https://sportsillustrated98.com/ Sports Illustrated Blog #66 – Vintage 40’s 50’s and 60’s SPORT and BASEBALL Publications – The “Next Big Thing”Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now. The Next Big Thing – It’s what we’ve been chasing since Mom threw away our baseball cards. Our hobby is in a constant state of change – growing, expanding and creating opportunities. Paperboard/Magazine collecting seems to follow the yin and the yang or the zero sum game. For every winner, there’s a loser, and for every loser there’s a winner. The allure is to be the guy that hangs out in the winner’s circle more than the average. My goal is to help you be one of those guys. Collectors can be laser focused on “their” interests and miss the evolution of the hobby and opportunities. Case in point, if you were a card collector in the 80’s, you know baseball cards were king. Every now and then you might find a hard core guy that liked hockey, basketball or even football. Over time, collectors moved into other major sports vastly increasing the demand and quickly driving values upward. Opportunities followed for those that were paying attention early. New card manufacturers emerged to follow the same path. Topps was king and their values were too – two/three times the competition – but the hobby still wasn’t satisfied. The “next big thing” became – quality, population, and competition. With the 80’s came Donruss, Fleer and Upper Deck and card values were determined more by population and quality than by manufacturer. Hobbyists that recognized these evolutionary changes and were open enough to the “next big thing” market around them, were able to capitalize on this movement by being early to adopt. The point I’m making is opportunities arise more from change than from conviction. For example, I am a diehard SI fan and collector. In the past four years I have written 65 informational blogs in an effort to promote what I believe to be the best sports publication ever produced. But just like Burger King and Wendy’s, there is a market for #2. Sports Illustrated was late featuring covers of Mantle, Williams, DiMaggio, Robinson, Musial, Mays, Chamberlain, Koufax, Unitas, and many more. Who’s going to fill that void? SPORT, BASEBALL, Baseball Digest, TIME, etc. etc. Other pubs were a bit ahead of the game as you will see below. Future collectors will create a demand for the first Mantle, Aaron, Chamberlain, Unitas and so on and on and on…. Watch and see. Below you will find Mantle’s first ever cover from 1951 and many other one of a kind, none higher, POP 1 CGC grades. These issues offer a chronology of sport like nothing else. Take a look at what kind of pub I’m talking about. |
   These are the covers other Pubs are chasing.  1956 Triple Crown 1962 First Major Pub for Clemente None Higher   First ever pub for Mantle – None Higher POP 1 1953 – None Higher POP 1   1953 – 3 years ahead of SI 1959 Unitas – previous to SI   1951 – 4 years ahead of SI None Higher POP 1 1947 – 8 years ahead of SI None Higher POP 1   1955 – Only major pub of Skowron 1964 Clay – None Higher POP 1   1963 – None Higher POP 1 1951 – Cy Young – None Higher POP 1   1957 Mantle Berra – None Higher POP 1 1965 Koufax None Higher POP 1   1957 Mantle – None Higher POP 1 1957 Mantle – None Higher POP 1   1953 Spahn – None Higher POP 1 1957 awesome esthetics – None Higher POP 1   1966 Koufax – None Higher POP 1 1953 – Roy Campenella None Higher POP 1   1958 – Nellie Fox – None Higher POP 1 1964 – Mays DiMaggio None Higher POP 1   1957 First ever pub for Chamberlain – None Higher POP 1 1959 Unitas – None higher POP 1 This is just a sampling of the early entries now available. It is my prediction that these covers and others like them will “Be The Next Big Thing.” Feel free to contact me if you have an interest in procuring or have questions on any of the above. Thank you. I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of TIME and SI magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting. Great collecting to you and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/TIME! For a complete review of previous blogs, please visit www.sportsillustrated98.com |