Sports Trading Cards | 77
History of the 90s
Kathy Kenzora
4.7 • 610 Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the early 1990s millions of people around North America were swept up in an unprecedented sports trading card boom.
As prices for rare baseball and hockey cards soared, the hobby which was once just for kids was suddenly being looked at as an alternative to investing in stocks.
To match the demand, a record number of trading card companies cranked up production, offering a dizzying array of options.
On this episode of History of the 90s, host Kathy Kenzora looks at the reasons for the boom and why it eventually went bust.
Guest:
Jon Waldman, author of Got ‘Em, Got ‘Em, Need ‘Em: A Fan’s Guide to Collecting the Top 100 Sports Cards of All Time.
Twitter: @jonwaldman
Contact:
Instagram: @that90spodcast
Email: 90s@curiouscast.ca
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Kathy. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s |
| 0:04.7 | early and ad-free on Amazon music included with Prime. |
| 0:09.6 | In March 1991, about 800 people attended a two-day auction at Sotheby's in New York City. |
| 0:17.3 | Collectors, dealers, and other auction-goers had gathered for the sale of over 870 Major League Baseball items, including autographed balls and baseball cards. |
| 0:28.8 | The most coveted card was a T-206 featuring Honus Wagner, the shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. |
| 0:36.4 | Between 1909 and 1911, the T206 cards were |
| 0:40.4 | included in packs of cigarettes, part promotion, part necessity, as they help stiffen the back |
| 0:46.2 | of the pack. But only about 50 Wagner cards exist, because the American Tobacco Company |
| 0:52.6 | ended up pulling them from cigarette packs. |
| 0:55.4 | There's a couple of competing stories about why they were pulled. Either Wagner objected to |
| 1:00.7 | being linked with tobacco, or he wanted more money from the tobacco company for use of his image. |
| 1:07.1 | Either way, any time one of the cards comes up for sale, it's special. |
| 1:15.6 | But no one predicted what happened at the Sotheby's auction in 1991. |
| 1:23.6 | The crowd cheered and clapped as the price for the coveted card went above $300,000, then $400,000. |
| 1:29.4 | By the time the gavel was brought down on the winning bid, the sale broke records. |
| 1:39.7 | The mint condition Honus Wagner card sold for $451,000, the highest price ever paid at auction for any sports memorabilia. |
| 1:48.8 | In fact, it was four times higher than the previous record. And you'll never guess who the winning bidders were, none other than hockey great, |
| 1:52.7 | Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNaul, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings. |
| 1:57.3 | Just like millions of people around North America in the early 90s, |
| 2:03.2 | the two were swept up in an unprecedented sports trading card boom, which in a few short years would go completely bust. I'm Kathy Kanzora, and this is History of the 90s, a podcast |
| 2:10.7 | about a decade that changed the world. On this episode, we look back at the great sports trading |
| 2:17.2 | card bubble. |
... |
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