Base Cards Forgotten By Today's Collectors? |
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Wednesday, 14 October 2009 |
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Base cards, the one-time backbone of the hobby, aren't getting enough love.
-by Joey Collins
In today's sports collectibles market, we see several different kinds of cards that a person can pull out of a sports card hobby box. There are fancy cards with autographs, jerseys, patches, numbers, balls, gloves, subsets, parallels etc. Lost among all these special cards is the base card. Each product produced has a base set; some bigger than others. A lot of times, with all the fancy cards out there, people forget to stop and appreciate the cards themselves. Many products produce a beautiful base set.
 Back in the youthful innocence of sports card collecting we saw nothing but base cards. For instance, if you look at the O-Pee-Chee and Topps hockey products from the 1970s and 80s, aside from a few "league leader" cards, every card was a base card. We forget about the thrill it was to pull a superstar base card out of a pack. When we were kids, pulling a Gretzky card out of any year was an amazing feeling. We used to live for the chance to pull one out of those thirty five cent packs we bought. Today's collectors--young and old-- are hung up on the more valuable cards that can be pulled out of many products. Lost is the appreciation of the work that card companies put into making their base cards attractive and in some cases, mini works of sports art.
 Many people only open products for the inserts. A lot of times the base cards are given away or discarded as worthless. Let's put this into perspective. We may have a product which advertises 24 packs in a hobby box and eight cards per pack. If you do the math, that's 192 cards. This product may advertise that you will get a special card on average in one in every four packs. That's six special cards out of 192. Some of these products cost well over $100 for one box. Doesn't it sound silly to pay that much for six special cards and discard the rest? It's amazing how many people have discounted the base card as nothing but a waste of cardboard.
Of course there are always exceptions to this logic. The collectors who remember what it's like to actually collect a set and not just a bunch of special cards with exceptional market value also realize the value in attaining an entire set of base cards. We forget that collecting a set is fun and gives us a sense of accomplishment when completed. It's the sign of a true collector. If a person can look past the glitter of the special rare insert cards and focus on the actual "collecting" of sports cards in today's world, then they remember what it's all about. Our inner child can still prevail in today's collecting world.
We have to realize sports card collecting is becoming less of a hobby for kids and more of a hobby (an expensive one at that) for grown men (and women). Those who collect though, also should take a look at how they collect and what they want out of it. We need to better appreciate the hobby we've chosen. Don't throw away those base cards; look at them, read them, appreciate them, save them. You'll find a better appreciation for the hobby as a whole.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joey_Collins |
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