Here it is, episode #2 of The Stale Gum Podcast!
Showing posts with label stale gum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stale gum. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Friday, April 19, 2019
Some Thoughts on The State of The Hobby in 2019 and on "The 30-Year Cycle."
There's a video going around that I feel I need to comment on. I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, so bear with me.
The video in question is a three minute snippet from The Rich Eisen Show, in which some guy calling himself "Gary Vee"is hyping up the investment potential of sports cards.
Truth be told, I've never heard of this guy before, so I had to do some research. According to his Wikipedia page:
He is right about pop culture going in 30-year cycles, and right now we are in the midst of what I'd like to call The Second Junk Wax Era.
Let me give you an example. 2019 Bowman Baseball is out this week (or as the kids like to say "Streets" this week), and it's the same as it has been the last few years: 150 new Prospects each with a dozen parallels, 20 Chrome Refractors, and another dozen and a half Autographed Chrome Refractors. As usual, there's always that one guy that everyone marks out on and this year, it's an eighteen-year old who hit .351/.418/.587 in the Appalachian League last year. I'm sure Cooperstown is already preparing his plaque ... right next to Ruben Rivera's, Brien Taylor's, Travis Lee's, and Todd van Poppel's.
Here's the thing with Bowman though. Year in and year out, with the hundreds of Prospects issued across the three Bowman flagship brands, (Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft) you can count on one hand the number of players whose cards will ever be worth anything. If you don't believe me, check out the $1 and 50¢ boxes at your local weekend card show. I guarantee you'll at least one dealer with monster boxes full of Bowman parallels and Bowman Chrome Refractors, many of them low numbered, dating back years that will never, ever, sell at any price. Just like the scores of Barry Larkin, Will Clark, and Rafael Palmerio rookies that clog-up many of the same $1 and 50¢ boxes. Who's going to want a Gold Die-Cut Shimmer NukeFractor serial-numbered to 50 of a guy who never made it past Class-A? How many Randy Johnson rookie cards does one need?
The video in question is a three minute snippet from The Rich Eisen Show, in which some guy calling himself "Gary Vee"is hyping up the investment potential of sports cards.
Truth be told, I've never heard of this guy before, so I had to do some research. According to his Wikipedia page:
"Gary Vaynerchuk (born Gennady Vaynerchuk; November 14, 1975; Belarusian: Генадзь Вайнярчук, Russian: Геннадий Вайнерчук) is a Belarusian American entrepreneur, author, speaker and internet personality. First known as a wine critic who expanded his family's wine business, Vaynerchuk is best known for his work in digital marketing and social media, leading New York–based companies VaynerMedia, VaynerX and VanerSpeakers."I guess he's kind of a Big Deal, I mean, "Gennady Vaynerchuk" sounds like a stock villain in a Grand Theft Auto game. But "Gary Vee," well, only Important People get to give themselves a nickname, and Gary Vee is one of those Important People ... even though I've never heard of him until about 20 minutes ago, and we're roughly the same age. How many leather-bound books does he own? And does his apartment smells of rich mahogany?
He is right about pop culture going in 30-year cycles, and right now we are in the midst of what I'd like to call The Second Junk Wax Era.
Let me give you an example. 2019 Bowman Baseball is out this week (or as the kids like to say "Streets" this week), and it's the same as it has been the last few years: 150 new Prospects each with a dozen parallels, 20 Chrome Refractors, and another dozen and a half Autographed Chrome Refractors. As usual, there's always that one guy that everyone marks out on and this year, it's an eighteen-year old who hit .351/.418/.587 in the Appalachian League last year. I'm sure Cooperstown is already preparing his plaque ... right next to Ruben Rivera's, Brien Taylor's, Travis Lee's, and Todd van Poppel's.
Here's the thing with Bowman though. Year in and year out, with the hundreds of Prospects issued across the three Bowman flagship brands, (Bowman, Bowman Chrome, and Bowman Draft) you can count on one hand the number of players whose cards will ever be worth anything. If you don't believe me, check out the $1 and 50¢ boxes at your local weekend card show. I guarantee you'll at least one dealer with monster boxes full of Bowman parallels and Bowman Chrome Refractors, many of them low numbered, dating back years that will never, ever, sell at any price. Just like the scores of Barry Larkin, Will Clark, and Rafael Palmerio rookies that clog-up many of the same $1 and 50¢ boxes. Who's going to want a Gold Die-Cut Shimmer NukeFractor serial-numbered to 50 of a guy who never made it past Class-A? How many Randy Johnson rookie cards does one need?
Now I know I'm dating myself here, but I'm old enough to remember the original Junk Wax
Era and jabronis like Gary Vee were dime a dozen. Oh sure, they bought a lot
of cards, but they sure as hell didn't collect any them. We tend to think that Junk Wax Era products were "overproduced," and by today's standards, they were. But somebody bought all those cases of 88 Fleer. They may not have been trying to find the last few cards to knock-off their 1987 Topps set, but Junk Wax Era products did sell well.
And that's the problem. Just like in the late-80s/early-90s (30 year ago), The Hobby is currently attracting an element that has no interest in collecting the cards, just accumulating them for speculative purposes. The card companies know this, which is why many of their products are no longer designed to be collected. I could write another 850-1500 words on this subject, but I'll save that for another time.
Let me finish with this: In the beginning of the video, Gary Vee casually mentions that he's bought and sold hundreds of Giannis Antetokounmpo RCs over the past year. (Him lecturing a producer about how late-80s/early-90s cards are worthless is pure ironic gold, though.) Well, what do you think happened back in The Junk Wax Era?
One summer when I was in high school, I had a job at a Hobby shop that did a lot of mail order business. My job consisted of ripping dozens of cases of wax, picking out all the rookies and stars, and selling 25, 50, 100-count lots for "investors." This was commonplace in the time. Go read an old Sports Collector's Digest from the era and look at the ads if you don't believe me. How is that any different than what Gary Vee is doing with Antetokounmpo cards?
(Speaking of which, I have a 100-count lot of 88D Gregg Jefferies RCs I'm sitting on. Any takers?)
Fortunately, around '92-'93, the Junk Wax bubble burst and these halfwits moved on to the Next Big Score: subprime mortgages, Medicare fraud, and social media influencing.
Other thoughts on my mind:
Going back to the 30-year cycle, we're due for another baseball strike, the kind that cancels a World Series. And whaddya know, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in 2021! With a strike seemingly inevitable, I wouldn't want to be Topps and stuck with an MLB license (and nothing else) when another World Series is cancelled (#ThanksExclusiveLicensing!). If Topps were still publicly traded, I'd sell short.
Then again, another strike and another cancelled World Series is what The Hobby needs. Clear out the rot. Purge all the gamblers. Give another company a license to kick-start things (just not Panini). Make products that appeal to collectors again. The period from 1993-1999 brought a series a innovative and collectible card sets. Maybe by 2025 (there's that 30-year cycle again) baseball card collecting will be fun again?
And that's the problem. Just like in the late-80s/early-90s (30 year ago), The Hobby is currently attracting an element that has no interest in collecting the cards, just accumulating them for speculative purposes. The card companies know this, which is why many of their products are no longer designed to be collected. I could write another 850-1500 words on this subject, but I'll save that for another time.
Let me finish with this: In the beginning of the video, Gary Vee casually mentions that he's bought and sold hundreds of Giannis Antetokounmpo RCs over the past year. (Him lecturing a producer about how late-80s/early-90s cards are worthless is pure ironic gold, though.) Well, what do you think happened back in The Junk Wax Era?
One summer when I was in high school, I had a job at a Hobby shop that did a lot of mail order business. My job consisted of ripping dozens of cases of wax, picking out all the rookies and stars, and selling 25, 50, 100-count lots for "investors." This was commonplace in the time. Go read an old Sports Collector's Digest from the era and look at the ads if you don't believe me. How is that any different than what Gary Vee is doing with Antetokounmpo cards?
(Speaking of which, I have a 100-count lot of 88D Gregg Jefferies RCs I'm sitting on. Any takers?)
Fortunately, around '92-'93, the Junk Wax bubble burst and these halfwits moved on to the Next Big Score: subprime mortgages, Medicare fraud, and social media influencing.
Other thoughts on my mind:
Going back to the 30-year cycle, we're due for another baseball strike, the kind that cancels a World Series. And whaddya know, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in 2021! With a strike seemingly inevitable, I wouldn't want to be Topps and stuck with an MLB license (and nothing else) when another World Series is cancelled (#ThanksExclusiveLicensing!). If Topps were still publicly traded, I'd sell short.
Then again, another strike and another cancelled World Series is what The Hobby needs. Clear out the rot. Purge all the gamblers. Give another company a license to kick-start things (just not Panini). Make products that appeal to collectors again. The period from 1993-1999 brought a series a innovative and collectible card sets. Maybe by 2025 (there's that 30-year cycle again) baseball card collecting will be fun again?
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
A Broken Resolution, and a New Focus
My New Year's Resolution for 2014 was to blog more. Well, it's February 4th and I'm only getting around to writing my first post now. I know, right? Sue me.
To be honest with you, I've been wondering what to do with this thing. As you've undoubtedly noticed, the number of blog posts I've written over the last few years has declined, and I proportionally blame this, in part, to the quality of Topps' recent baseball products. (If they don't give a shit anymore, why should I?) But even if things were all hunky-dorey in The Hobby, I doubt I'd be blogging much about it.
About ten years ago I went through the same lull where I took a few years off from my "webzine" (remember them?). I was burnt out and needed a break. All life is cyclical; everything evolves from The Great Magnet.
(OBTW, if you actually want to read the "old" Stale Gum, and trust me you don't, you can find it if you know where to look.)
It was only after I discovered the blog format and began reading cardblogs like Ben Henry's Baseball Card Blog and the Cardboard Junkie that I was inspired to re-launch Stale Gum in the blog format; which, in turn, probably inspired others to start their own cardblogs. (I shouldn't say "probably." The e-mails, personal messages, and cardshow shout-outs I've received over the years proves it.) I'm not going to take the credit for the late-2000s boom in cardblogs, but if there was ever a "Golden Age" of card blogging and of Stale Gum, I'd say the years 2006-2010 were it. For the first time since the days of Jefferson Burdick's mimeographed newsletters, the collector had a voice this Hobby; a voice that you just didn't hear all that much from in the Mainstream Hobby Media. It also helped that most of the card products were still somewhat collectable.
I guess I'm in the same rut now that I was in 2002-04. When the King of The Bloggers declares that "Blogging is Dead," maybe it's time to this puppy to sleep, give yourself a pat on the back, and move on. Besides, the cool kids have gravitated towards Twitter doing when used to be called "micro-blogging."
Twitter is a great tool and had it been around in the early-2000s, I doubt this blog would even exist. But there are some things you just can't compress into 140 characters -- or even a series of 140-character Tweets. But then again, there are some things just not worthy of a traditional blog post.
So tonight, in this, the Fourth Day of the Second Month in this Foul Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand Fourteen, I'm giving Stale Gum a new focus. The 800-1000 word blogposts won't be entirely gone, just less frequent. In its place, I'm going to try to write a series of 50-100 word posts -- maybe once a day or a couple of times a week. Or, like, whenever.
Always Be Collecting
To be honest with you, I've been wondering what to do with this thing. As you've undoubtedly noticed, the number of blog posts I've written over the last few years has declined, and I proportionally blame this, in part, to the quality of Topps' recent baseball products. (If they don't give a shit anymore, why should I?) But even if things were all hunky-dorey in The Hobby, I doubt I'd be blogging much about it.
About ten years ago I went through the same lull where I took a few years off from my "webzine" (remember them?). I was burnt out and needed a break. All life is cyclical; everything evolves from The Great Magnet.
(OBTW, if you actually want to read the "old" Stale Gum, and trust me you don't, you can find it if you know where to look.)
It was only after I discovered the blog format and began reading cardblogs like Ben Henry's Baseball Card Blog and the Cardboard Junkie that I was inspired to re-launch Stale Gum in the blog format; which, in turn, probably inspired others to start their own cardblogs. (I shouldn't say "probably." The e-mails, personal messages, and cardshow shout-outs I've received over the years proves it.) I'm not going to take the credit for the late-2000s boom in cardblogs, but if there was ever a "Golden Age" of card blogging and of Stale Gum, I'd say the years 2006-2010 were it. For the first time since the days of Jefferson Burdick's mimeographed newsletters, the collector had a voice this Hobby; a voice that you just didn't hear all that much from in the Mainstream Hobby Media. It also helped that most of the card products were still somewhat collectable.
I guess I'm in the same rut now that I was in 2002-04. When the King of The Bloggers declares that "Blogging is Dead," maybe it's time to this puppy to sleep, give yourself a pat on the back, and move on. Besides, the cool kids have gravitated towards Twitter doing when used to be called "micro-blogging."
Twitter is a great tool and had it been around in the early-2000s, I doubt this blog would even exist. But there are some things you just can't compress into 140 characters -- or even a series of 140-character Tweets. But then again, there are some things just not worthy of a traditional blog post.
So tonight, in this, the Fourth Day of the Second Month in this Foul Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand Fourteen, I'm giving Stale Gum a new focus. The 800-1000 word blogposts won't be entirely gone, just less frequent. In its place, I'm going to try to write a series of 50-100 word posts -- maybe once a day or a couple of times a week. Or, like, whenever.
Always Be Collecting
Monday, September 16, 2013
Fifteen Years of Stale Gum
The year was 1998.
Crackheads roamed the streets.
Roided-up monsters were taking over baseball.
And The Hobby Media, compared to where it is today, was in the toilet.
That year a certain "Baseball Card Monthly" magazine crowned a company that would be out of business by the end of the summer, its inaugural (and only) "Company of the Year." The news was met with a mixture of amusement and outrage on the nascent internet card collecting community.
In September, a card collector serving his country in the Armed Forces was fed up. He realized that in the traditional Hobby Media, an important voice was not being heard.
The voice of the collector.
And so one day, he got drunk -- as he usually did -- and came up with the crazy idea to start a newsletter, written from the point of view of an actual baseball card collector, for his fellow baseball card collectors.
Over time, the newsletter (which thankfully has been lost to history) evolved into a webzine, blog, and now Twitter handle.
The Hobby has changed into something none of us would have recognized in 1998. Certainly, the Stale Gum Media Empire has changed into something I wouldn't have recognized in 1998. But there's one thing that will never change.
I will continue to give you my unbiased, snarky, honest-to-God, takes on baseball cards, without fear or apology.
I thank you for your continued support.
Crackheads roamed the streets.
Roided-up monsters were taking over baseball.
And The Hobby Media, compared to where it is today, was in the toilet.
That year a certain "Baseball Card Monthly" magazine crowned a company that would be out of business by the end of the summer, its inaugural (and only) "Company of the Year." The news was met with a mixture of amusement and outrage on the nascent internet card collecting community.
In September, a card collector serving his country in the Armed Forces was fed up. He realized that in the traditional Hobby Media, an important voice was not being heard.
The voice of the collector.
And so one day, he got drunk -- as he usually did -- and came up with the crazy idea to start a newsletter, written from the point of view of an actual baseball card collector, for his fellow baseball card collectors.
Over time, the newsletter (which thankfully has been lost to history) evolved into a webzine, blog, and now Twitter handle.
The Hobby has changed into something none of us would have recognized in 1998. Certainly, the Stale Gum Media Empire has changed into something I wouldn't have recognized in 1998. But there's one thing that will never change.
I will continue to give you my unbiased, snarky, honest-to-God, takes on baseball cards, without fear or apology.
I thank you for your continued support.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
As if you needed another reason to attend The National
See this?
This is a 33-year-old, rock-hard, slab of gum. (Some might call it Stale, but I'm above that.) This piece of gum was recently acquired by me, directly from Topps inside an unopened wax pack of 1978 Topps Baseball.
On Saturday afternoon, August 6th, on the floor of the National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont, Illinois, I will attempt to consume this third-of-a-century piece of gum.
No, I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. But my doctor said I wasn't getting enough BHT in my diet.
This is a 33-year-old, rock-hard, slab of gum. (Some might call it Stale, but I'm above that.) This piece of gum was recently acquired by me, directly from Topps inside an unopened wax pack of 1978 Topps Baseball.
On Saturday afternoon, August 6th, on the floor of the National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont, Illinois, I will attempt to consume this third-of-a-century piece of gum.
No, I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. But my doctor said I wasn't getting enough BHT in my diet.
Monday, August 04, 2008
50,000 Collectors Can't Be Wrong.
| From January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
July was a record shattering month at Stale Gum. Over 50,000 visitors! An all-time record!
On behalf of all of us in management, we want to thank each and every one of you for making Stale Gum The Hobby's number one cardblog.
Always Be Collecting,
Chris Harris
Sunday, May 04, 2008
The Stale Gum Box Break Archive.
Over the years, I had thought I lost all my pre-blogger box breaks forever. Then I discovered something called the Internet Wayback Machine, which has been archiving other websites. So to whoever started up the Internet Wayback Machine, THANK YOU FOR SAVING EVERYTHING!
http://web.archive.org/web/20010801192515/stalegum.com/coll/coll.asp
If you have any spare time, check it out. See what this site looked like seven years ago (yes, that is supposed to look like 1987 Donruss), or see just how awful my writing skills were before I went back to college.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010801192515/stalegum.com/coll/coll.asp
If you have any spare time, check it out. See what this site looked like seven years ago (yes, that is supposed to look like 1987 Donruss), or see just how awful my writing skills were before I went back to college.
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