

Can Topps Save Baseball Cards? - edw519
http://www.slate.com/id/2224864/pagenum/all/

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neovive
In some ways it could help if they deal with the overproduction issues. I lost
interest in baseball cards in the early 90's when the market became over-
saturated with brands and specialty sets. Every company seemed to have 3
different sets (basic, premium, team, rookies, etc.).

The key to bringing the sports card industry back to relative popularity, is
to bring back the enjoyment and "magic" that was mentioned in the article.
However, now that baseball, in particular, seems to be declining in popularity
with younger generations, it may be very difficult to ever accomplish a major
turnaround.

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figital
Some of the old card designs are so great ....

<http://www.oldcardboard.com/r/r406-6/r406-6.jpg>

As I outgrew paying attention to them I also noticed that progressively modern
cards tended to focus on technology gimmicks versus vintage iconography.

None of these really stand out from the eighties:
[http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/cast-your-vote-
be...](http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/cast-your-vote-best-
baseball-card-design-from-the-80s/)

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qeorge
That's really too bad that MLB gave an exclusive contract to Topps, at the
expense of Upper Deck. I collected baseball cards maniacally as a kid, and
Upper Deck's cards were always the highest quality.

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jerf
Collectibles remain alive and well, but once you recontextualize yourself and
think of the "child-collectible" market as a whole, it's hard to imagine
sports cards as anything but a _very_ small niche in that larger market. It
takes an awful lot of love for baseball to prefer a pack of baseball cards to
a pack of Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I'm sure some kids will get there, but
probably not enough to keep an industry afloat.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
I agree. Pokemon cards and MTG cards and Yu-Gi-Oh cards involve not just
collecting cards, but also a game and a competition. You can do something with
the cards beyond just collecting them.

Baseball cards have stats on them. I'm sure that was useful pre-Internet, but
now I can get all that data online in seconds.

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dsil
I doubt it. Baseball is declining in relative popularity as a sport, and
collectible cards that are also games, like pokemon and magic, are just more
fun.

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pxlpshr
I use to be into baseball cards back in the old days, but then I turned into a
geek and they were no longer of interest. An entrepreneur from the early days
is capitalizing on the baseball card problem with one of their online games,
and they are funded by Sequoia.

<http://www.baseballboss.com/collections/view/>

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iterationx
I think they should add a few rules and dice, and make the cards into a
playable game. They are competing with mtg after all.

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trafficlight
Card collecting is a phase for most people. I was big into basketball cards
for a couple years when I was about 10.

