went to Megacon in Orlando Fla attended by 50,000 and more people safely last weekend NOT ONE NON SPORTS CARD VENDOR. 2 vendors had some older sets which were 25 years old and garbage. The non-sports cards companies that keep putting out this expensive **** that you can't even make one card set out of $100 or more dollar box have just destroyed the hobby. I was in this hobby for over 20 years and I got out before this debacle. Adios non sports cards

I respect your opinion and if you think non-sport cards are dead for you, then they are, but try not to be influenced too much by Megacon.

I've never been there, but it advertises no different than any other Con and I have been to New York's version more than once. There are almost no non-sport cards at these big events. If you are lucky you may find a couple of card manufacturers, if they have current sets or are upstart companies. Maybe they have a non-sport line, maybe not.

You might find some hobby stores that took a booth. Maybe they brought some non-sport cards, maybe not. Maybe they barely carry them in their store. I have found boxes of new non-sport product at the NYC ComicCon, but I bought them literally from dealers whose stores were in my neighborhood and I saw all the time.

Cons were never a good place to find non-sport cards. If anything, with a lack of card makers willing to come out and the COVID problems, it's probably gotten worse. That is a Truth also.

People have been predicting the death of Non Sports for decades. When I was just getting back into the hobby in 1993, I went to an early Chicago show and a grizzled old Wrapper dealer bemoaned how the Internet was going to destroy the hobby. Then it was we didn't have any young people in the hobby, then it was we were going to lose them to CCG's.
Sherlock is right about the $100 boxes - remember when you could buy a box for $60 and get a full base set, a couple of hits and a goodly amount of chase. Who decided we wanted a box of 12 cards for $100, with a guaranteed autograph and a parallel card (just like the base card, but with a different color foil on it!)
Someday the big card companies will get back on track. Until then, we have the small independents that are really giving us what we want - RRParks, The Pernas, Monsterwax, etc.
You gotta go to the right shows Sherlock, tomorrow I'm going to a small show that will take me a half hour to see everything, if I'm lucky, there will be 2 dealers with Non Sports. Non Sports isn't dead, like a good zombie, it always comes back.

Well said Don, big shows have never been a great source of non-sport cards, that’s why we have Philly and Chicago. I agree boxes are too expensive, but as you stated it will correct itself as the market always does. Long live non-sport cards! We always have awesome vintage cards to collect as well, something the modern collector should look into, so much amazing stuff out there. I acquired an uncut sheet of monster cards from an early 1960’s 78 rpm album, Dracula’s Greatest Hits, I have been looking for one for a long time, and got it for less than new hobby boxes!

Just announced big shakeup with the license for Major League baseball cards might have Topps relying on non-sports brands, especially their own (like GPK, Wackys, & Mars Attacks) and expanding their licensed property output to more than just Star Wars so as to survive.

I'd like to see them do movie sets like they used to, the standard 66 cards with 11 stickers, but now with autographs/sketches, "Fright Rags" style, and numbered parallels plus photo variations on the base cards. They are well-versed in adding this collector value to their various baseball sets. Also, an autograph driven "American Pie" type annual set, that could serve as their answer to Leaf Pop Century and Panini Americana.

I liek autograph cards. For most like me, there's enough out there already to keep us busy 'til we die, so like, chesspieceface don't shiv.

I went to a collectibles show in San Jose, CA about two years ago and there was just one guy with any selection of cards at all but all he had was pre-80's stuff. What that means is the people who used to sell cards at that show had to stop doing it because they weren't selling enough. Even in the 90's, many card dealers had that as their side business. They didn't need to make a big profit but they also couldn't afford to have many bad shows.

I certainly understand the frustration. I started collecting cards in the 70's. I bought packs for 10 cents each in those days and I started buying boxes in the 90's (never had the gnawing need to go for a case). I would like to buy a box of The Mandalorian Season 1 but it was over $100/box when new and over $150 now. I can't afford that these days. Fortunately, I have unfinished sets and collect promos too. A lot of singles can be bought for $10 or less so I pick them up here and there. Meanwhile, when I look at some of the high prices many old and new chase cards (and some promos) are selling at, I conclude that the hobby is certainly not dead. It has just changed.

The price of everything has gone up. I paid $4.19 for a gallon of gas today. I'm not going to stop driving my car because of that but I have been trying to be smarter about the trips I take. Some cards may be out of reach but there's still a lot of others out there. I still find bargains. I guess I've collected cards too long to stop now.

quote:

Originally posted by sherlock2:
went to Megacon in Orlando Fla attended by 50,000 and more people safely last weekend NOT ONE NON SPORTS CARD VENDOR. 2 vendors had some older sets which were 25 years old and garbage. The non-sports cards companies that keep putting out this expensive **** that you can't even make one card set out of $100 or more dollar box have just destroyed the hobby. I was in this hobby for over 20 years and I got out before this debacle. Adios non sports cards

Curious what made you think you would find any non-sport dealers at MegaCon?

With the rent for a booth hovering near $1000, you have to sell a LOT of cards to make up for that. Even with current prices, the margin is just not great on cards.

You're more likely to find some non-sport at a baseball card show as there is more crossover than ever now.

Major cons are about the celebrities. Sadly, they've pretty much priced the card and comic dealers out of the game.

Ed

LOL.

It has been the hottest year for entertainment cards in a decade (or more?) . . . the hobby is far from dead.

It is true that there have been fewer and fewer entertainment cards dealers at comic shows. That has been happening for many many years, unfortunately. Are there any big entertainment card dealers in Florida? If not it is unlikely you'll see many at conventions.

Just last week I was ordering some clearance supplies from Dave and Adams. Their inventory levels on entertainment wax are crazy low. . . they have sold out of so much that I was unable to find enough stuff I was interested in to get free shipping on my supplies.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

It has been the hottest year for entertainment cards in a decade (or more?) . . . the hobby is far from dead.

Was about to post the same thing. There was an absolute explosion in non-sports cards earlier this year. Yes, things have settled, but it's been a long time since there was so much interest in EVERYTHING.

Conventions that aren't non-sports card conventions almost always disappoint.

I think the original poster has been soured by the state of the non-sport card hobby in general, especially expensive boxes, and supported his opinion by not finding any non-sport cards at MegaCon. If something isn't working for the individual, it doesn't matter how many people may rightfully disagree, it's still not working for them.

Yes, there has been an absolute explosion in the non-sport card market, but not everyone has been able to enjoy it and not everyone thinks they benefited from it. The Catch-22 in card collecting is that in order to profit from increasing prices, you have to sell the cards you own, and if you never make a profit you may not be able to afford the higher prices of the best new cards. Most card collectors really don't want to sell the cards they have, so they just wind up spending more money until they decide they can't. Or they get really disgusted and dump the whole thing. For some reason hobby people tend to go to one extreme or the other with nothing in between.

Non-sport cards are doing great, but some non-sport card collectors feel shut out from the current market, which has really become more of a pricey limited consolidated hobby, rather than what you used to pick up at a flea market or in a retail box at Target. You can say that there are other options, but they can't or won't change. So for them, non-sport cards are dead.

I think we have all had a bit of that feeling once in awhile when hearing certain hobby news that annoys us, but it passes. Hopefully it will keep passing.

I read about the $200 basketball packs that were already being sold in 2010. At a flea market a few years ago, I overheard a teenager schooling an old guy on recent big money sets. The kid was one of those people buying at $200 per shot and he got lucky a few times - enough to still be flipping that day.

Anyway, what I read was Panini was putting out both the high-end stuff for crazy collectors and the $1 packs at Target and Wal-Mart.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Anyway, what I read was Panini was putting out both the high-end stuff for crazy collectors and the $1 packs at Target and Wal-Mart.

Hey Jess,

That's the problem. Most card collectors want better than $1 packs of overproduced base cards, but aren't crazy enough to risk $250 on blind boxes that might have the $1,000 hit they couldn't afford individually. Neither extremely cheap or extremely expensive is the answer. But try telling that to the card makers who just keep doubling down on their formulas, no matter what the forums say, because nothing short of a complete collapse will convince them that they went too far.

Hey Raven,

A great example of that is the Machete set. The card maker tried it at the high-end level with the big hit but it didn't work so they switched tactics and tried to blow it out the door but then that also destroyed much of the cachet of the set. After over seven years, they still haven't sold all 300 sets.

You can't blame them for trying to shoot for the moon but 2013 wasn't the best time to do it with collectors still recovering from the 2008 recession. How many of us would have tried to sell a non-sports set like that whether good times or bad? You could have $200 basketball card packs then because there were lots of speculators ready to go all in for something like that. Non-sports isn't like that. The Machete set could have been originally priced at $50-75/set with those autographs randomly sealed inside. They might have sold a lot more sets early that way but who knows how much they paid Lohan per autograph.

What if a card manufacturer answered with, "We can't make money selling boxes for $60 with 2 autographs per box plus other chase more imaginatively-produced than parallels anymore. Product developing, printing, boxing, and shipping costs never go down. Celebrities probably bump up what they charge for an autograph whenever they can. Meanwhile, when they put out $100 boxes, enough of us did buy them which encouraged them to make that the new going-rate. We couldn't resist. I still think about going for a box of The Mandalorian at some point.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Anyway, what I read was Panini was putting out both the high-end stuff for crazy collectors and the $1 packs at Target and Wal-Mart.

Hey Jess,

That's the problem. Most card collectors want better than $1 packs of overproduced base cards, but aren't crazy enough to risk $250 on blind boxes that might have the $1,000 hit they couldn't afford individually. Neither extremely cheap or extremely expensive is the answer. But try telling that to the card makers who just keep doubling down on their formulas, no matter what the forums say, because nothing short of a complete collapse will convince them that they went too far.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

Collectors are willing to spend significant money on packs. On ePack the fastest sell outs have been the most expensive products. It is all a matter of value for money.

Setting up at a convention is a lot of work, time and money to sell something that can be shopped for at a lower price on your phone.

The last dealer I talked to at a con was so driven on the 1 of 1 rarity of art cards that I think he was offended when I told him that isn't what I collect. Guess I was just supposed to hand him my credit card on the word "rare"

But yeah, the hobby is certainly not dead. Remember when Blow Out had pages of old non sport inventory? Not any more. I guess the best description is that non-sports has adapted which doesn't always work as we assume. A full on card convention will probably see a healthy dose of product but most of the others are just too broad in scope. What I have been seeing at many standard cons is a drive to be unique....showing customers things they may have not seen before. Plus a bunch of artist and artwork.

This post is sort of off-topic but relevant to the wider discussion of what we've been seeing at shows. Yesterday, I went to a local mall to pick up some egg rolls and found myself in the middle of a card show. I thought I might stumble upon a dealer with some oddball non-sport. Uh, nope. There were a lot of dealers filling the main hall of one of the last of the old-school malls in my region (one long hall with stores on both sides and a Target at one end - outlet store at the other) but every dealer had either sports (mostly recent stuff) or Pokemon cards or a mix of both. I saw only a single Game of Thrones autograph card to represent our non-sports hobby.

The funny thing is I don't see the show advertised on the mall's website. There were a lot of people looking at the stuff and talking to dealers with money changing hands so people knew about it.