The box containing the 1982 Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card was marked at $200.
Quite honestly it might have been $100. I don’t remember.
But, either way, it was too rich for my blood.
“Forget it, Dad. We’ll find it cheaper at the next one,” I said to my father as he pulled out his wallet to pay for the last Topps “Traded” set (the one that contained the Ripken) needed for us to complete our collection.
With that said, my father slowly returned the wallet to his back pocket and we walked out of the giant expo hall at the Nassau Coliseum without the card.
When I was a teenager, I loved going to card shows with my Dad. Not only was it a fun bonding experience, it was early exposure to the entrepreneurial spirit. Spotting a good deal or negotiating yourself into one today meant you could turn that “find” into a bit of a profit down the line.
Back when we were collecting most of the attention (and the big money) was in vintage cards.
For sure you could try to prospect some current rookies and hope they, one day, would become All Stars or Hall Of Famers and you’d cash in on the Gary Sheffield or Frank Thomas you picked up for cheap 20 years earlier.
But all the big time collectors were interested in older cards of guys who were already proven. You didn’t have to wait two decades to see if Mickey Mantle or Pete Rose or Nolan Ryan where going to be all-time greats. They already were.
Plus all those old cards were already out on the market. And finding them in good condition was a challenge. New players had cards coming out every week. Who knew how many cards Topps or Upper Deck or Fleer or any of the new companies which seemed to appear on almost a weekly basis would flood the market with?
I haven’t been in the card game for quite some time but I have a twenty-year old nephew who has really gotten into it. And since the life of a college student and his older, business-owner Uncle don’t have a lot of common ground, we end up talking about cards and collecting quite a bit.
What’s interesting to me is that the card game has changed entirely.
While vintage cards still have a niche audience, it’s the latest cards that drive the market. Signatures, pieces of game worn uniforms, special materials and a whole host of other bells and whistles are the things that now get collectors attention. They want the newest cards with the players who are great right now.
Sure, those players may turn out to be flash-in-the-pans and the cards that go for hundreds or even thousands of dollars today may end up being worthless tomorrow. But that seems to be part of the thrill of the market. Volatility is more appealing than stability.
This also got me thinking about how, when I was a teenager, we completely revered legacy bands such as Led Zeppelin or The Rolling Stones or even Elvis and Motown. Sure, you may have enjoyed The Cure or The Cars or U2 or one of the more current bands, but you were deemed insane if you didn’t worship Pink Floyd.
Just like with the baseball card game, when it comes to music, that is no longer the case. Never mind not digging The Beatles or The Who, forget about owning every Prince or Police record, these days it’s all about what is on the charts this week. No one really cares about what they listened to two weeks ago, never mind two years ago.
Sure, there are exceptions. It seems that walking around in a Nirvana shirt is still cool. And for some reason I cannot understand, Queen still resonates with the kids. And Taylor Swift sure as shit isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
But this week’s Sabrina Carpenter is sure to be next year’s Lil Nas X (and, yes, I did have to look at the Spotify charts to come up with these examples).
Which leads me to my potentially important point.
As someone who has been in the fitness game for a while (and as someone who used to write for name-brand fitness magazines and websites), I often get asked in podcast interviews or even in conversation what I think about fitness influencers. Or, perhaps more at its core but less directly stated, what I think about the democratization of fitness information.
In other words, is it better now that everyone can have a voice and we get more information (good or bad, reliable or not) about fitness to the masses or was it better when the information (good or bad, reliable or not) came from a few trusted sources.
And, the truth is, I have no idea.
It’s easy to debate both sides of the issue for the reasons that are so obvious I won’t go into them here.
But, I will say this, you do need to be more cautious and selective about where you get your information from than ever. Because just like today’s baseball cards and hot bands, much of the information and the sources of that information, will prove to be either worthless or irrelevant faster than you can say “21 Savage”.
(If you are wondering who “21 Savage” is, you are not alone. I googled “bands popular in 2022 and just picked one I never heard of.)
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t new voices delivering great information. There most certainly are and we are lucky to have access to more science-based, anecdotal and self-experimentation influencers out there directly telling people how to actually get fit, stay healthy and trouble-shoot the problems they face.
But the key is - just as it was a century ago when people sold worthless health tonics and cure-alls on city corners - not to be a sucker. Find someone to trust because they are actually putting out great information. Not because they are selling you the dream or an awesome pair of leggings.
Sadly, we never got that 1982 Ripken. I went off to college and that wave of the baseball card boom came to an end. Shows went from giant expo halls to small conference rooms out on eastern Long Island. Too much of a schlep to even make it worthwhile going.
And, perhaps more sadly, mint condition examples of that card go for about $2500 today.
I made a mistake. I didn’t trust my source.
As per usual, I should have listened to my Dad.