This isn’t a doom and gloom, sky is falling post. But I would be lying if I said I have zero concerns about the future of vintage baseball card collecting. Yes, vintage has always been steady, tried and true, and may remain that way forever. But the sports and collecting landscapes have changed so much from the time when most vintage collectors were kids. And most of changes those don’t bode well for vintage baseball card collecting overall.

Here are a few of my concerns–and I would love to hear your feedback for or against these talking points:

Collecting vs. Gambling

Most of us collected as kids. Today’s modern card buyers have more of a gambling mindset. Sure, we wanted to hit the good rookie cards too. But today’s buyers and breakers often throw base paper cards into the trash. It’s all about the case hit, the 1/1, the shiny rare refractor parallel. Everything else is treated like literal trash.

The path from modern to vintage collecting is no longer clearly defined. When I was a kid in the 1980’s I collected contemporary players like Henderson, Gwynn, and Sandberg. The path to my first vintage card, a 1969 Topps Mantle, was pretty predictable. “The hobby” today can’t really be referred to as such–it is a more fractured landscape than ever. We have vintage purists, modern “rippers,” TCG enthusiasts, high-end investors, and more.

Gambling has permeated every aspect of sports over the last decade or so. Watch an episode of Sportscenter and count the gambling references and ads in a single program. Modern “breaking” culture preys on this cultural shift, and the majority of Topps and Fanatics social media posts are break-related. It’s no longer about the players, really–it’s just about manufactured scarcity and monetary value.

Generational Shift Towards TCG

For years, baseball cards were the volume leader for card grading at PSA. Now, it’s TCG (trading card game, like Pokemon), and it’s not particularly close, per Gemrate data above for June 2025. If you have been to a card show lately, you may have noticed that more than half of the cards for sale aren’t even sports cards. PSA is grading more Pokemon cards than all sports combined–almost twice as many! There is a nostalgic connection for many TCG collectors–many Millennials and Gen Z collectors grew up with Pokemon and Magic–not baseball.

Declining Cultural Relevance of Baseball

That one hurts to write, but I believe it to be true. Yes, the game is healthy overall. Fans are in the seats, “revenue” is solid, franchises have never been more valuable. But the personal connection between youth and baseball fandom just isn’t there like it used to be. NFL and NBA stars have taken over that role for most young fans–Patrick Mahomes, Steph Curry. Who is the MLB equivalent? Ohtani maybe, just due to his greatness. But otherwise, the role model status has clearly shifted away from baseball (note: Kids’ Choice 2025 Nominees listed above).

Further, TCG and soccer, for example, have global cultural and collector appeal. The vintage baseball card market never truly crossed over in this regard, and is not likely to do so. As the Boomers continue to age out of the hobby–a trend Cardhound writes about here–the question remains as to whether the next generations can pick up the slack.

Declining Youth Participation in Baseball

Youth participation in baseball has been gradually declining for the past 20 years. In fact, youth numbers in almost all traditional sports are down. The above graph is old data, but I found nothing more recent to contradict it. Sports like hockey and lacrosse are up in terms of percentage of growth, but the numbers are very small. I’ll just guess that sports are competing for attention with video games and social media as well as nontraditional / non-team sports and activities.

Some Hopeful Points

Again, this is not doom and gloom, and vintage isn’t going anywhere any time soon. A few points of light include:

• Vintage specialists like SGC are grading more vintage cards than ever
• The Facebook groups I admin are still growing like weeds, with many vintage-specific groups over 50k members
• Grail vintage cards continue to break records at auction
• The populations are fixed and finite (though graded pops likely to grow as Boomers age out)
• There is institutional interest in treating cards as true investments (platforms like Rally, Collectable, and PWCC Vault and fractional ownership opportunities)
• Vintage collectibles are legacy items. They are heirlooms. As long as there are collectors who care about history, nostalgia, preservation, and baseball, the vintage hobby should be just fine.