I've been thinking and wondering. . . how many non-sport card collectors are there? And how many dealers?

How many people do you think collect a given set?

Anyone have any idea?

Yes, there are 4 dealers and 9 collectors, but that's just in the US.
Worldwide, there are 6 dealers and 15 collectors.

I really don't even know how to answer that, I don't have any hard data.

I think there are very few non-sport dealers. Back when I was a sportscard collector and there were many weekend shows, I only knew two dealers that would set up with non-sport cards exclusively. I have connected with maybe a good 2 dozen on the internet, but they are all over the country and some carry sportscards or comics as well. More recently there are only a handful of dealers that I'm using.

As a general guess I would put the percentage of non-sport collectors at around 10% of sports card collectors. I think it went up with the improvements in non-sport. I'm not counting gaming cards, I consider that a separate catagory. I don't know what a good number of people might be, whenever I try to talk to someone not in a hobby store about my non-sport card collection I get blank looks.

I'm not sure what you mean by collect a given set? If you mean buy a box and get a base set, than its 3000, or 6000, or 9000, or whatever the potential number. If you mean collect a master set of anything, that would be very, very few. There are too many sets that have multiple expensive cards, even if you leave out the parallels. I hear a lot of former completists crying these days.

I am not a statistician, but we are a very small segment of the population. I know a couple of other people who collect non-sport, but I know 20 times as many who collect sports cards, most of them football or NASCAR. I live in Indiana...

I seem to lose a lot of auctions though. I think the number might be bigger than what we think(although still not huge or nearly as big as sports cards )

quote:

Originally posted by jane:
I seem to lose a lot of auctions though. I think the number might be bigger than what we think(although still not huge or nearly as big as sports cards )

I've been buying a lot of Game of Thrones autographs lately. . . which started me thinking about this. . . between buying on eBay and boxes and things I have duplicates of a lot of autographs. . . sometimes lots of copies of main characters autographs that are limited to around 500 copies. . . These autographs are only bringing around $30 on eBay. . . It seems to be something that absurdly limited should sell for more than $30. . . so it got me thinking . . . how many people are collecting GoT? How many collectors are there in general. . . and how many dealers. Geez, I mean -- according to Wikipedia GoT averaged over 14,000,000 viewers last year. . . 500 autos distributed for a show that had 14 million viewers is a paltry number.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I think there are very few non-sport dealers. Back when I was a sportscard collector and there were many weekend shows, I only knew two dealers that would set up with non-sport cards exclusively. I have connected with maybe a good 2 dozen on the internet, but they are all over the country and some carry sportscards or comics as well. More recently there are only a handful of dealers that I'm using.

That's been my experience too. . . What strikes me is that I live in the Chicago Suburbs -- one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country -- I don't know of a single dealer in the Chicago area that has a shop and breaks product. Sure, I can order boxes from the local sports card store, but today single cards are no where to be found. Oddly (perhaps not), there are a lot of people in this area who break product and flip on eBay, but there isn't a physical presence that I know of.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
As a general guess I would put the percentage of non-sport collectors at around 10% of sports card collectors. I think it went up with the improvements in non-sport. I'm not counting gaming cards, I consider that a separate catagory. I don't know what a good number of people might be, whenever I try to talk to someone not in a hobby store about my non-sport card collection I get blank looks.

Could be. . . I dunno. . . I think the number is a lot smaller. . . I went to the national sports card convention this year -- it covers about the same square footage as Wizard World Chicago, but it is basically all sports cards. There is nothing remotely close to that for non-sport cards.

Oddly, conventions are booming now -- for the last few years attendance is skyrocketing, shows are selling out for the first time ever. . . yet despite the growth in hobby related stuff happening non-sport cards don't seem to be capturing any of that growth/expansion. . . In fact the number of card dealers at major Chicago shows was down significantly this year vs last year. It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a single non-sport card dealer at C2E2 in 2014. . . there was only 1 this year. Wizard Chicago had 4-5 this year, and 7-8 last year. What is increasing are other booths at shows that carry small amounts of cards. . .

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I've been buying a lot of Game of Thrones autographs lately. . . which started me thinking about this. . . between buying on eBay and boxes and things I have duplicates of a lot of autographs. . . sometimes lots of copies of main characters autographs that are limited to around 500 copies. . . These autographs are only bringing around $30 on eBay. . . It seems to be something that absurdly limited should sell for more than $30. . . so it got me thinking . . . how many people are collecting GoT? How many collectors are there in general. . . and how many dealers. Geez, I mean -- according to Wikipedia GoT averaged over 14,000,000 viewers last year. . . 500 autos distributed for a show that had 14 million viewers is a paltry number.

I love the GOT cards. I would have to say that its my favorite new title, but I'm wondering how many of those 14,000,000 viewers even know that there is a set with autographs if they are not card collectors. I mean where would they hear about it or see it if they had nothing to do with the hobby. We assume that the internet tells everybody everything, but that's only if they know where to look and what to ask.

I would like to see a commercial for the cards on the show or an ad next to a story about the show in an entertainment mag. Let viewers who have no interest in non-sport cards see the product. On Card Talk we are always preaching to the choir, to gain mass appeal you have to move passed the usual suspects, or at least try.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I love the GOT cards. I would have to say that its my favorite new title, but I'm wondering how many of those 14,000,000 viewers even know that there is a set with autographs if they are not card collectors. I mean where would they hear about it or see it if they had nothing to do with the hobby. We assume that the internet tells everybody everything, but that's only if they know where to look and what to ask.

I would like to see a commercial for the cards on the show or an ad next to a story about the show in an entertainment mag. Let viewers who have no interest in non-sport cards see the product. On Card Talk we are always preaching to the choir, to gain mass appeal you have to move passed the usual suspects, or at least try.

Indeed -- the GoT sets are FANTASTIC. I really enjoy them . . . That's part of why I was struck by the number/value. . . I mean if there are 500 made that means there is enough for 10 for each state in the US. . . I can't fathom that there are fewer than 10 GOT autograph card collectors per state, but the values suggest otherwise.

A commercial would be awesome, but terribly expensive. . . a strong social media campaign could be very effective and free. . .

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
Yes, there are 4 dealers and 9 collectors, but that's just in the US.
Worldwide, there are 6 dealers and 15 collectors.

To find out how many collectors there are a good place to start must be right here. OK Harris, how many NSU Card Talk members are there??

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:
Yes, there are 4 dealers and 9 collectors, but that's just in the US.
Worldwide, there are 6 dealers and 15 collectors.

However, I have found that non-sports card collectors are more prone to split personalities than the general population. How should we count dealers who sell to other dealers, and if some dealers are collectors by choice or by sales patterns.

One piece of data. Over the last four days, the checklist site had 1,950 unique visitors, out of 2,870 total visits (not counting search engine robots etc.).

I just turned on a monitor program that subtracts the indexing robots and repeat visitors, so it will be interesting to see what develops over the course of a month or year.

Of course when you have titles for 6000 non-sports sets you show up in a lot of Google searches by non-collectors, but they won't usually click through. An average for one of those visits was 3-4 pages viewed. All in all the website gets about 200,000 "hits" per month.

I'd guess there are probably at least three times as many people who visit Card Talk frequently or occasionally as the number who post. We are the truly elite.

well there are approx. 4500 registered members of this forum plus tons of non registered guests and then there is all the subscribers to the magazine and all the people who buy the magazine at the shops.

I assume all these people are buying cards but I would imagine that most are like me and can only do so at the lower end of the money scale which is why most cards sell for not very much.

Of course when you take a look at the amount of people outside America who buy cards and stickers from Merlin, Panini & Topps then non sports as this forum knows it becomes just a tiny speck in the universe.

And we A'merkins get depressed when we realize Wolfie is a speck in a different universe.

Has the Merlin nameplate been doing much with non-sports recently?

My answer is - I don't know.

quote:

Originally posted by allender:
One piece of data. Over the last four days, the checklist site had 1,950 unique visitors, out of 2,870 total visits (not counting search engine robots etc.).

That's great info. . . more than I would have thought over a 4 day window. . . nearly 500 unique visitors a day. . .

There seems to be fewer Card Talkers around than there used to be when I first joined in 2006. Some of the users I remember had many, many posts and I haven't seen or heard anything from them in years. Maybe they lost interest in cards or maybe it's the economy. I don't really know what happened.

Well,
From 2001 to 2005 I was a buyer,
2005 to 2007 I owned a comic book shop and I sold cards as a shop owner (low level dealer)
2008 to 2010 buyer
2010 to current (The birth of my second child and new mortgage expense) low level buyer.

When I had my shop. Each release was so different from the buyers. I had around 5 buyers who would buy just about anything non sport 1 box at a time.
I had a case buyer for Star Trek cards every release and did no other card set.
I had a buyer who only collected buffy cards (comics, statues and toys of buffy as well).
My guess would be that without any new buffy cards he left the hobby.

I still speak from time to time to two card talkers that were big talkers in the past but the economy of the world have hit them hard. So, they cannot buy cards and to come to cardtalk is depressing to see all they can't buy.

I have a Star Wars friend who buys a set of each star Wars release but they don't come here.

Knowing all this I can say that the number is always going to be changing.

Checking the registery date, my 6 year anniversary on Card Talk appears to be coming up soon. I can say that I read the forums for a good two years before I became a member and started to post myself. Even though I had already left sportscards and was buying exclusively non-sport long before, I really didn't own enough non-sport cards or know enough about that end of the hobby to feel confident in talking with collectors who were experts on the subject.

I think one of the first members who responded to something I said was wolfie, who had about a trillion posts at the time, so you do tend to remember those things when you are new.

Anyway, many of the big talkers that used to be here have stopped over time. I don't know if they left the hobby or they got in a huff over something/someone or they just didn't have the time anymore. Everyone's circumstance is different. Thankfully there are still many veterans, as you can see by registration dates.

The number of members is always changing and new people come on. Also the ratio of guests to members is always quite high, so alot of people are still just lurking too.

As I have said in other threads, I encourage people to post on Card Talk because we all want to learn something new and that can't happen unless someone is willing to write.