In retrospect, baseball cards died the day Upper Deck released its overpriced crap.

But Cano is the next Rod Carew. Some collector will be grinning when he wins his seventh batting title.

In retrospect, baseball cards died the day Upper Deck released its overpriced crap.

100% correct. In high school I worked at a card store in 1990-91. This was about the time the card industry in general rolled over, IMO. Upper Deck was to cards what Fox has been to boradcasts and new lines of baseball, football and basketball cards were flooding the market (UD, Score, Skybox...). Once it was no longer a Topps, Donruss, Fleer game it was over. Nobody could keep track of all the different companies and with a glut of supply the value in cards was gone. The guy just in it for the hobby was priced out and the guy looking at it for investment wasn't getting a return.

I don't know... those '89 Upper Deck cards were genuinely nice cards I thought. They may have been one of the signposts on the way to the funeral, but "crap" seems a bit harsh.

Bernie Williams (despite being retired), Rivera, or Jeter would probably have made a lot more sense. However, Cano is not nearly as bad as he's played so far, it's not like they paired Mantle with Enrique Wilson or Jose Molina.

Upper Deck was to cards what Fox has been to boradcasts

Fox meant cleaner design, better photography, and less gimmickry? Really? Maybe Upper Deck was more like HBO...

Agreed on UD killing baseball cards. That comes from someone who has an unopenned 1989 UD set still sitting on a shelf in his boyhood bedroom closet.

I'm with #4. Baseball cards started dying once they started issuing parallel sets (starting with the gold cards Topps put out in 1992). That was the beginning of the end, since it led to ridiculous parallel cards that are serial numbered to #100, #50 and even #10 and #1.

I think the biggest reason the hobby has died is because it is now literally impossible to collect every single card issued of your favorite player. It's not even about affording them anymore; you have to find them first. If you collect a certain guy and you're looking for a card numbered 1/1, it may very well be in some kid's shoebox who has no idea what he has.

Then again, do kids even collect anymore?

The concept of baseball cards being UNOPENED seems so incredibly wrong to me. And I was a comic collector.

Actually, when I was about 14 I worked at an auction a comic/baseball card shop had. When I learned about the unopened boxes of sets only retaining their value unopened, my babes-in-the-woods comment in front of those perusing the lots was "So, really, there could be ANYTHING in that box, right?" The owner pulled me aside and said that yes, my logic was unassailable, but if I didn't try and destroy some of his sales with it, that would be great.

I love buying ten or so random packs a year for historical sake, no other reason.

A picture of Mickey's knees? An appropriate image to reflect on how great his career could have been.

Once it was no longer a Topps, Donruss, Fleer game it was over.

Someone doesn't remember when it was just Topps. After their monopoly was crushed, it was over.

Someone doesn't remember when it was just Topps. After their monopoly was crushed, it was over.

It's almost a monopoly right now. Topps and Upper Deck are the only ones left standing and there were some rumblings last year of Upper Deck buying out Topps.

Someone doesn't remember when it was just Topps. After their monopoly was crushed, it was over.

Its the only monopoly I would ever approve of. I would allow them a monopoly so long as they promised to issue cards in their 1988 style.

Actually, that would be really cool, if card companies issued baseball cards of today's players in retro style cards. I'd buy em, and I haven't bought baseball cards since I was 14.

A part of me died when Goudey stopped producing cards.

Sure, the '89 Upper Decks were nice, but nobody in their right mind would pay that sort of money for them. I miss the days when I could get packs of '89, '90 and '91 Topps for 50 cents or less at the local grocery store. The quality is nice, but what it ultimately did to the industry is inexcusable.

I'm 23, and I'm guessing I'm at the tail end of baseball card collectors. I stopped collecting in 1994, when that huge surge in companies started. I've gotten back into it recently, but it's still just not like it was when I was 7 and 8. Used to be that you could find cheap packs of cards just about anywhere you went. I can think of only two stores in all of Provo, Utah that sell '08 Topps cards, and you have to pay almost $3 for 10 cards.

None of my friends collect baseball cards. I do remember having a few friends who were into CCGs (one had a huge collection of Star Trek: TNG), and we went through a Magic the Gathering craze when we were in middle school, but nobody cares at all about baseball cards. Most younger kids, including my three younger brothers, don't know a thing about baseball cards, nor do they care.

And don't get me started on what PSA and EBay have done for the community. Years from now historians will wonder why in the world so many people were so eager to pay hundreds of dollars for obviously counterfeited cards.

Upper Deck actually revitalized my love of baseball cards in 1989. No, cards died when you had to send your valuable cards away to be microscopically photographed and graded in order to sell them.

Actually, that would be really cool, if card companies issued baseball cards of today's players in retro style cards. I'd buy em, and I haven't bought baseball cards since I was 14.

Get out your wallet. They've been making them that way for almost a decade.

I'm a baseball card collector. I love collecting the current cards. Baseball card collecting died for me in the 1980's when they overproduced them in huge numbers, and the quality was awful. I began collecting them again about five years ago when I realized how interesting current cards are, and that they solved many of the problems that plagued the industry in the 1980's and 1990's.

Baseball card collecting is very different today than it was when many of you were growing up. To many of you, that means its worse. Not me.

And don't get me started on what PSA and EBay have done for the community. Years from now historians will wonder why in the world so many people were so eager to pay hundreds of dollars for obviously counterfeited cards.

Honestly, I don't think PSA is the problem. Their job is to judge the cards an objectively as possible (if you consider that possible) and base a grade on the condition of the card. It's not really much different than getting the condition of a car appraised by a third party and it's also quite a sight to see an old superstar card from the 1950's graded 10.

As for eBay, I think they actually help the market in terms of correction. Has anyone picked up a Beckett lately? My father still collects vintage cards but buys wax packs of current products to sell on eBay, which he then in turns use the money to buy the vintage stuff he loves. He's always complaining how the Beckett price guide wildly overestimates the value of basically any card printed in the last twenty years. Some such-and-such parallel insert refractor crappo Derek Jeter may book for $20 or $30 but you could probably get it on ebay for $5.

I love buying ten or so random packs a year for historical sake, no other reason.

I do the same thing. Maybe 4-5 packs. I just open the packs and who knows where the cards end up. But I would buy much more just to open and basically discard, if they were not $2/pack. And I get the cheapest ones too.

Perhaps there is a market for people 30 and over for a 10 card, $0.50 pack. It could be low quality for all I care, just so I can open more packs for the fun of it. Can you even print/produce something for so cheap anymore?

And don't get me started on what PSA and EBay have done for the community.

Yea, when I tired to back into cards (very little) I learned the game passed me by when I found out about PSA 9, PSA 10. I had a great card, so I thought, turned out it needed to be graded and I had to pay for it.

At K-Mart and Wal-Mart, they have blister packs that contain 10 random packs of baseball cards of varying years and brands for $10 or $20 bucks. That could be what you're looking for.

In the mid 80's, I picked my 2 favoriate players to "invest" in. I collected all of the David Cone and Barry Bonds cards that came my way. Too bad 1985-2000 was basically the dark ages of card collecting. Those Bonds cards are not worth much.

I sold most of my collection when I went away to college in the early-90s. I saved my autographs, gleaned through years of Spring Training attendance, and jettisoned the rest to a series of vendors at local card shows in South Florida. My 1975 Yount, 1980 Hendersons, 1967 Seaver, assorted Mays, Aarons, Mantles, and Koufaxes, even the Billy Ripkin "#### Face" card - all sold.

I took that fat wad of cash and did the responsible thing - I bought myself a blazing new computer for my college studies. Yes, my card collection of a lifetime earned me a brand-new, cutting-edge 25MHz 386 with a 20megabyte MFM hard drive.

I still laugh when I think about this. I don't regret selling the cards, even though I'd like to have them today, just to look at once in a while.

Actually, that would be really cool, if card companies issued baseball cards of today's players in retro style cards. I'd buy em, and I haven't bought baseball cards since I was 14.

Dude.

I haven't aggressively collected cards for more years than I care to think about, but the other day I was in a toy store and in the back they had a card counter. They had a bunch of these Heritage cards from Topps. They are just awesome looking cards.

Just for the heck of it, I bought five cards: Larry Doby and Monte Irvin from the 1988 Pacific Trading Cards set, a 2007 Topps card in tribute to Josh Gibson's 750th home run (which I found kind of odd), an Upper Deck 50th anniversary tribute to Jackie Robinson, and an UD "Hall of Fame Gallery" card of Satchel Paige. I paid $3.50 for the bunch. Any gripe you may have about the economy of baseball cards, it was and continues to be the cheapest way going to get a good photo (or, in the case of Gibson, artist's rendering) of a ballplayer.

The best baseball card trade I ever made was when I dealt my concerns about their value for my love of their aesthetic.

Yea, when I tired to back into cards (very little) I learned the game passed me by when I found out about PSA 9, PSA 10. I had a great card, so I thought, turned out it needed to be graded and I had to pay for it.

Not every collector cares about PSA 9 or PSA 10. In fact, most cards sold today, even very expensive and valuable ones, have never been graded. If someone told you that a card needs to be graded, they were wrong.

Perhaps there is a market for people 30 and over for a 10 card, $0.50 pack. It could be low quality for all I care, just so I can open more packs for the fun of it. Can you even print/produce something for so cheap anymore?

There are cards made today like that, but there isn't much of a market for them, atleast among poeple over 30. Collecting has changed.

Too bad 1985-2000 was basically the dark ages of card collecting.

This is really true - virtually nothing made between 1985 and 2000 is particularly collectable anymore. Even cards made between 1976 and 1984 aren't generally worth anything. People either collect cards made up to 1975, or after 2000.

I think the biggest reason the hobby has died is because it is now literally impossible to collect every single card issued of your favorite player. It's not even about affording them anymore; you have to find them first.

I have over 500 different Pedro Martinez cards ... and no idea how many I'm missing. So I guess you're right.

Every couple of years, I find out there's another brand new Joaquin Andujar card I have to track down too, even though he retired 20 years ago (Ouch, just writing that hurts).

What I hate most about a lot of the current cards is the super glossy finish that makes a lot of the autographs I acquire through the mail almost disappear before the ink dries even if the player is utilizing a reasonably Sharpie-esque writing implement.

When I learned about the unopened boxes of sets only retaining their value unopened, my babes-in-the-woods comment in front of those perusing the lots was "So, really, there could be ANYTHING in that box, right?"

It really is a case of Schrödinger's Johnny Mize card :)

I was at the Museum of the City of New York last year, at a pretty good baseball-in-NY-in-the-50s exhibit, and they had on display several unopened packs from that era. I guess they will never be opened, kind of like sealed clay envelopes with cuneiform tablets inside. I imagine you could detect via an MRI or something whether they contain Mickey Mantles or Stubby Overmires.

Dude.

Those are kind of anachronistic, which I think is contrary to the aesthetic joy of the thing. It would be worthwhile only if, say, it came with a picture of Khalil Greene wearing a baggy uni and a crewcut. Also, the little cartoon on the back has to depict a white guy even if it's Frank Thomas on the obverse.

Also, pictures of guys where the photog is looking squarely up their nostrils are mad retro, too.

I imagine you could detect via an MRI or something whether they contain Mickey Mantles or Stubby Overmires.

I think Ernie Harwell to this day carries a Stubby Overmire card in his change purse.

I don't know where they might sell baseball cards nowadays. Toy stores? Wal-Mart? They don't have them at Target, or any of the grocery stores or pharmacies I go to. Maybe I should look in the toy section or the sporting goods section at Target. But I can't imagine kids viewing them as a type of toy.

About a month ago I saw packs of cards at the local pharmacy, and bought one. Then I brought it home, put the gum in my mouth, and found out that they were actually 2007 cards. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Good lord, Rite Aid, it's not like these cards have been hanging around the back of the store unsold, and were now being sold for a 75% discout. You don't sell cards normally! And these were full price! Where did they come from, anyway?

Card collecting probably died the day Beckett created the first price guide.

They don't have them at Target

Every Target I've been in (North Texas) has them. Look at the end of the row of cash registers.

Then I brought it home, put the gum in my mouth, and found out that they were actually 2007 cards. ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Were you upset about the quality of the gum?

What I hate most about a lot of the current cards is the super glossy finish that makes a lot of the autographs I acquire through the mail almost disappear before the ink dries even if the player is utilizing a reasonably Sharpie-esque writing implement.

Wet your thumb and then rub down the card, it shouldn't screw up the card any and it'll take care of most of the gloss. Little trick my dad taught me.

My guess is that the biggest reason the card market died is for the same reason a lot of other things have died: changing times and technology. Why collect cards of Albert Pujols when you can play as him on a video game system? People like my dad still collect cards here and there because they did it when they were kids and it's really a lot of fun to scrounge about the vintage market nowadays, but there's very few people to whom the gambling nature of today's card market appeals. And people my age simply aren't going to collect cards like they won't read books like they won't read newspapers. We have the internet and video games and ipods and such and they generally offer a lot more entertainment value to your typical Generation Y-er than, say, a shiny baseball card (especially when the shiny autographed/special types are rather expensive and difficult to acquire.)

I still collect some, because my dad got me into it when I was a kid, but I really only like collecting cheap A's and Warriors cards. I don't have the desire or bank account to collect cards out of even 5$ packs, which are really the minority nowadays. That's on the cheaper end.

But to be fair, I don't think people from my generation (myself being 20) would buy baseball cards even if they were cheap.

I haven't aggressively collected cards for more years than I care to think about, but the other day I was in a toy store and in the back they had a card counter. They had a bunch of these Heritage cards from Topps. They are just awesome looking cards.

Just for the heck of it, I bought five cards: Larry Doby and Monte Irvin from the 1988 Pacific Trading Cards set, a 2007 Topps card in tribute to Josh Gibson's 750th home run (which I found kind of odd), an Upper Deck 50th anniversary tribute to Jackie Robinson, and an UD "Hall of Fame Gallery" card of Satchel Paige. I paid $3.50 for the bunch. Any gripe you may have about the economy of baseball cards, it was and continues to be the cheapest way going to get a good photo (or, in the case of Gibson, artist's rendering) of a ballplayer.

The best baseball card trade I ever made was when I dealt my concerns about their value for my love of their aesthetic.

Very cool! I'll have to look for those. I agree about trading value for aesthetics.

Then I brought it home, put the gum in my mouth, and found out that they were actually 2007 cards. ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Was that before or after you went to the hospital for lacerations on your tongue from trying to chew that gum?

What changed is that something spontaneous and done for fun for buyers and a passable profit for producers morphed into something consciously managed and measured for the explicit end of profit. And rather than simply leaving well enough along, people with agendas and too much time on their hands began deconstructing the fairness of it all, "fixing" something that wasn't broken and in the process ruining it.

Proving yet again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Similar developments have happened in many aspects of modern life, including baseball itself (though plainly not to the point of ruin).

Also, pictures of guys where the photog is looking squarely up their nostrils are mad retro, too.

I love those. I believe there were a lot of them because they were always worried players (especially lesser ones) would get traded before the cards came out, so they would make them look skyward (to make sure the logo on the cap was out of sight) and from the neck up (to obscure the uniform they were wearing). For a lot of these vintage cards, it's kind of hard to immediately tell what team they're on. I mean, until you read the team name.

I was a hockey card kid more than baseball cards, and I would save up my quarters to buy as many packs as I could. When they went up to $.50, I was floored, I just couldn't come up with that money. So I was out. Years later, when I got a job I tried to buy a few packs and was shocked at the $1 price.

Honestly, I suspect they could make a killing by introducing $.25 packs again, admitting they have no value and are just for fun. Have kids play games with them again.

The last time I bought a baseball card it was this one. I may give it to Jill one of these days.

re #39

The Red Sock caricature looks more like a man with a filled condom for a chin than it does a sock.

Hah, scotto has a Cooperstown Ballcap Co. cap with that logo on it. Never thought of it that way.

Honestly, I suspect they could make a killing by introducing $.25 packs again, admitting they have no value and are just for fun. Have kids play games with them again.

Amen. I never looked at my cards as a damn investment. I never would have considered leaving a package unopened.

My cards had no long-term value, because they had cracks in the sides where the rubber bands bit into them, were damaged from flipping or trading or generally getting handled on a daily basis. As they were meant to be.

WHY DO THE COOPERSTOWN BALLCAP CO BALLCAPS SUDDENLY COST $48 INSTEAD OF $33

DAMN YOU INFLATION

Honestly, I suspect they could make a killing by introducing $.25 packs again, admitting they have no value and are just for fun. Have kids play games with them again.

WHY DO THE COOPERSTOWN BALLCAP CO BALLCAPS SUDDENLY COST $48 INSTEAD OF $33
DAMN YOU INFLATION

Move it over to the 22nd page of the political thread, America-haters.

Every couple of months I'll buy a card on Ebay. I recently bought the Gary Sheffield rookie card with his gold teeth for like $1

Honestly, I suspect they could make a killing by introducing $.25 packs again, admitting they have no value and are just for fun. Have kids play games with them again.

Yea, but how can you make something have no value? If no one values it, it becomes scarce. Then in ten years, they'll become highly valuable!

WHY DO THE COOPERSTOWN BALLCAP CO BALLCAPS SUDDENLY COST $48 INSTEAD OF $33

DAMN YOU INFLATION

I thought they were $44 regularly and then $33 if you bought them in the off season?

Everybody knows that baseball cards are meant to be stuck on your bicycle frame so they go phftphtfphftphtf against the spokes.

Every couple of months I'll buy a card on Ebay. I recently bought the Gary Sheffield rookie card with his gold teeth for like $1

Don't forget the $9.99 shipping.

I thought they were $44 regularly and then $33 if you bought them in the off season?

Okay, so in season they've gone from $44 to $48. And I ordered it in early March. There was no warning on the website that they would suddenly increase in price by $15 once spring training started.

Kids still collect cards. Pokemon cards.

Card collecting probably died the day Beckett created the first price guide.

Absolutely and positively, and the last nail in the coffin came with the creaion of PSA, which took the whole sick enterprise to its logical conclusion, to the present stage where the best cards are now all entombed in thick plastic clamps with stickers surrounding them. The only half decent countertrend was the reissuing of the older sets in reprint form, but that was like trying to blow out the Sun by sneezing.

Kids still collect cards. Pokemon cards.

And slightly older ones collect Magic The Gathering, or other sets for collectible card games.

If they introduced cards with baseball players that had special abilities or powers and you built your own 40 man roster with them to compete again other people, you'd have a real money maker there.

Derek Jeter - when in play, your team gains 2 Clutch points, loses 2 Defense points.
David Eckstein - when in play, your team gains 2 Scrappy points, loses 2 Offense points.
P.E.D Use - when used on your own team, player gains 2 Skill points - when used on opposing team, that player is out of play for 5 turns.
New Stadium - when in play, team gets 3 Revenue points for the first round, 2 Revenue points for the second round, 1 Revenue point for the third round, and no bonus after that.
Strike! - when played, all regular player cards (and bonuses attached) are out of play for 5 turns, only minor league players are available
Manny Ramirez - whenin play, your team gains 2 Skill points, but must randomly select card from your own hand to discard (and be replaced) every round

I stopped buying cards long before I stopped buying comic books, and stopped buying both for the same reasons. Instead of trying to get a full set (or follow one story line), it got to a point I would have to buy a bunch of stuff I didn't want just to buy for the sake of completion. I admit I'm old enough to remember $.20 packs of baseball cards and $.12 comic books, so whatever the going rate is nowadays is just more than I want to spend.

Kids still collect cards. Pokemon cards.

And slightly older ones collect Magic The Gathering, or other sets for collectible card games.

Exactly. It's a different market now. This also goes back to the point made earlier about PSP's and Ipods and the Internet and what have you. Baseball cards, when I was a kid, served a bunch of purposes: They were my main connection, when I was really young, with the statistics and identities of players. Now any 8-year old can go to b-ref if they want. I made up and played "simulation" (tho I didn't know it then) games with them. Now you have video games and actual sim computer games. We collected and traded them, for the pure fun of it. That idea has been completely taken over by the CCG crossover craze. And most importantly, we played with the cards as objects - in our binders, our bicycle spokes, and so forth. That could never happen any more with the modern obsession with the "value" of a "collectible". You couldn't sell a 25-cent pack to today's kids, they'd want to know what they were supposed to DO with it.

Petunia is correct.

Kids still hang athletes' posters on the wall just as much as they used to. But cards with stats on them are obsolete.

I was at the Museum of the City of New York last year, at a pretty good baseball-in-NY-in-the-50s exhibit, and they had on display several unopened packs from that era. I guess they will never be opened, kind of like sealed clay envelopes with cuneiform tablets inside. I imagine you could detect via an MRI or something whether they contain Mickey Mantles or Stubby Overmires.

Sounds like a pay-pre-view TV event in 50 years. I bet an unopen packed of 52' Topps cards would have incredible apprecieation.

And slightly older ones collect Magic The Gathering, or other sets for collectible card games.

If they introduced cards with baseball players that had special abilities or powers and you built your own 40 man roster with them to compete again other people, you'd have a real money maker there.

Derek Jeter - when in play, your team gains 2 Clutch points, loses 2 Defense points.
David Eckstein - when in play, your team gains 2 Scrappy points, loses 2 Offense points.
P.E.D Use - when used on your own team, player gains 2 Skill points - when used on opposing team, that player is out of play for 5 turns.
New Stadium - when in play, team gets 3 Revenue points for the first round, 2 Revenue points for the second round, 1 Revenue point for the third round, and no bonus after that.
Strike! - when played, all regular player cards (and bonuses attached) are out of play for 5 turns, only minor league players are available
Manny Ramirez - whenin play, your team gains 2 Skill points, but must randomly select card from your own hand to discard (and be replaced) every round

Actually, I think that would be awesome if they did a psuedo OOTP/MTG type game with baseball cards. On the front you keep it normal, but on the back you have their statistics like normal, but a cost to put the card in play and abilities. Heck, you can even do the Attack/defense transform into Offense/Defense catagory, and have special abilities for each player. Heck, I may actually see what I can come up with as a VB program for that to test it.

I was at the Museum of the City of New York last year, at a pretty good baseball-in-NY-in-the-50s exhibit, and they had on display several unopened packs from that era.

Not to derail, but what was your impression of that exhibit overall?

I started collecting cards in 1987, and got really into it around 1990-91. I remember, as a 12-year-old, trying to collect the rookie cards of all the players on my favorite team. Unfortunately, that team was the 1992 Mets. I got pretty caught up in the premium set and insert craze in the early 90s, but I stopped collecting around 1994-95. It probably had something to do with the strike, how bad the Mets were, and just growing up.

One of the main reasons I got into them was because they were the only place I knew to find player stats. Now, kids have access to the internet and can get stats updated in real time.

Also, the frequency with which players move from team-to-team now might make collecting less interesting to kids. Why try to collect all the cards of your favorite player if you know he's likely to leave when he becomes a free agent? But I guess overall baseball merchardise sales are doing very well, so that's probably not hurting card demand.

Actually, I think that would be awesome if they did a psuedo OOTP/MTG type game with baseball cards. On the front you keep it normal, but on the back you have their statistics like normal, but a cost to put the card in play and abilities. Heck, you can even do the Attack/defense transform into Offense/Defense catagory, and have special abilities for each player. Heck, I may actually see what I can come up with as a VB program for that to test it.

The only way it works is if individual player cards (or event/equipment cards) that stand out. There is no reason for a person to try and decide between a John McDonald card and a Adam Everett card if they both provide the same bonus to defense (and penalty to offense). Each card would need something to distinguish it from the others. As well, there is no way in the world the MLB/MLBPA would allow someone to print a card that demeaned a player in any way (penalties for using the player).

If they introduced cards with baseball players that had special abilities or powers and you built your own 40 man roster with them to compete again other people, you'd have a real money maker there.

Already been done.

Wizards of the Coast pulled the plug on MLB Showdown in January 2006 following a 6-year run.

Upper Deck didn't kill baseball cards - Bowman killed baseball cards. Upper Deck was a legitimate competitor to the major baseball card companies which produced excellent cards that made the other companies raise their game. Bowman an attempt by Topps to compete with Upper Deck in the high-end/niche market. From what I remember, it basically led to all of the major companies producing tons of special/updated/limited edition sets that flooded the market with supply and made the hobby impossible to follow for the semi-recreational collector. I could deal with different companies competing with each other. I couldn't deal with each company competing with themselves. How many different Butch Huskey rookie cards can one person really collect.

a couple clarifications:

-> beckett's price guide didn't kill cards; what actually gave the HUGE push in the 80s to price guides was when a little rag-tag operation out of long island called card prices update (mark lewis) was coming out monthly in place of beckett, and valenzuela and raines had their hugely successful rookie years. that combination - a new monthly price guide (even though cpu had been around since i think '79?) and the rookies helped start the explosion for rookie cards. the rookie stuff eventually got crazy in the late 80s / early 90s with players who hadn't even sniffed the majors when they were drafted, but beckett wasn't the downfall.

-> upper deck didn't kill anything in '89. some people chose not to buy them, so be it. but completists (set a little, but team set collectors and individual card collectors) could still afford them. what triggered the great card collapse was a combination of the over-production from 87-93 or so (which meant that the older sets couldn't retain their value), the production of the special insert cards which had limited number of cards (leading to finest, and finest refractors, and 1 of 1 cards that most team collectors couldn't afford) and INCREASING the number of sets made per year. the last two parts meant that completists, the backbone of the hobby, couldn't afford / obtain (with 1 of 1s) even close to the collection, and they stopped buying.

then, they noticed dealers would drop the prices, dramatically, right before the new sets would come out.

so, in effect, the market became a FAST speculator's market. even most rookie cards are valued (not beckett, but real street value) at their highest when the set first comes out.

by the way, i think that topps' photoshopping other personalities onto baseball cards is far 'worse' than the mantle/cano auto.

I believe there were a lot of them because they were always worried players (especially lesser ones) would get traded before the cards came out, so they would make them look skyward (to make sure the logo on the cap was out of sight) and from the neck up (to obscure the uniform they were wearing).

Oh, definitely. I'm guessing they had a few pix to choose from and went with the view that worked best. The best example was all the pictures taken of Senators the year they moved to Texas. You could tell they were wearing red helmets even though you could count the boogers in Toby Harrah's right nostril (zero).

I'm not sure the horrible kindergarten-fingerpainting airbrushing of hats and unis wasn't better.

Actually, I think that would be awesome if they did a psuedo OOTP/MTG type game with baseball cards.

I think Topps did something like this with a set in the 70s (78 maybe?) -- on back of each card was a 'result' - laughably generic: Home Run, Single, Double, Flyout...