BASEBALL CARDS SPECIAL REPORT PART II: Baseball card business came crashing ...

The North County Times takes a look at the baseball card industry in a three part series:

PART I : There are only two baseball card shops left in North San Diego County, a vivid illustration that a cherished American pastime and a once-thriving industry aren't what they used to be.

PART II : The improbable rise of baseball cards into a billion-dollar-a-year business was exceeded by its fall, a bubble-bursting characterized by speculation, overproduction and hordes of alienated collectors.

PART III : If sports cards are to remain relevant in the modern age, the industry must find new ways to court kids, and both Topps and Carlsbad-based Upper Deck are trying to gain the inside track.

"There's so much vying for kids' attention, and I think baseball cards look less attractive to young people. It's really hard, when you lose a generation of collectors like that, to bring them back in. That's why I tend not to offer any rosy outlooks on what this industry is going to look like in another five or 10 years."

Dave Jamieson

Author of "Mint Condition," a book that chronicles the history of baseball cards

Barning was done with baseball cards. But baseball cards weren't done with him, not by a long shot.

In 1972, then living on Long Island, he was dragged by his wife, Vivian, a baseball junkie, to a card show in the city. As he strolled through the aisles perusing the merchandise, gazing at his sports idols plastered on small pieces of cardboard, something inside of Barning reignited.

"It was magical. It was like, 'Wow,' " he recalled. "Stuff from our childhood and everything new. It got me excited about being a collector as an adult."

More than returning to collecting, Barning dove headlong into an industry that was just starting to emerge from its sleepy origins as a product to help peddle cigarettes and bubble gum and a frivolous diversion for American youth. Drawing on his background as a journalist, Barning and his wife founded a publication called Baseball Hobby News in 1979. Three years later, they moved the fledgling enterprise to San Diego, their office just north of what was then Jack Murphy Stadium.

As baseball cards grew more and more popular in the 1980s, hobby magazines were pulled along with the tide. Barning found himself traveling the country for card shows, attending the national convention. He became a voice of authority in the trade. His subscriber base climbed as high as 12,000, a wildly profitable number for a small mom-and-pop operation.

Video Games Will Sell For Comic & Baseball Card Prices

Action Comic #1, for example, is the first comic book to feature Superman. It’s considered the first superhero comic. Honus Wagner is thought to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time . He also forced the American Tobacco Co to stop production of the baseball card because he didn't want to be associated with tobacco. Both great stories. Nintendo World Championship has a great history too. The game was part of a Nintendo promoted competition where gamers from all over the country competed to get the best score in Super Mario, Rad Racer, and Tetris. The game stopped players after six minutes and twenty-one seconds. The finals were held at Universal Studios and the 26 winners received NWC Gold as one of their prizes. Time is indeed the factor keeping video games from the ski-high prices baseball cards and comics are now raking in. Video games became popular in the 1980's with Atari. And it wasn’t until a decade later in 1990 that the Nintendo World Championship took place. NWC cartridges were given away and there are no records of the original prices the game sold for so it is hard to calculate a percent return for the game so far. Assuming you could have offered one of the winners of these cartridges $1,000 for it the rate of return would be 17.1%. Right in between Honus Wager and Action Comic. Nintendo World Championship (and a few other games too) have all the makings of valuable collector's items. There is a very limited supply. It has a great story behind the game. And it has popular appeal with millions of people who play games. The only thing keeping NWC Gold cartridge from selling for more money is time. In ten, twenty, or thirty years when kids who grew up playing NES games have money to spare, they will be the collectors willing and able to pay top dollar prices for these treasures.

An interesting thing to think about is that the NWC cart doesn't function on it's own like most other collectibles. You need an NES, a TV, a controller and mad skills to enjoy it properly, whereas a comic book or baseball card you really just need eyeballs. They were made for visual admiration and don't have the complicated dependencies that a game does.

Games will always have the chance to grow in value. Depending on the title, system, era, and so forth, we can conclude that, as always, games have different values. An in-package copy of the original Legend of Zelda will always hold more market than, say, Battletoads. I was fortunate enough to grow up with the birth of gaming, and I have seen how my gems have increased in value significantly. Sealed copy of Chrono Trigger, New, in-box Virtual Boy (even though a joke, very rare to find) and more. So yes, games will always have the potential to grow in value.

The Official Baseball Card Price Guide 1992

Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide

Boys' Life

Beckett Baseball Card Price Li

2008 Baseball Card Price Guide