How many collectors are out there?

[mouschi]

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and a response to an article I wrote today had me thinking. How many collectors are there truly out there? After I said there may be between 200-500 NNOF Thomas RC's, someone said they doubted it was nowhere near 500 (which he may very well be right), it got me thinking. Here is my response:

You may be right, however, I think sometimes we vastly underestimate the # of collectors out there and the # of Topps cards produced + unopened. The psa population report currently shows 173 of them and bgs shows 87. Whether that is the lion's share of them or a sliver of them, I'm unsure. All I know is that I've never sent anything to be authenticated before.

On a different note, I've been thinking about how many collectors there are out there. For example:
The psa population report shows over 2,700 PSA 10 89 UD Griffey rookies. These currently fetch between $400 and $500 each! I couldn't imagine there are that many collectors out there to support this price, but they are selling, and surely this # of psa 10's will continue to go up.

Even more eye-popping is Jordan's fleer rookie. Nearly 2,500 psa 9's in the population report yet they are going between 5-6k. WHAAA?? This has really opened my eyes to thinking that we collectors aren't just a group of 150 nerdy adults scattered all around America

Just as a bonus: psa pop report on the famous '52 Topps Mantle? 1,177!

So, how many collectors do you think are out there? 500? 5,000? 500,000?

[OscarOne]

I do mostly autographs...and I think the majority that I meet do not have any, or very little, online presence. So I am always a little shocked when I am at a, lets say Low-A Lake County game, and there are 30 guys there getting autographs.

[GreatAlbert]

Love the post, as always. I would venture to say the number is definitely much great than 500,000+. We have to remember that there is still a large generation of older collectors out there that have no online presence whatsoever and come to local shows to fill their 1963 Topps set.

With this being said, the level of collecting is also another conversation altogether. Does it count if you haven't bought a card in 10+ years, but still have your childhood collection? I think the hobby is losing/has lost traction with younger people. Part of this is the pricing, the other has a lot to do with technology and people needing instant satisfaction.

There are just so many different levels that this conversation could go to, but as most of us on the site, I spend quite a few hours each week doing many different things with my cards. Recently just go onto eBay to start moving excess of what doesn't fit in my collection. So again I would ask, do case breakers/hobby shop owners count as collectors, if they are solely in the trading card industry to simply make money? I would say they would still need to be included as that is where the majority of the collecting community spends their money.

But yes, the number of collectors without narrowing down a true definition and leaving a brand spectrum out there to make the estimate I would hold that number out to be well above 500K.

[dasiegel]

Not to give a boring answer but, A TON! I think it is funny that sometimes people on here expect to see every big card in a forum or on ebay. But so many people don't know what BO or DA is! Others collect with their son or daughter and never have the need to get things graded etc. I think there are a bunch of unknown Mouschis!

[Doublexthebeast]

I would think there are well over 100k active collectors at any given time and several times that many that are "dormant" for lack of a better word. That is a pure guess though. There are definitely collectors that don't use forums or authenticate their cards. Those people probably house some pretty impressive collections. Many of those collections will likely never be seen until they die and the collections are sold off.

Great thread idea. I'd be curious to see if someone at the National could report the number of ticket sales to the last 5 shows. That would be interesting to see.

[enbambam6986]

I think the growing number of players with $100+ base chrome autos proves that there are a ton of people in the hobby.

There's thousands of these base autos and most of these players have yet to play two full seasons in the big leagues.

[Giancarlo27]

i would argue 75% of american born males over the age of 30 owns at least one baseball card. on the flip side i would say legit collectors likely numbers somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by mouschi

On a different note, I've been thinking about how many collectors there are out there. For example:
The psa population report shows over 2,700 PSA 10 89 UD Griffey rookies. These currently fetch between $400 and $500 each! I couldn't imagine there are that many collectors out there to support this price, but they are selling, and surely this # of psa 10's will continue to go up.

Even more eye-popping is Jordan's fleer rookie. Nearly 2,500 psa 9's in the population report yet they are going between 5-6k. WHAAA?? This has really opened my eyes to thinking that we collectors aren't just a group of 150 nerdy adults scattered all around America

Just as a bonus: psa pop report on the famous '52 Topps Mantle? 1,177!

One thing you have to be careful of when drawing conclusions from PSA pop report data is the impact of the resub game.

For example, if a card is cracked out and resubbed five times it shows up as five separate cards in the pop report, despite the fact that in reality it is just a single card which has been submitted five separate times for grading.

So in many cases, pop report numbers are grossly inflated.

[Wolf8MeVillie]

I say there are at least a million collectors. USA population is 318.9 million alone, that doesn't include all the Chinese (primarily collecting basketball), Japan, and Australia which are pretty active for sales in sports cards, so I think there have to be at least a million collectors out there. I can see 2000-3000 buyers for PSA 10 Griffeys easily, I am 40 and a lot of people who are close to that age, 35-45 who couldn't afford a Griffey back in 1989-1990 have gotten degrees or become established professionals that can probably drop $400 on a Griffey. I think a lot of people buy as long term investments, but I also believe there are quite a few collectors out there.

[bobthewondercat]

I think most estimates in this thread are way high.

Sure, there's a certain percentage of collectors who are not on any message boards or website. But it is not some huge secret majority.

I think the strongest evidence is 1/1 cards. A card not eventually showing up on eBay or a message board is a rarity, and many of those may be in sealed wax. It's usually not impossible to track down a super or other big 1/1 with some effort and time, so I think we can deduce that most collectors / breakers are online.

Attendance at the national is usually around 25k from public / leaked figures AFAIK. Many (I would say most) of those are repeat people from year to year, involved in the industry in some way or another.

Local card show attendance around the US, LCS traffic, eBay sellers and buyers, and comc users are also decent, though incomplete metrics.

Spitballing from what I know of these indicators, I would speculate about 100,000 collectors + card industry folks in total worldwide. (Approx 90k in USA, 10k in Japan and other secondary markets). I would guess 10k-20k "serious" collectors who are regularly involved in buying and selling.

I would be curious to see some legitimate research on this topic, I've wondered for a while.


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[Bronco Buster]

I do a base set of RC logo cards / Prospects for Topps, TC, and Bowman/BC. And if there is another product that I really like the design. I also collect any Yankees along with 2-3 PC guys.

Any decent pulls go to ebay to further fund the above.

[rainbowkiller]

Interesting reading responses in this thread!

A $500 card doesn't equate to x number of collectors, only x number of collectors who would spend $500 on the card. And yes, x could represent only a single collector.

Of course then there's the difference between collecting and investing. Buying cards doesn't make someone a collector! Frankly "investor" is a kind term for "scalper" for many. When I see someone scalping tickets in front of an athletic or musical event, I don't think the scalper as being a sport or music lover.

Overall, it certainly feels like the number of modern collectors has continued to diminish annually over the past two decades. Sure there are some true collectors, but not many. Many can't afford the hobby which has made many new cards artificially/temporarily too expensive.

[Kollectornet]

Think too, there are some people who don't collect but still have cards. I am quite sure millionaires may pursue a card because they just want it. If I had the money and didn't collect, I would still want a Babe Ruth autographed ball, the best Mantle I could get, Jordan Fleer RC for sure. Shoot, even player collect items they know are valuable.

[tkraft24]

The continued trend of higher end products points to a shrinking collector base. The industry is focusing on quality of collectors (consumers) instead of quantity of collectors....because the quantity just isn't anywhere near where it used to be. Companies typically adjust business models to capitalize on trends in order to keep up their margins regardless of market size.

I'm closer to the wondercat's estimate than anyone else's so far.

[ridgerider]

I would say collectors are a small group of 100,000 or less (comprised of team and players collectors) and the rest of the industry is comprised of profit driven flippers. Some points in case of confusion; Prospectors and prospect card values are derived off of hype mainly not demand in most cases and are bought and re-bought by flippers many times before making it into a colletion if ever at all probably always in limbo in a state of "when will I sell" instead of PC for life ( I am a collector and have sold nothing in years but I may move my prospect busting collection but never my Pirates PC). As for graded cards why would a collector care whether or not a card is 10 if it is aesthetically pleasing other than future value concerns (I know vintage slabbed equals authentic gaurantee but still the price difference and appearance for a PSA 8 and 9 say other wise) and graded cards are mainly investments and not part of collections. Then there are sales values for newer cards of older players except for 1/1 or rare cards but cards numbered to 50 or more that can be bought for collections a year after release for pennies on the dollar of what they sold for at release (ex. I have bought several Pirates HOF cards w/ relics or autos in 2016 of cards from previous years releases Wagner sterling 3 piece relic card I bought for $69 even though it was at BIN for 200 and up and last year sold for double at auction, Willie Stargell 3 color relic cards for under $10 and if their were more collectors out there I would not have been able to get them that cheap. Most auctions I won my only competition was from flippers trying to buy low and list with a high BIN as I have lost auctions and seen the card for sale the following week up for BIN and from a nice size collector market in Pittsburgh I have doubts that the collectors in this hobby aren't really few and far between and the real numbers are probably around 25,000 people.

[enyouartist]

I know that the high-end game used community a very small. I know almost all of the Harper collectors personally. Not many people are willing to drop $5-10K on a bat or jersey.

[byronscott4ever]

Someone might collect and not call themselves a collector but you could argue that anyone who owns cards is a collector. Think about SGA items and food items and ways that people come into cards other than buying for themselves.

[mfw13]

Depends how you define "collectors"...there are lot of people involved in the hobby who don't actually collect for personal pleasure...

[JUNKWAX]

I wont even try to put a number on how many are out there.

I will say that I think the number is growing though despite the constant negative "I quit" threads we see here. I think the fastest growing demographic is the mid to late 30 year olds that collected during the late 1980's early 1990's. Back in those days you either played Nintendo or you collected cards (maybe both). As people age they tend to get sentimental and want to relive their child hood and card collecting was the in thing back then. I am one of those people and when I got back into collecting around 2013 I could go to various trade shows and flea markets and I would be the only one buying cards and older wax boxes from that era and there was no shortage of it either. Now I go and you have to look hard to find any of that stuff and the prices are higher now on what you do find. I have one dealer I deal with all the time and he is even having trouble locating big unopened junkwax lots to resell because prices are climbing on that stuff. That stuff from that era is by no means rare but just a few years ago there was pretty much no demand for it and now there is. Obviously it aint the 15 year olds buying it up.

[texmcpherson]

Not this guy. -1

http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/b...time-quit.html

[dashcol]

I don't understand the people who say only 100,000 collectors. Let me explain my thoughts:

1) In my area, there is not really a LCS. There are not any huge breakers in the area, nor are there any major resellers as far as I can tell. However, the Walmarts and Targets in the area go through a good amount of blasters and retail packs that there is constantly new choices coming in. Someone is buying them.

2) To say only 100,000 collectors, if we call it the US only that gives us 50 states. That would give us 2000 collectors in each state. I think the Fantastic store would be able to tell us they have more than 2000 different customers alone, not including online, in store sales only. I don't think NYC would be able to support having a dozen LCS if there were only 2000 people frequenting them.

3) one of the reasons eBay got so big was because of sports cards. It is still the largest item sold on eBay year round. This would not be true if only 100,000 people collected. The growth of the card industry, and yes I believe it is still growing, has spawned other places such as COMC.

4) The sale of a major card still to this day will make the national news even if briefly. I do not believe this would happen if only 100,000 people actually cared.

5) you need to keep in mind there is somewhere around 8 billion people living on this planet. 100,000 people would only be less than .01 percent of the population. Sports is still the largest pastime of all populations around the world. Sports fans still want a piece of that and cards is the way to do it. So if we define a collector as someone who buys a card to have of their favorite player than I believe that would be more than .01 percent of the population.

6) I think a good estimate would start with the number of people who subscribe to Beckett monthly and go on from there. Collectors will still read and use Beckett. I for one can say that when I make a deal not on eBay or BO, one of the questions that always comes up is what is the BV. Even though sellers don't use it, and go by eBay sales instead, collectors who do not spend hours a day scouring eBay still use it. At least to trade by.

All that said, I do not think there is a good way to determine the amount of collectors out there. My estimate would be about 1% of the US which would be roughly 350,000 people and then add in the rest of the world. Asia is a huge market that is catching up to the US in numbers so I would say that is probably around 100,000 to 200,000 more in Asia alone. When we add in the rest of the world I would say probably close to 100,000-150,000 more. That puts us at around 650,000 people. And I believe that is conservative.

When we say there is 100,000 collectors, I would say that is more likely around 100,000 people who understand the investment side and use it as an investment or income source.

This is just MHO though.

[JGONGOESYARD]

As a highschooler, I believe many teens collect more than they can admit to.

[SirTommyWinAlot]

Originally Posted by mouschi

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and a response to an article I wrote today had me thinking. How many collectors are there truly out there? After I said there may be between 200-500 NNOF Thomas RC's, someone said they doubted it was nowhere near 500 (which he may very well be right), it got me thinking. Here is my response:

You may be right, however, I think sometimes we vastly underestimate the # of collectors out there and the # of Topps cards produced + unopened. The psa population report currently shows 173 of them and bgs shows 87. Whether that is the lion's share of them or a sliver of them, I'm unsure. All I know is that I've never sent anything to be authenticated before.

On a different note, I've been thinking about how many collectors there are out there. For example:
The psa population report shows over 2,700 PSA 10 89 UD Griffey rookies. These currently fetch between $400 and $500 each! I couldn't imagine there are that many collectors out there to support this price, but they are selling, and surely this # of psa 10's will continue to go up.

Even more eye-popping is Jordan's fleer rookie. Nearly 2,500 psa 9's in the population report yet they are going between 5-6k. WHAAA?? This has really opened my eyes to thinking that we collectors aren't just a group of 150 nerdy adults scattered all around America

Just as a bonus: psa pop report on the famous '52 Topps Mantle? 1,177!

So, how many collectors do you think are out there? 500? 5,000? 500,000?

I think there's more than you think. People don't just advertise that they collect sports cards. Particularly adults. I know I don't. Nobody knows I collect sports cards. It's kind of like video games. I'm an adult that plays video games on the PS4 but I don't talk about it cause i'm an adult. Does this make any sense?

[k13]

Very few.
Just cause someone bought a card don't mean he's a collector.

There are people with a 100 MJ rcs...so that pop report does not represent # of collectors very well...

[jmscoggin]

The answer is so obvious that I can't believe no one has said it until now, tree fiddy. /thread.