After talking to Card Trade editor Scott Kelnhofer about a study he saw a few years ago about the ethnicity demographic in the collecting world, it made me wonder, why aren't here more minority collectors out there?

"While the percentages vary slightly, most surveys we've seen indicate that roughly 90 percent of collectors are white males," said Kelnhofer. "Why don't more minorities collect? The most commonly perceived belief had long been that many minority children didn't have access to disposable income for hobbies such as card collecting. That may be part of the answer, but I don't think it's the only answer because some of these same potential collectors are spending money on various electronic games and gadgets. I think part of it is also the fact that few minority adults collected as kids, so they haven't passed the tradition on to their kids. Many studies suggest a large percentage of today's collectors have a friend or family member who also collects, so there's kind of that 'pass-it-along' mentality with the hobby. If you could cultivate collectors among today's minority youth, odds are likely you'd be able to get some of them to pass on the tradition to their kids."

According to Kelnhofer, and other SCD staff members I talked to about this subject, many of the minority pro athletes they talk to said at one point in their life they collected cards. So, I guess they fit in the 10 percent of non-whites who collect.

Are the card companies not doing a good enough job marketing their products to different demographics?? Not sure.

Anyway, I just thought it was kind of interesting, and might spark some comments on the blog.


Just a heads up, Mastro has its Classic Collector sale up for preview right now. If you ask me, I would say it is one the better Internet-only sales Mastro has done in a while. Great variety from all different sports with some nice cards and autos.

Click here to visit the sale.