Written By Jeffrey Reed
The hobby of collecting sports memorabilia is once again as hot as a Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps rookie card. For those Gen Z and Millennial readers, Mantle is one of Major League Baseball’s all-time greats who patrolled the outfield for the New York Yankees.
Don’t laugh: even oft-injured Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. quipped, “No, I don’t recognize him. I wasn’t even born.”
But serious sports memorabilia collectors of all ages are familiar with Mantle’s career – and with the fact his rookie card recently sold for $12.6 million US.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all turned to what makes us happy and healthy, and to what was accessible when much of society slammed its doors shut. A number of sports – namely, golf and pickleball – saw a huge surge of participants rush to playing fields across Southwestern Ontario and beyond.
As well, many leisure-time activities enjoyed a resurgence. Assembling miniature models – cars, trucks, ships, tanks airplanes and Gundam figures – is again one of the fastest-growing hobbies. Aaron Skinner, senior editor at FineScale Modeler magazine, said plastic modelling “is not only a good way to de-stress at the end of the day, but it’s also good therapy in that it gives you something to focus on instead of day-to-day issues.” With what is going on in the world today, we can all use a bit of that serenity.
Yet few sports and leisure activities have come close to the recent growth of the sports collectibles hobby. From the licenced caps and jerseys we see dotting Yankee Stadium during MLB playoffs, to the Tim Hortons hockey cards we purchase with our medium double-doubles, the sports memorabilia market is exploding in a way not seen since the late-1980s.
“At (a recent) National Sports Collectors Convention in Atlantic City, where we had record attendance, I couldn’t believe the number of kids ages 14, 15 and 16 being dropped off by their parents and going from booth to booth, table to table, in search of modern basketball cards,” said Chicago’s Michael Osacky, one of the world’s leading memorabilia appraisers and owner of Baseball In The Attic.
“To me, (teenagers) are the lifeblood of the sports collectibles hobby. For them to be interested in this hobby is important, because for many years all kids wanted to do was play video games and stare at their iPhones. So this new interest – primarily in basketball – is great news.”
I have never been an autograph seeker, but I have recently completed my collection of Original Six hockey sweaters – home and away, some vintage. I have a few game-used bats, including lumber swung by former Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillén – you can look him up, too. I say, lumber, because Sanguillén swung a 40-oz. bat.
Whatever sports memorabilia we collect, it reminds us all of our childhood. And in today’s world, there’s nothing like reminiscing about simpler times.
Award-winning writer Jeffrey Reed has covered Middlesex
County sports since 1980. He is publisher and editor of LondonOntarioSports.com. Reach him at
jeff@londonontariosports.com.
