Nostalgia
The magic behind a baseball card Collection is more of an investment in memories
B
efore New York Times best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk inspired would-be entrepreneurs into action through LinkedIn, he was a sports fan. Vaynerchuk has a near cult following of disgruntled professionals seeking the gumption to jump-start a new career or perhaps find the next big trend into which to invest. Which is why it’s sometimes jarring to hear him pitch sports cards as the next investment. I’m old enough to remember the last baseball card boom. Young professionals with expendable income turned to card conventions and tried to reclaim the collection their
mothers threw out. As they and that’s partially due to the started throwing hundreds of internet. Buying and selling still dollars for every Mickey Mantle happens in hobby stores around and Willie Mays, the conscious- town, but the bulk of it takes ness of the hobby spun from place on eBay. collectible to investment Gone are the days opportunity. By the of conventions at ‘90s, card compaby the Polish Comnies played into munity Center. the supply-andThose events demand game. garnered hunThe price of cards dreds of vendors, over the counter sports fans and the went from cents to occasional Hall of dollars. Famer. The casual collecTruth is, sports card collecttor is somewhat of a dinosaur, ing never went away. Vaynermaybe. If so, I’m that dinosaur. chuk may be the loudest voice My collection stays with in the room, but there are plenty of hobbyists who’ve been me, and I have little intent on selling anything from it. To do saying it for years; it’s just not so would mean assessing its as mainstream as it once was,
Michael Hallisey
value. I’d have to submit it to a grading service, and I have little interest in that. Besides, I’m still collecting. I’m not an investor. After all, my buying strategy is still influenced by a 35-year-old baseball simulator I played on a Commodore 64. Whenever I pick up a card, the act of turning it over to read the statistics is ingrained in me. It could be a Sandy Koufax or a Warren Sphan, both are good players — they’re in the Hall of Fame. I just need to see how he performed the year before. My love for baseball grew beyond the patch of green grass at school. My friends and I
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MAKE SURE THEY’RE IN THE RIGHT CAR SEAT
NHTSA.gov/TheRightSeat
12 Family Now — September 2020
