When the discussion turns to what card collecting was like in the “good old days,” we usually paint pictures involving images of 5-cent packs, kids putting cards in their bicycle spokes and collectors opening packs and trading with friends in the hope of obtaining those last elusive cards needed to complete a set.

We know that the 5-cent packs have long disappeared, and I’m not sure kids have considered putting cards in their bike spokes for quite some time, but set builders do, indeed, still exist in today’s hobby. Granted, most of today’s products are constructed in ways that make it virtually impossible to build complete sets, but that’s not the case with all products.

It’s far easier to create some headlines with news of a 1-of-1 insert card of a new product selling for thousands of dollars than the story of a 45-year-old man who just completed an online trade for the last four cards he needed to complete a 2004 Fleer Baseball set. But while the first story will turn some heads, the last story is what will keep the hobby alive and well for decades to come.

Set builders are to collecting what that group of five or six people who stop by every morning for a coffee break are to a local restaurant. They might not be the biggest customers in terms of volume or revenue, but they are loyal and long-term customers.

Today's card makers have anywhere from 12-20 card releases per sport, so they have to cater to everyone from the novice card buyer to the big-game hunter who buys packs solely with the hopes of hitting an easy-to-sell insert. Not every product needs to be focused on set builders, but a handful should be for one primary reason – building sets are part of the very fabric of card collecting.

Actually, that shouldn’t be the only reason. The fact is that encouraging set building is a way for the industry to get past the “instant gratification” mentality that is now firmly entrenched among so many collectors who view products as nothing more than a place where hidden cardboard jackpots reside. Those buyers will leave the hobby at some point when something more financially gratifying comes along. From the standpoint of establishing a collector mentality among buyers, set building is the best way to turn occasional customers into long-term buyers.

To encourage set collecting, the industry needs to overcome some of its own well-placed roadblocks. Not only do card manufacturers need to create products that are set-builder friendly, but card stores must encourage set building by offering a reasonable amount of singles for recent releases and offering opportunities for customers to trade, either with the store or with other customers.

And while short-printed base cards and higher pack prices have made traditional set building more of a challenge than in the past, it has created other set-building opportunities. Some collectors have opted to purse team sets, or some of the specially themed (and not too scarce) insert sets. Single-player collecting is an obvious choice, as well, along with other themed-set options.

No matter if it’s set building as most of us know it, or building a set based on a more refined concept, encouraging card buyers to try and obtain every card within a defined group is the best way to groom long-term collectors as opposed to temporary visitors to the hobby.

Topps released the first series of its 2008 Baseball product in February, but it wasn't until today the the company revealed one of the cards in the product is an "April Fools" joke.

The set features a card of Kazuo “The Uzi” Uzuki, supposedly a Japanese high-school pitching phenom. What most people probably don't know is that, in Japanese, the name Kazuo Uzuki means “the first son of April," a tipoff to April Fool's Day.

Listed at only 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, “The Uzi” was said to be known for his devastating 104 mile-per-hour fastball and was "on his way to becoming the first Japan-based high-schooler to jump straight to professional baseball in America."

With no way to verify the information from any reputable online source, many collectors had been questioning the authenticity of the card since it was released.
 
“The Uzi” rookie card is found approximately 1:72 packs of cards. 

If you're a die-hard baseball card collector, The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards is a reference tool you must have. Granted, our company publishes this massive reference guide (the 2008 edition weighs in at 1,850 pages), but corporate plugs aside, it's the most complete guide to baseball cards on the market and offers complete checklists of some very obscure sets.

The current editor of the Standard Catalog is Don Fluckinger, who is also a regular contributor to Tuff Stuff. Don has a fascinating blog where he posts information about the newest sets that have been uncovered. It's hard to believe that there are still sets and cards that are just now being discovered decades after their release, but that's what makes this blog so cool. Plus, collectors like you often provide some valuable information.

To check it out, click here.

That's what people used to tell me when I worked in television. Now I get to see if they were correct.

Sports Collecting Radio is now up and running. You can click on the Sports Collecting Radio logo on the TuffStuff.com home page, or you can click here to go to the audio player, then click on the "play" button in the left hand corner or click the "iTunes" logo on the bottom of the screen to listen to the show.

Our first show went live Feb. 15 and is being re-aired every hour on the hour. Our next show goes live Feb. 20 at 1 p.m. (Eastern) and it, too, will be re-aired every hour on the hour. Once a new show debuts, the previous week's show goes into the Archive folder where you can download it and listen whenever you would like.

The goal of the show is simply to bring you more insight into the sports collectibles hobby. We’ll provide the latest industry news, previews of upcoming products, interviews with card manufacturers, league licensors, dealers, current and former athletes, the various experts we have here on our staff and others. We'll also answer questions about items in your collection, so feel free to send us comments or questions via e-mail to sportscollectingradio@fwpubs.com.

Ever since Upper Deck became the first card maker to have a pack of cards selling for more than $1, card makers have been criticized for pricing collectors out of the market. The critics remained when the first $3-a-pack products hit the market in 1993, when the first $5 packs came out shortly after that, and every time the hobby pushed past another price point previously thought to be untouchable.

Today’s new card offerings include more than a dozen brands across all sports that will cost you $100 or more per pack. Mind you, the fact these products exist is for the simple reason that there has been a certain segment of the collecting population that has demonstrated over the years that they are more than willing to fork over that kind of cash in return for a product that is perceived to be of equal value.

The card companies will still be offering a variety of super-premium card products in 2008, but what kind of reception those products will receive is still unclear. With inflation at its highest rate in 17 years, increased concerns about the stability of the nation’s economy and consumer spending on the decline, a growing number of people within the industry, particularly owners of hobby shops, said they’d like to see card companies put more resources into creating and promoting lower-priced card sets during the coming year.

The nature of the card market suggests that even if sales of high-end products were to slow down, there wouldn’t be any noticeable changes in what’s being offered until next year. The card companies plan their product schedules up to a year in advance, and they have to do so with an idea of how each product’s sales will impact their projected annual revenues.

The card makers, especially in baseball, have put a larger focus the past three years on offering a reasonable number of low-priced offerings as a way to attract more kids to the market. There are low-priced products in other sports as well, but the pro-kids marketing message that baseball has invested in requires there to be a variety of low-priced products on hand. Companies in all sports have also spent more resources beefing up their highest-priced offerings as well, because that’s where the best profit margins reside.

While there are a handful of low-priced offerings and a growing number of very high-priced offerings, the so-called “mid-priced” brands seem to have been overlooked. Those products have long been favorites of the collector who wants a little more quality than what’s found in the low-priced offerings but can’t fork over $50 or $100 on a single pack. As the median pack price increases, these collectors are finding less that fits their budgets, and consequently getting frustrated with the hobby.

The hobby can't afford to lose anymore collectors, particularly those who have enjoyed the activity into their adult years. It also doesn't make sense to roll out additional product lines that the bulk of your customer base can't afford.