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Business & Tech

Local Store Tries to Lift Baseball Card Collecting Out of a Slump

Topps 60th Anniversary event at Never Enough Cards hopes to spark a renewal of the fledgling hobby of card collecting.

Over the weekend, , a local Port Jefferson trading card store, celebrated the debut of the 2011 Topps baseball card trading season by hosting an celebration event at the store.

The gathering, which drew more than 30 locals to the store, marks Topps' 60th anniversary in the trading card business.

A good mix of both old and young trading card enthusiasts turned out for the event.  Patrons discussed some of their favorite players, cards, and memorabilia while waiting for the debut of the Topps 2011 baseball card set. 

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The owner of Never Enough Cards, Lisa Stellato, just wants to try and help repopularize a fledgling hobby.

“Our saying here is we just want to get people back into collecting,” she said.

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In this economy, Never Enough Cards will take all the help it can get. When asked about how business has suffered as a result of the economy, Stellato simply said, “It's rough.”

Never Enough Cards opened in Port Jefferson 9 months ago and hope to be here for a long time. But with the economy continuing to suffer, people are making cutbacks in non essential areas, a category that trading cards certainly falls into. Still, there is a loyal fanbase keeping it alive.

“Baseball cards are the most popular overall. That is how it has always been," said Stellato. "But football and hockey sell too. Basketball is the least popular in my experience."

Prior to opening in Port Jefferson, Never Enough Cards had a store in Mount Sinai for 19 years, so they are not newcomers to the niche. People in the Port Jefferson area can likely look forward to more events of this kind.

"Events like this help to get people interested again and in theory, help to get new people into the hobby as well," Stellato said. "I think events like this help get a small buzz going."

The trading card market has seen a free-fall since the online era changed things more than a decade ago. According to estimates by Beckett Media, sales of sports trading cards have fallen to $250 million per year from a high of $1 billion per year back in 1991.

It remains to be seen if new incentives along with new rarified trading cards can jumpstart the hobby. Many brands of new baseball cards infuse game worn jersey material into certain specific trading cards and make them available at a rate of anywhere from 1 in 24 packs to 1 in 25,000. This is just one of the clever new ways card companies are trying to drum up new business.

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