The Great Baseball Card Bubble

Dave Jamieson‘s new book (excerpted at Slate) covers the history of the baseball card, including the baseball card bubble of the 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1980s, “As prices continued to climb, baseball cards were touted as a legitimate investment alternative to stocks, with the?Wall Street Journal referring to them as sound ‘inflation hedges’ and ‘nostalgia futures.'” The baseball strike of 1994, and declining interest on the part of children, marked the end of the bubble, and no doubt dashed the secret hopes of many an amateur collector.[%comments]