April 1995 article on "10 Ways To Fix The Hobby"

[SpiritOfThe90s]

I wasn't exactly sure where to post this as the article covers all sports in the hobby in general, so mods do feel free to move this if need be.

I was going through my old price guides and came across this one from Collector's Sportslook (remember them?) dated April 1995. It features an article on ways to fix the hobby. I felt this was worth scanning and posting since the hobby has no doubt changed much since then. Especially since this article was written right before the internet altered the hobby.

Among some of the highlights of this article are:

- Terms We'd Like To Ban
- Reforming card shows
- Do's and Dont's
- The idea to ban price guides

I have uploaded the PDF scan onto my Google Drive for ease of access to view and download. Let me know what you all think. Enjoy.

10 Ways To Fix The Hobby, April 1995

[rngrdanny22]

I'd imagine the Goose Gossage of collectors wrote that article...

[mfw13]

Only point that is still pretty relevant is the first one about retailing....still too hard to find cards outside of card shows/distributor websites.

Would love to see cards back in grocery stores and drugstores.....

[thenwhatjk]

Best card magazine that ever existed, Collectors Sportslook

[KhalDrogo]

Same as it ever was!

[gmarutiak]

Originally Posted by thenwhatjk

Best card magazine that ever existed, Collectors Sportslook

I'll second this. I still own every issue.

[ewokpelts]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Only point that is still pretty relevant is the first one about retailing....still too hard to find cards outside of card shows/distributor websites.

Would love to see cards back in grocery stores and drugstores.....

Cards were all over retail then and well into the 2000’s. Toys r us had single packs of almost everything in rotation for years. And Walmart had exclusives then, especially in non sports.

[fabiani12333]

"But if you have to keep your cards somewhere, try nine-pocket pages. This is a nice middle ground. You can rest easy, because your stately collection is protected behind plastic."

Yeah, except those plastic pages caused acid damage to cards. And dust easily collected on the cards when the binders were stored upright on bookshelves. Also, cards were damaged by cigarette smoke.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by ewokpelts

Cards were all over retail then and well into the 2000’s. Toys r us had single packs of almost everything in rotation for years. And Walmart had exclusives then, especially in non sports.

The Target I went to as a kid still has the same dedicated trading card section they had in the mid 90s -- shelving adjacent to the checkout lanes. The only difference is sports cards have been replaced with Pokemon.

[oplum29]

Originally Posted by gmarutiak

I'll second this. I still own every issue.

the early Beckett issues were good, until they stopped trying to write actual articles.

other than that, i was always a fan of Sports Cards magazine. i always loved their "Top 10" list.

the Top 10 hottest regular issue cards, Top 10 sets, Top 10 inserts, and Top 10 insert sets.

they also added Top 10 autographs, vintage cards, Starting lineups, etc.

good stuff, great memories.