Vintage, Modern Cards Remain Steady
Editor’s note: This is the 11th and final story in a series to help collectors prepare for the 44th annual National Sports Collectors Convention, which will be held in Cleveland from July 24 to 28.
Today, we discuss the state of the hobby leading into the convention and a popular on-site event expands at The National.
Since COVID-19 hit, the trading card and memorabilia industry has seen its fair share of ebbs and flows.
It reached the top of the mountain in mid-2020 and has since returned to a more steady rate.
Longtime hobbyists note that the industry is in a good place as the much-anticipated 44th National Sports Collectors Convention gets underway.
“I think the hobby had a little bit of a cooldown post-COVID, but I think you’re going to see it continue to go the right way,” said hobby influencer Ryan Johnson, known as CardCollector2 on social media platforms. “We travel the country and go to shows, and card shows are a different being right now than anywhere else. I expect The National this year to be massive. They’re continuing to grow it, there’s a lot of eyes in the hobby, and it’s very experiential right now. People want to be at shows, and I have high expectations for The National this year.”
Pristine Auction Chief Operating Officer Jeromy Murray, who has worked in the industry for two decades, believes the market is currently really strong.
“Even with the economy and all the things that are going on in the world, it is still a market where people have income that they want to spend on their collectibles. It’s strong,” Murray said. “It’s not pandemic times, nothing is, but still great. Profits are up for everybody I’ve talked to, and revenue and sales are up. It’s nice to see.”
Trading card-wise, the hobby is stable, and there is a healthy balance of interest between vintage and modern.
“Your vintage is always going to have that steady, steady growth and sort of security that vintage always has,” Murray said. “There’s still going to be collectors there that want that nostalgia and things like that. But the modern market is still where everything is right now.”
Said Johnson: “I think the big thing for us and what we’re seeing in our space is just a lot more singles. It’s a lot more transactions. It’s a lot more collectors. People want single cards; they want to do the grading. I think it’s a lot of breaking as well.”
Trade Night Times Three
During the 2015 National in Chicago, several card collectors met up in a hotel lobby after the show had ended each day to wheel and deal. The activity became so popular that Trade Night was born. It became an official one-night event during the 2022 National in Atlantic City.
This year marks the first time the event will be multiple nights — three, in fact. They will take place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 6 to 11 p.m. The National Trade Nights will be held at the lower level concourse within the I-X Center. To receive free entry, attendees must show their NSCC badge or admission wristband.
Last year, Trade Night in Chicago attracted over 6,000 attendees. NSCC director of communications Ray Schulte said expanding and spreading the event to multiple nights was necessary.
“The way it worked was we had to rotate everybody in and out, so there was always a huge, huge line,” Schulte said. “So, when people left, people went in.”
Instead of packing a hodge podge of collectors with different interests into one room, there will be more structure at this year’s Trade Nights. “If you walked in there and you were a Pokémon collector or a soccer collector, there was no rhyme or reason,” Schulte said. “You could sit there at a table and not have anybody that dealt with what you dealt with. We’re going to try to get areas where there’s a Pokémon corner and a soccer corner, and people can go there and meet people.”
“I’m expecting a great show,” Mascot CEO Ezra Levine said. “I’m expecting every company to put their best foot forward, every company to be releasing a new product, every collector to come with their best inventory. I’m expecting a lot of events. I’m expecting a lot of community events, cocktail hours, parties, new releases, big specials, promotions. This really is the time that every company kind of circles as, hey, we’ve got to do something big for The National. We’ve got to put our best foot forward. We have to stand out in a crowd of other people who are trying to put their best foot forward.”
