Sports Cards - Still Popular Amongst People

Containing the photo of sports personalities which also mentions their career statistics on a small card made of good quality paper are called as sports cards. These are a craze for sports lovers from football to basketball to hockey to baseball; everyone wants to have a good collection of these specially having the ones of their favourite player.

It all started in the beginning of the 20th century in the year of 1901 when small pieces of cloth were traded bearing the name of the baseball players on them. These were are extremely rare and have a worth over $800 today. Usually cards are given along with some products, like with a chewing gum or with a pack of potato chips or with a box of cereals. The different manufacturers had their own distinctive way of circulating these pieces. The value of these depends on the quality and the availability. A card which was circulated by the manufacturers just twenty times will have more worth than one circulated fifty times.

These have been among the earliest ones to be collected for a personal collection. Baseball was the first sport to get cards depicting different players and their career statistics and a little about their personal profile. These first appeared with cigarette boxes as the manufacturers were also the producers of tobacco.

Personally autographed ones became more of a sensation than a normal pack as they were exclusive and very less in number, and hence cost more. The craze of these cards continued with more and more sports had their cards of their players printed.

With the arrival of internet, trading and buying these has become easier. One can now upload the pictures of cards he has and can browse through ones owned by others. Trading can also be done along with buying and selling of these.

Although the craze of collection of these may have lessened over the years with more and more trading sports cards online rather than actually making a collection. But nonetheless there are still old folk out there looking to pay an arm and leg for rare sports cards of their favourite sports personality.

There is also competition seen among the manufacturers of the sports cards as they are looking not only to sell the sports cards but are also looking forward to sell their products through the channel of sports cards.