hno:
'89 Upper Deck? I see your point to an extent, but I don't really agree since that year was not only amazing for prospects, but Upper Deck almost saved the industry with their inaugural product.
Leaf and their price structure should take most of the blame for the industry's ultimate demise, combined with the blatant oversaturation by Donruss and wannabe's like Score.
What killed the card industry was the card companies horribly overprinting sets. Pro Set was the worst. They had like an 800 card set and printed 750,000 sets in 91 or 92. That led to other companies doing the same thing and along with all the companies that joined in the early 90's (Classic, Pro Set, Pinnacle, Score, Action Packed, etc.) led to just an overabundance of product.
I'll never forget going to a baseball card show when the Billy Ripken card was the hottest thing going and buying one pack of that year's Fleer cards and opening it right in front of the dealer and seeing the look on the dealer's face when I pulled out the Billy Ripken card. Priceless, unfortunately I didn't sell the card back then like I should have.
i love this thread. someone should write a book about the fall of the sports card industry.
i remember paying $10-$20 for will clark rookie cards with my allowance money, lol. they are still in hard plastic cases in my parent's basement.
i think the card grading companies took a lot of the fun out of things as well. pay to have the cards appraised?? it really took the "kids" out of the game.
i remember paying $10-$20 for will clark rookie cards with my allowance money, lol. they are still in hard plastic cases in my parent's basement.
i think the card grading companies took a lot of the fun out of things as well. pay to have the cards appraised?? it really took the "kids" out of the game.
Yep, I firmly believe this was the card to finally break the camel's back. I think Beckett and Leaf were engaging in some ol' fashion collusion to drive the price of this one card way up, and in return, the demand on single packs of Leaf which I remember fluctuated between $10 and $20 per pack.
How so? '84 was an incredible year largely in part to the Fleer Update set which featured RC's for Puckett, Clemens, Gooden, Langston, and Saberhagen. That was the mecca of sets for quite some time and carried that year well.
Now, '85? That was a horrible year!
