Baseball cards have been around since the late 1860s. The Goudey Gum Company in Boston produced what is regarded as one of the most popular vintage sets back in 1933. We can thank the Topps Company for our more modern trading cards as they began inserting all types of trading cards into packs of bubblegum. Even Philadelphia’s Bowman Gum issued their first baseball cards in 1948.
Although card collecting can be lucrative if you’ve got multiple cards in pristine or mint condition, owner of Media Cards and Sports, Jim DeCorso, says that card collecting is more of a hobby industry.
“Everybody starts by pulling out their collection—stuff you bought for the last 20 years,” says Jim. “And they're like, ‘Oh, I’ll make good money’ because you bought it all those years ago. But once you sell through your initial collection, you go buy more cards because you need to sell again.”
Jim is a lover and a collector of sports trading cards. Jim recalls one summer when he was about 8 years old, while he was at camp in the Poconos for the first time, his mother sent him a care package of brownies including 3 packs of 1968 baseball cards.
Jim shared that he still reverts to collecting players of his youth. Not so much the highly valued card, but those nostalgic players of his youth.
Since opening in 1993, Jim’s store has hosted all kinds of sports items from jerseys to balls and baseball bats; even sneakers! To add interest (and income) Jim added ski and snowboard rental to his shop, known as Media Ski & Snowboard.
Jim told us that buying to resell and buying to collect are two sides of the same card-collecting coin, however, those who are in it for the love of card collecting may be able to weather out the low periods just off of interest alone.
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