In the absence of harmony among those in the hobby who love to engage in the argumentative discord about when modern age sports cards first began or when vintage ends, the debate has become quite redundant, with so many varied opinions without collective resolve. This lack of consensus has been a popular topic of conversation on almost every sports card-related podcast, message board, idle conversation at local shows, and of course, in this article before you.
To be honest, this is a pet peeve for me and among many others. It's not just about justifying an opinion but moreover about finding a resolution to settle this debate once and for all. I propose a solution from a hobby historian's perspective. This isn't about claiming absolute correctness but about offering a progressive and straightforward framework that we can all possibly agree upon.
Perhaps we can draw a slight influence from the comic book genre's allocation of eras. While not perfect, this approach offers helpful guidelines and provides a named breakdown of these periods in "ages", something the sports card hobby could somewhat benefit from in comparison.
The Golden Age of comics (1938-54) began with the debut of Superman, inspiring the creation of many superheroes as the world grappled with WWII. In sports card terminology, we use the classification "Prewar" to cover tobacco, confections, and gum-issued cards including and prior to WWII or pre-1945. Easy Peasy.
The Silver Age of comics (1956 to the early 1970s) is marked by the revival of the superhero genre, spurred by the founding of the "Comics Code Authority" in 1954 to regulate content. This period somewhat parallels the start of the "Postwar" era or to use a better word "Vintage" for sports cards, except it began in the very late 1940s, after WWII. But where does "Vintage end and "Modern" begin? That is the real question and before we tackle that, lets continue on with the classification of the ages of the comic books.
The Bronze Age of comics (1970s to 1986) ushered in darker themes that skirt the issues of alcoholism, drug use, death, and even environmental issues. This era doesn't have an exact start date, but many agree it began around 1973. Thus, some confusion comes when, for example, to classify a comic book from this period, you might have to categorize it in both the Silver and Bronze Ages to cover the so-called bases as to where exactly does one end and the other truly begin?
In the sports card world, this ambiguity allows us to skip directly to the Modern Age, avoiding the fractured intricacies of a Bronze Age equivalent. The Modern Age for comics (1986 to Today) sees a large variety of characters more popular than ever, and well supported by the superhero comic genre success through relating to movies and TV shows like Marvels: Avengers, Spider-Man and X-Men plus DC Comics: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
For sports cards, the "Vintage" era extends into different years depending on the sport, but it's essential to consider the sports card industry as a whole, encompassing the four dominant major sports. Therefore, a unified transition to the Modern era should logically be set around 1990. This period marked a significant transformation with the entry of new card companies, and the widespread availability of price guides and magazines to the mainstream public.
Additionally, PSA started their grading business in 1991, marking another milestone in the hobby's evolution. The removal of gum from packs and a major shift towards boxed sets for collectors and dealers to sell singles further underscored this transition. The proliferation of new local card shops (LCS) and trading card shows blossomed during this period. It was a turning point where the industry evolved from traditional countertop sales to a more collector-focused and financially-driven approach.
This great divide being post 1990 is the start of the Modern era, this timeline provides clarity and consistency, the beginning of a new decade and simplifying the categorization of collections and aligning with the historical shifts in the sports card market.
To simplify:
Prewar: 1945 and before
Vintage: 1946 to 1990
Modern: 1990 to present
This framework allows collectors to quickly reference and categorize collections. While the specific start of the Modern era may vary by sport, with no general consensus that 1990 marked a significant collective shift. With the baseball card collectors, opinions range from 1980 to 1985, mirroring the comic book crowd's lack of exact agreement, with many trying to justify their own timelines. However, when discussing the sports card industry as a whole, defining the date each sport became modern, as opposed to when the entire industry shifted, does not advance our collective understanding.
We also have to consider when price guides blanketed the industry. There were sporadic sports card price guides issued prior to 1970, but none that are memorable or widely recalled today. The true early rumblings of price guides date back to the 1970s, gaining more traction in the 1980s. Dr. Jim Beckett, a dedicated collector in his youth, utilized his later scholarly expertise to enter the sports card publication market with his first baseball price guide in 1979. He continued to release guides yearly into the 1980s. However, these early price guides primarily focused on the detailed, seasoned collector rather than the common populace.
In baseball, by 1984, Beckett introduced its first monthly price guide magazine. By 1990, Beckett Monthly Magazine had issued one for all four major sports and was available in almost every common bookstore, crossing the Rubicon into modernizing card collecting for the general public. This shift made collecting sports cards a mainstream hobby, capturing the interest of casual shoppers browsing newsstands or magazine racks. It transformed the perception of the card collecting hobby from a niche activity that might have seemed unusual to mention publicly to friends or acquaintances into a widely accepted and prominent pastime and or business opportunity.
Thus, we believe that 1990 marked a pivotal moment when Beckett magazines became available monthly for now football, basketball, and hockey, truly covering the sports card industry comprehensively.
We also believe that 1990 marks a significant shift in the sports card market, for each licensee pushed the competitive boundaries for not only card stock advancements but with creative varieties of designs to win over the patron dollars. At this point, the sales to dealers finally surpassed those to the common customer. This transition indicates the dawn of the modern era, where the casual collector's influence was dwarfed by the proliferation of the dealer market.
Again, this is my summation of how I view the hobby of sports card collecting, broken down into three easy distinct timeframes: Prewar - Vintage - Modern. While we can acknowledge the comic book collectors for defining different "Ages," but maybe we can avoid their pitfalls and become the hobby we were meant to be; a like-minded community, governed by none and united by all.
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