Published October 14, 2025 | By Bryan E, Collectors MD Community Member
When I was a kid, my brother owned a Topps Babe Ruth card showing Babe alongside his manager, Miller Huggins. It wasn’t especially rare then, and it isn’t particularly valuable now. The corners were soft, the colors muted—but to me, it felt like holding a small piece of history that he kept in his desk drawer. I’d take it out from time to time, the photo transporting me back to when the Yankees’ formidable lineup was known as Murderers’ Row. That one card captured what collecting meant to me back then: connection, curiosity, and a quiet sense of wonder.
Today, in the hobby, you hear less of that sentiment.
What was once about discovery has now become about distribution. Once upon a time, a rare find became a prized possession. Now, rarity is manufactured. Limited runs and “one-of-one” cards are designed to replicate what was once naturally developed scarcity. And once rarity is manufactured, the item is presumed to have greater value.
The 1962 Topps Babe Ruth and Miller Huggins card—worn edges, faded print, and all—a reminder that rarity once came from time and history, not hype or scarcity by design.
Scarcity used to mean something was hard to find because time or chance made it that way. Now, it’s created in boardrooms—carefully engineered to exploit the very emotions that once made collecting pure. Companies have learned to monetize nostalgia, turning childhood wonder into a revenue stream.
The result? A marketplace that no longer reflects the spirit of collecting, but the mechanics of speculation. A cycle of artificial supply and real demand—driven not by love of the game, but by the psychology of greed.
Maybe that’s why I still think about that 1962 Babe Ruth card. It reminds me of when collecting was about stories, not statistics—when rarity was real, and value wasn’t measured in dollars.
We can’t change what the industry has become overnight. But we can remember what drew us to it in the first place—and choose to collect with heart instead of habit.
#CollectorsMD
True rarity isn’t created—it’s discovered. What’s rare today is remembering why we started collecting at all.
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