Why Were Sports Cards Popular?
Basketball cards, football cards, wrestling cards, and all manner of sports cards have been available since the middle of the 20th century. The early 90’s was a great period in basketball and other sports, with athletes like Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen and Shaquille O’Neill doing amazing things on the basketball court. The fad of collecting basketball cards was never higher at this time, with a number of successful companies trying to be the most valuable.
It was always young kids, of course, who would think these cards were valuable. One of the easiest ways to tell which card was worth the most was by how popular the athlete on the front was. A Michael Jordan card would be more valuable than a Luc Longley, for example. But also available were rarer cards, which included gimmicks like holograms and shiny paper to be worth more, and make the image more attractive.
The companies that made these cards saw a great deal of profit in this time. Fleer cards were generally considered to be of high quality, while Topps cards could at this time never seem to be quite as stylish as the rest. The most popular, however, were those from the Upper Deck style. With each card made in smooth, crisp detail and a small hologram declaring it to be official Upper Deck material on the back, these cards were the one most looked for by children in the schoolyard.
The question is often put forth: Why do kids place so much value on these little things? At first, it seems like a reasonable question. The material used by the cards cannot possibly be worth anywhere near what the producer has paid to create them, or what any of the objects are worth. It’s only the fact that many different people agree on a card being worth getting or not valuable that creates any value. As strange as it sounds, the perception of something being real makes it real. When one person says a piece of cardboard is worth a heap, he’s delusional. But when many people say it, the people who disagree are missing out.
Now, this all seems to be a strange thing to think of as true, yet consider this: what is money? Do the materials of money have any real value? Of course not, greenbacks are worth getting simply because everyone agrees that they are valuable. So as strange as we think the kids collecting the basketball cards are, we would think someone who didn’t care about money would be crazy, too.
Basketball cards have these days become highly unfashionable among youngsters. While there was a momentary craze for Pokemon, the fads of today tend to be digital, with many kids using mobile phones instead of cards, or pogs or yo-yos. It’s simple for us to look at them and think of how dumb they are, but were we really any better? Now here’s a worrying thought: When these children are our age, what will their kids be collecting?
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