суббота, 15 сентября 2012 г.

Sports Card Hobby Caught in a Slump; Dealers Counting On Collectors, Not Investors, to Stay in the Game - The Washington Post

When Mark Pekrul was a little boy, he started collecting baseballcards because he liked the Boston Red Sox. Now he's 25 and has 45,000cards, and he wouldn't part with them.

Pekrul, a federal employee, said that when he has kids, they canhave the cards, 'with the stipulation that they never let them leavethe family.'

In the boom years of the 1980s, the sports card business nearlyforgot about basement collectors like Pekrul. The big bucks came fromspeculators - lawyers, doctors, money-movers - who realized thatcards were hotter than the hula hoop and promised huge returns ontheir investment.

But the bubble has burst. As the card boom built to its peak in1989 and 1990, everyone tried to cash in. Too many card companiesproduced too many cards that cost too much money, until supply faroutweighed demand, observers said.

Most speculators have fled, realizing that the very thing thatgave cards their value - rarity - was gone. What is left are peoplelike Pekrul, the fans, the kids, the collect-niks, who had been theindustry's bread-and-butter before anyone ever imagined that littlepieces of cardboard could fetch thousands of dollars.

Manufacturers are feeling the pinch. Last Monday, industry leaderTopps Co., which has been making sports cards since 1951, saw itsstock tumble 31 percent after it announced that it would post itsfirst quarterly loss in a decade.

Comic book maker Marvel Entertainment Group, which owns sports-card powerhouse Fleer Corp., saw its stock drop 11.5 percent Mondayfollowing the Topps announcement. Smaller card producers are facingdeclining sales and, in some cases, bankruptcy, analysts said.

'We've been on a speeding bullet, we've slowed down and there's anew environment,' Topps Chairman Arthur T. Shorin said in aninterview last week.

In a statement issued after last Monday's stock decline, Shorinsaid, 'Sports card collecting will continue as long as professionalsports remain popular . . . {but} the speculative frenzy of the lastfew years is giving way to a hobby reflecting true collectorinterest.'

Dealers and analysts agreed with Shorin that the sports cardindustry, which deals mainly in professional baseball, football,basketball and hockey, is not dying, but simply shifting back to itstraditional base of fans and collectors.

'People would call us and say, `My name is Smith. I'm a lawyer inHouston, and I'm thinking of investing in baseball cards. What shouldI buy?' ' said Tony Prudom of Sports Collectors Digest, a Wisconsin-based publication that covers the sports card business. 'We don't getas many calls from those people now.'

'Everybody saw a market, and everybody jumped on the bandwagon andcollapsed the market,' said Craig Ross, of Jeff's Baseball Corner inSpringfield. 'The companies are just putting out more and more andmore. They're just destroying themselves. Right now, what you'reseeing is that most people are genuinely sick of all the new stuff.'

The distinction between new cards and old ones is important,dealers said. Cards produced 20 or 30 years ago or more will alwaysbe valuable because fewer of them were produced and many of thosewere lost or thrown away over the years. But cards produced sinceabout 1989 are less valuable because so many of them have been made.

In 1968, for example, New York Mets rookie pitcher Nolan Ryanappeared on a single baseball card manufactured by Topps, then thenation's only baseball card maker. That card is now listed in priceguides at $1,500.

Last year, Ryan's picture appeared on 100 or more cards producedby dozens of manufacturers, each making several card styles. Thosecards have value mainly to collectors who like Ryan.

Even 20 years from now, those cards will probably be easy to findand worth relatively little, dealers said.

Making matters worse, prices for packs of new cards have gonethrough the roof, said Bill Huggins, owner of House of Cards inWheaton. Huggins said most cards come in 15-packs that sell for$1.50; five years ago they sold for 50 cents.

'If Ford tried to sell the Taurus for $35,000, people would notbuy it,' Huggins said.

The people most affected by the industry's roller-coasterfluctuations in the last few years are probably youngsters, mainlyboys 6 to 16, who are now starting card collections, dealers said.

Kids who buy 1993 baseball cards will be able to find manydifferent versions of their favorite players. But, as collectorGordon Labow of Bowie said, 'Don't expect to pay the college tuitionwith them.'

Dealers expect that kids will always buy cards of their favoriteteams or players. But, they said, they expect to see less of the mini-tycoon attitudes they were seeing from even the youngest collectorswhen news of the card boom hit the headlines a couple of years ago.

'You've got 6-year-olds coming in here with one eye on the {priceguide} and one eye on the display case,' Ross said.

Ross said baseball and football star Bo Jackson's card was a bigdraw for kids a couple of years ago, until Jackson's career wasderailed by an injury and the value of his card fell.

'Now kids come in and say they hate Bo Jackson. Why? Because hiscard has gone down,' Ross said. 'They're equating the value of thehuman being with the value of the card, and that's dangerous.'

Then there are people like James Esch, 33, of Wheaton, whocollects only cards of the Los Angeles Raiders football team. Eschwent to the House of Cards in Wheaton the other evening dressed inhis Raiders cap and Raiders sweat shirt, and paid $4 for about 50Raiders cards.

'I've been a Raiders fan since 1969,' Esch said. 'I don't go outand look for the most expensive cards. I do it more for the fun ofit, not for what it's going to be worth down the road.'

Huggins, the House of Cards proprietor, says he's counting oncollectors like Esch and Pekrul to keep the sports card businesshumming, even if it's not at the frenetic pace of the 1980s.

'We are headed south from the top of the mountain, but I don'tthink we're going to hit the bottom of the ocean,' Huggins said.

'There are only two ways the whole thing could come crashing down:if they stop playing professional sports, or if they stop makingkids. And those are both long shots.'