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BMW · 08-20-2021, 03:22 PM

Yeah, the Wagner was an outlier. Effectively like the Inverted Jenny postage stamp - it's a mistake that was corrected and that led to scarcity. Inverted Jenny was a printing error, Wagner was an error in judgment by the tobacco company that they were willing to honor Wagner's wishes.

I don't know if having a monopoly versus not will drive the card industry to be "good" again. Topps didn't really make this "artificial scarcity" as part of their business model only after they were the last one standing. Topps and Upper Deck, and Fleer and Donruss all started going down that road. Soon it was just Topps and Upper Deck and now Topps is just left standing.

From a pure business standpoint, who am I to say that if Fanatics offers the MLB 20 billion for exclusive rights that the MLB can't agree to that?

Ultimately it means that Fanatics will dictate how the industry is run (within whatever contractual agreement constraints they have with the MLB and MLBPA).

I'd love to be able to go back to the days of getting 15 "worthless" cards in a pack for a dollar. But it's probably more profitable to have 4 cards in a pack for $3 and the only ones that anyone really wants is the limited edition print that can go from the pack to eBay for $80 the day you open the pack.

It's also a telling sign that on this board, full of baseball and historical baseball fans, that this thread took over 12 hours to get posted and that it's not a super hot topic. Baseball fans aren't baseball card fans anymore. It's a very small subset of fans willing to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a year on it.

08-20-2021, 03:22 PM	#6
BMW Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2003 Location: New Jersey Posts: 2,030	Yeah, the Wagner was an outlier. Effectively like the Inverted Jenny postage stamp - it's a mistake that was corrected and that led to scarcity. Inverted Jenny was a printing error, Wagner was an error in judgment by the tobacco company that they were willing to honor Wagner's wishes. I don't know if having a monopoly versus not will drive the card industry to be "good" again. Topps didn't really make this "artificial scarcity" as part of their business model only after they were the last one standing. Topps and Upper Deck, and Fleer and Donruss all started going down that road. Soon it was just Topps and Upper Deck and now Topps is just left standing. From a pure business standpoint, who am I to say that if Fanatics offers the MLB 20 billion for exclusive rights that the MLB can't agree to that? Ultimately it means that Fanatics will dictate how the industry is run (within whatever contractual agreement constraints they have with the MLB and MLBPA). I'd love to be able to go back to the days of getting 15 "worthless" cards in a pack for a dollar. But it's probably more profitable to have 4 cards in a pack for $3 and the only ones that anyone really wants is the limited edition print that can go from the pack to eBay for $80 the day you open the pack. It's also a telling sign that on this board, full of baseball and historical baseball fans, that this thread took over 12 hours to get posted and that it's not a super hot topic. Baseball fans aren't baseball card fans anymore. It's a very small subset of fans willing to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars a year on it. __________________ Last edited by BMW; 08-20-2021 at 03:25 PM.