of financial difficulties at several hobby related businesses large and small abound.

[THE MESSIAH]

As a hobby, our hobby is fine. As a business however, "the hobby" is struggling mightily. I'm hearing of shops closing, we've all seen the collapse of the once might beckett, and rumours of financial difficulties at several hobby related businesses large and small abound.

Sorry I have to disagree with you Paul, the " Hobby" is not fine, not by a long shot.... Patch faking, Fraudulent eBay sellers, paypal charge back, Upper Deck's Monopoly and all the issues attached to its customer service over the past 5 years... You cannot separate the " business " from the " hobby" , all these a/n issues is effecting the hobby and you are seeing numbers decline.... I hear everyday about people who are quitting the hobby because of the business side of it... Hence the Hobby as a Hobby is not fine... I think the economy is a factor, but I think even if the economy was healthy, you would still see a decline in the Hobby, mainly due to Upper Deck's current "business model "

As far as Beckett and any other business, ie. hobby shops, sports magazine's closing due to a recession, well I am a firm believer that if you run a business responsibly, that it will survive, regardless of the economy... Survival of the fittest!!

Business is a trust, without that trust, business fails!! The Hobby as a whole, is not very trustworthy currently... Fawad.

[Goose97]

This scenario has played over again, and again. The last twenty years has seen the ups and downs. Funny corrolation would have to be if you pay close attention to the Stock markets, and hobby love. Usually when one goes down, the other goes up.

I can say from where I sit(Saskatoon), there is immunity from these economic times, and people from my city don't nescessarily have worries about finding a job. Even if they lose thiers, they can easily find another, and other collectors here that I talk to have been finding a bonanza of deals. I know one collector that is going to Las Vegas next weekend just to "load up" on bargain basement deals. This guy goes down every year, and comes back with tons of stuff. He sets up at a local flea market every sunday with this vampped stockpile, and gradually sells it off at 50%bv or less throughout the year. He does make a profit.

As the health goes of this hobby of ours. Give us players to cheer for, and we will chase thier stuff. This is amplified especially in hard times too. When gloom and doom is what you see, we as the preverbial human race always try to find something to root for, or rally behind. What better thing to throw your effort behind such as scoring that 1/1 of your favorite player. Love for the card=reward to your senses. Dollar value of it... Not required! Absolutely not!

I have always been an advocate (especially after watching all those kids in the early 90's get cards because thier parents thought they'd make tons of money off them) of never putting a dollar value on your collection. It's not money! because when a set just came out. Who's all chasing it? Everyone! Supply and demand. Who's chasing it two years later? Who cares! That was two years ago. Gotta get what's new before someone else gets it. That's why values bottom out. Who capitalizes in the end. Well not to boast, but I've been scoring some pretty good deals at card shops lately, and I'll wait a year to get what was in the showcase, after they pull it out, and file it in thier many boxes marked "clear out". Do I have to go on ebay? Gawd no. Resourcefulness, resourcefulness.

Just the other day I went shopping to up my Jagr supply. 103 cards. Total value $523BV. What did I spend? $60! Why? All the movement on these cards has passed, and they just sit in dealers boxes, and now they are wanting just to unload them. Good for me, but the ones that sit in showcases, they tend to have a little more activity, and draw more attention. Almost better to wait, and get it, rather than get it and wait for the bottom to fall out of it.

That's where someone who got in the hobby just to make a buck on thier prized collection becomes disillusioned, and loses interest. Then someone who has patiently been searching for what they need stumbles on this, and presto! That was cheap.

Collectors, or hobby enthusiasts alike all have to find a good reason to do this, and know what it is they like about this hobby. Just like speculators that screw around with the stock market, and bugger that up, by selling off stocks at a rapid pace. They mess with the hobby too making things nasty, but wait till the stock market rises again. That's a sure sign they've gone back to playing around there. The minute they get spooked however... Sell! Sell!

I would sure love to start a "Spot the Hockey Card Speculator" group.

[30ranfordfan]

Goose - I agree with you, to a certain degree.

Anyone who's seen my Bill Ranford collection, knows I've been working on it for a long, long time. (There are many cards that are nearly 20 years old, and have been part of my Ranford collection since I pulled them from packs). I don't know what I've spent putting it together, but I know there is no way I could ever sell it all, and get back what I paid. That's fine..... because I have zero interest in ever getting rid of it. I do it because it is a hobby.... and so long as it stays within reason, the costs don't really bother me.

The fact is though, there are far more casual collectors and "investment collectors" out there, than the real hard-core hobby enthusiasts. While you or I might spend $4000 on new cards this year and think "Man, I got some cool cards" there are a lot of collectors out there that spend $4000 but expect that they will at least be able to get their money back, if not a significant profit.

I tell anyone that asks.... you can't be in it for the money. I just think there are way too many people that are. As nice as it would be to say "that's their problem" the fact is they make a significant enough portion of the collectors out there, that if their money leaves, Upper Deck & ITG would be in big trouble.

[RGM81]

I think that in many ways we may be nearing an abyss as far as the hobby goes, and ultimately we're going to have nobody to blame but the manufacturers themselves. We're into a different era of over-production. Whereas in the 90s the problem was mass production of individual sets, in which a person could break a box of Score and conceivably pull 3-5 Martin Brodeur RCs, I think the problem today stems from too many sets. A player who debuted post-lockout can have up to 11 or 12 different rookie cards: YG, OPC, Ultra, Victory, Ovation, Artifacts, Black Diamond, SPGU, SP Authentic, PowerPlay, Ultimate Collection, OPC Premier, and The Cup--did I miss anything? Sure, they might SP individual set RCs, but when you add up everything across that entire spectrum you're looking at several thousand different cards. To me, it is dumbfounding and out of whack that a guy that will see maybe 3 games a season in the NHL has cards with greater value than Martin Brodeur's RC because hey, it's short-printed and there's only 999 copies of it! But I guess that's what happens when you have to justify the existence of $50 3-card packs of SP Game Used.
In addition to the RCs, even the base/insert/memorabilia/autos get stale - how many products have virtually identical checklists? I astounded some of my fellow staffers the other day when I noted that Carey Price, who has been in the NHL for 2 seasons, has nearly 750 cards already. The preliminary checklist for 09-10 Artifacts has him down for 27 more cards. It is not healthy to be continually pumping out this much supply for a single player. He has over 200 autograph cards. When I learned this, I immediately felt a tinge of sympathy and said aloud, "No wonder his auto has gone to ..." I'm as die-hard a Price collector as I can be, but after ringing up "only" 15 auto cards (plus a couple signed photos) I'm reaching a point where I'm thinking, "How many more do I need?"
And that is what is going to result in a lot of trouble for the hobby. Never mind the patch faking, the overpriced dud products that feature patches made in a grade 10 home ec. class, eBay, the economy, the strength of rookie classes, etc., people are getting tired of having to drop money every couple weeks during the hobby season to get all the latest releases of their favourite players/teams. Maurice Richard, while he was an active player, had 12 cards. Since 1999, he's had probably 400, including 17 in the Canadiens Centennial set alone. I'm not advocating that we go back to the days of one card set per year, but I think Upper Deck needs to re-examine the calendar and the releases and ask themselves if all of these sets and their innumerable parallels are truly needed, or whether they're simply adding to the glut on the market that is causing collectors to tire very quickly of the hobby.

*edit note* I think that a discussion about the long-term sustainability of Sidney Crosby as the burden-bearer for the hobby would be very interesting - how much longer will he be the top dog? Will his 7th year issues continue to outdo 95% of that year's rookie crop?

[roy.the.greatest]

I agree with Fawad's opinion here, the businees model of UD is hurting a lot the hobby, and on many aspects. Also, when a lot of people have doubts about their job security, the last thing they will do is to spend money for a hobby that is expensive.

[Drewk86a]

The "business" of trading cards is what will kill the business. When I was younger and started collecting baseball and football cards the fun and drive was completing the set. I had to get all the cards. I can't tell you how many star players or rookies I traded to get that needed Todd Van Poppel, Garry Mathews or Ted Sizemore because that's what I needed for the set.

Someone said earlier that the influx of SP rookies has damaged the hobby. Well, it has made it almost impossible to complete a set. Add to that the littany of parallels, inserts, parallels of inserts, and low print run cards... The joy of completing a set has been replaced by "The Big Pull". Many people don't buy packs looking for favorties or sets. They want the Big Rookie, the Crosby Auto Patch or the Ovechkin Auto. The consensus is if you don't get a Big Pull your box suc**ed, regardless of what you did get.

Over my career, I have heard over and over to use the K.I.S.S. theory. "Keep It Simple...Stupid" I think that would work for the hobby as well. That means: Fewer sets, sought after players, affordable prices, reasonable amounts of inserts & parallels, and good quality customer service!

[07mears07]

My opinion. Get rid of some low sets, mid end sets, and high end sets. We do not need victory, fleer, MVP all as low-end, only use one. Maybe combine trilogy and spgu. Don't just have one product, but have like 7 and not 15. I like the product count as it is though, this isn't a money hobby. It is for the joy, and that part is well.