“We’re seeing a significant spike in interest in trading cards, in baseball cards in particular. “The hobby and the industry have never been so healthy and are in great shape,” said David Leiner, global general manager of The Topps Company, which has MLB’s card license. It is hassle to sort through the cards to see which level they belong to and since there is not much difference in terms of value and even design, it is. Fast forward 25 years and the sports card industry had crept back to again become what observers say is an industry with an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue for the manufacturers and retailers. Sports card sales fell from $1 billion annually to about $200 million and remained mired there for years. Search Sport Card Values for Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey. Of those, maybe a couple of hundred today are primarily sports cards and not primarily pop culture and other non-sports merchandise. However, as the hobby went bananas in 2020, there was a new man peaking investor interest. A country with an estimated 10,000 sports card shops three decades ago saw that number dwindle to about 1,000. Some collectors abandoned sports cards, kids turned to card alternatives such as Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering, and people got online as the internet exploded in popularity.

Overproduction, leagues handing out licensing willy-nilly, and a series of mid-1990s work stoppages in baseball, hockey and basketball served to undermine the card market. Hobby shops, Walmart and just about every convenience store and gas station sold a dizzying array of brands and sub-brands such as Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Bowman, Score, Upper Deck, Skybox, Panini, Leaf, Stadium Club, Pinnacle, Ultra, Studio, Pro Set, O-Pee-Chee and Pacific. By some estimates, production of cards themselves topped 80 billion annually at the height of the boom in the early 1990s. Thirty years ago, sports cards were a billion-dollar industry.

Value of sports trading cards