Folding the Cards : Small Guy Feels Pinch in Sports Trading

It’s the bottom of the ninth inning for mom and pop sports card dealers who say that overproduction by card manufacturers and a bad economy are driving them out of the game.

“This used to be fun,� said dealer Fred Findlay, who sells cards at weekend shows with his wife, Dianne. “As long as we weren’t losing money.

“I can show you 10 or 15 boxes (cases of cards) that I’m selling for less than what I paid for them,� Findlay said. After he sells his inventory, Findlay said, he’s finished with sports card trading after about four years in the business.

About 10 years ago, baseball cards caught the fancy of collectors and increased dramatically in value. What used to be a product for children to put in the spokes of their bicycles became the object of a collectors’ craze.

Cards that cost a penny apiece when they came in a pack of five with a stick of gum sold for hundreds of dollars as new collectors eager to have such rarities as a Mickey Mantle All-Star card competed for them. Thousands of people dragged their cards out of storage and took them to card-trading shows.

At the peak of the market in 1991, a card for baseball Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner was bought by Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall and hockey star Wayne Gretzky for $451,000.

More than 20 major manufacturers entered the market between 1982 and 1992, making cards for baseball, basketball, football and hockey players and improving the quality of photographs and graphics. Today’s card packs range in price from less than a dollar to $2.79 for 15 cards--and you don’t get any gum.

Dealers say because there are so many brands of new cards, collectors don’t know what to buy. They also say manufacturers make too many copies of each card, driving prices down. Those factors, in combination with recession, have scared enough collectors out of the market that dealers are having a hard time staying in business.

“I’m getting out of this,� said Scott Olson, who also sells cards at weekend shows. “I used to just live for it, but now I’ll back off for a while. People are being really careful with their money and there’s so much out there it’s really hurting the hobby.�

“If you deal exclusively in new material you’re going to get hurt badly,� agrees James Swartz, a professor of marketing at Cal Poly Pomona who has collected cards for more than 40 years and sells only older cards at weekend shows.

“It’s not like the old days where the major manufacturers would each have one set,� agrees Jeff Kurowski of Sports Card Price Guide Monthly. Whereas 10 years ago there might have been five cards on the market for a particular player, today Kurowski estimates that there are as many as 50 cards representing each popular player.

And besides having many different card lines, manufacturers are making thousands more copies of each card than they did 10 years ago.

“The presses are running more now than they ever have,� said Mike Moses, who owns Sports Alley Trading Cards in Laguna Niguel.

“There seems to be an overabundance of product in the market right now,� said Kurowski, adding that it’s difficult to judge how many cards are in circulation because few card companies will say how many they make.

Card dealers also charge that manufacturers make extra copies of sought-after special sets, driving down prices and persuading hobbyists that nothing is rare enough to collect.

To combat the perception that their cards won’t appreciate in value, some card manufacturers, such as Fleer Corp., are spreading the word that they have cut production.

“We told people we reduced our basketball cards by two-thirds this year, but nobody believed us. Now they can’t get it and they call me and ask for more,� Fleer’s Ted Taylor said. “The fans like it better when they can’t find our product.�

Taylor said Fleer’s research indicates that 65% to 75% of the card market is baseball cards. To reach a broader range of consumers for its cards, the company plans to market its product in more grocery and department stores, Taylor said.

But even as small dealers are being shaken out of the market, the enthusiasm for cards continues.

David Tabb co-sponsors some of the largest card shows in Southern California with Bruce McNall’s Superior Galleries and produces his own line of limited-edition cards. He has been promoting shows for the last two years.

Although agreeing that in the last year fewer cards are being sold at his shows, Tabb doesn’t believe that the hobby is declining.

“Even though the money isn’t being spent on cards right now the interest is still there--attendance hasn’t dropped,� Tabb said.