Fans say trading cards are ‘boiling hot’ right now
With major league baseball heading toward the postseason and the NFL season already underway, Dylan Rader, 13, of Geneva said his interest in sports trading cards these days is running pretty high.
“I have been collecting sports cards since third grade. I started with Pokemon and then went to sports cards,” he said on a recent Saturday morning during a six-hour show featuring trading cards as well as collectibles at the Kane County Fairgrounds in St. Charles. “I like modern football and, like basketball and Shohei Ohtani in baseball.”
The Loves Park-based Premier Card Show group offered the show, which featured 200 tables set up inside the Events Center at the fairgrounds offering sports cards, trading card games like Pokemon, vintage and modern cards and memorabilia.
Premier Card Show group co-owner John Craig said the show was a follow-up to one held at the same location in March.
“In terms of interest, right now is a prime time when football starts. It’s always huge,” he said. “With baseball it’s more players that are MVP category versus playoffs. People are really ramped up for football.”
He said that interest in card collecting is currently “boiling hot with the number of companies that are invested in trading cards now and big celebrity names.”
“There are high-ticket items and collectibles that are becoming more of a safe area — investment wise — than, say, stock trading these days,” he said. “It’s kind of fueled a little by fantasy sports and sports gambling but also the collectible market itself.
“A lot of people between their 40s and 60s, they were at the height of card collecting back in the ’80s and ’90s and now that it’s back, you have more spendable income,” Craig said. “It’s easy to fall back into what you loved before and if you have the access to funds. It becomes fun again especially when you’re taking you kids to it and getting them involved.”
Dan Beebe of Aurora said he has been a collector and sports card dealer “for over 40 years.”
“My major concentration right now is vintage basketball — Jordan, Kobe (Bryant) and some of those,” he said. “The market right now is really on fire.”
Matthew Schmidt of Geneva and his son Rooney, 5, came together to get some Pokemon cards at the event.
“My son and I have a shared interest. I have my own original cards that I’ve had for 30 years and I found them last fall,” he said. “It was the perfect storm because my parents were clearing out stuff and they found these old cards. My son got interested in this right when the market was getting super-frothy and he was getting interested in Pokemon. We found these cards and now we can go through them together.”
Julie Cotie of St. Charles came with her son Silas, 13, to the show and said this was the first card show they have ever attended.
“My son got me here. He’s been collecting since he was 5,” Cotie said. “I like this as my son gets to learn how to talk with vendors, wheel and deal — and there are definitely some life skills that come from this.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.