Where Will The Hobby Go From Here?

Over the past week there were two excellent posts about the state of the hobby.  The first was Mario’s Waxheaven post where he wrote about what has happened to the hobby and what is more important to collectors, great designs or hits?  The second one was written by Rob on his Voice of the Collector blog, where he talks about how boring the retro sets are becoming.  So here is my question, Mario thinks there should be less hits and more creativity, Rob wants Retro designs to pop.  Here is what I think the Hobby companies have to do:

1. Instead of creating retro sets, why not do modern takes of retro sets.  Forget Goudey and Allen and Ginter, instead create a new brand, give it an older feel, then every year come up with a new design.
2. Forget all the autographs and game used.  Limit it to a dozen subjects, with odds of hitting it one per case for game used and one per 10 cases for autographs.
3. Make it all about the design again.  I like Ticket to Stardom by Topps, the design isn’t bad and it’s a cool idea (even if Fleer already did it in the early 00s).
4. Bowman deserves to be the home of the rookie card again.  Forget putting in the veterans, make the set all rookies, that’s where you can put in the autograph cards of rookies.  People who buy Bowman want the autographs of rookies.  People who buy a regular set want autographs of veterans.
5. Bring back the wax pack for the cheap sets.  $20 – $30 for a box of mass produced cards that would make up about half a set always makes me happy.  I would buy a box a week until I had the set.
6. Collecting cards has become so confusing, it’s no wonder kids don’t want to collect cards.  A perfect example of a fun product is Panini’s hockey stickers, which can be seen on this video (I know it’s Beckett, but they do a good job of showing the product). Each box has 50 packs of stickers with 5 stickers per pack, and a box runs between $25 – $35. Plus each box yields a complete set.
7. The companies can still have the high end stuff.  I’m not buying it but someone else is and lots of it.  I’ll continue to buy it off eBay for a fraction what they paid for it.

I wish collecting the new cards would be fun again.  The only set this year that I felt was a real home run was O-Pee-Chee baseball and hockey.  Sure it was expensive to collect, but it was fun to put the sets together.  It has been said many times that collecting is not about the money, because the sets aren’t worth it, no it’s about the fun.  Topps needs to put the fun back into the hobby.  The old addage is KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, Topps / Upper Deck / Donini need to reinvent themselves.  Bring the fun back into the hobby, make boxes of cards inexpensive, so that a new generation of collectors can be established.