For those of you who have been following the recent media blasts about the decline of the sports card industry, I would read this article to get the other side of the story. Some of you will probably shrug it off as a post designed to give false hope, but after recent conversations with Chris Carlin, I doubt that was the point in any way. Chris is a straight shooter, and although he is responsible for the marketability of his brands, he also knows his shit.
Last month, many mainstream outlets incorrectly reported that card shops had declined from 15,000 stores to under 500 over the last few years. The reports were based on arbitrary faulty numbers perpetrated by hobby blog villain TS O’connell of SCD, despite the fact that he had not done any actual research on the matter. Contrary to O’Connell’s ideas of what was going on, Carlin did a great job of setting the record straight, as well as showing that the sky is not even close to falling (UD works directly with 1500 shops in the US and Canada alone).
Sadly, these scary “figures” have led to a lot of paranoia on blogs and message boards, most of which was focused on the supposed dying of the hobby. People had started crying about how the inflated number of sets and lack of kids had contributed to a decline in the collecting populace as well as the industry. Although things have changed from the days of the investment crazed 90s, both the hobby and the industry are in little jeopardy of going under. If card shops only lost 5% of their volume (per Carlin’s research), during a crippling recession, I would say that is amazing, to say the least. Its actually even more impressive if the original prognosis was a loss of 30-40% total. Add in the thousands of online retailers and ebay stores, and the number is going to be a lot more than any research done by media that is disconnected or unrelated to the hobby. The fact is, regardless of any paranoid chicken little coverage, people still love collecting, writing about, and buying cards.
I think its safe to say that this hobby is never going to die. Collecting based things usually don’t, even when there is no one to produce new stuff. The industry itself may go, eventually, but the actual people who drive it will always create a market for trading, buying and selling. The problem has never been kids or a pollution of products, in fact, the problem has probably been the value that the cards carry. As the reality of the overproduced cards of the nineties were actualized as less valuable than fire kindling, the collectors who staked their involvement in collecting on the amount they were going to make, left quickly. What was left behind were people who loved cards, as always, as well as a few people who realized that investing was bad, but collecting was fun. This is what led from having 15,000 shops to a few thousand.
As with any collectible, there will always be people in it for the money, however, as we have seen, a lot of people are in it for the love of the game too. The proof is in the blogs and boards, as membership and production has skyrocketed lately. When people realize that they can cater their experience to themselves rather than relying on a money driven, conflict of interest laden magazine, good things happen. Also, with a worldwide marketplace like eBay, there is now a way to get whatever you want, whenever you want it.
Bottom line, as far as I am concerned, there has never been a better time to collect.
