Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Internet Killed the Baseball Card Magazine

With the news of Tuff Stuff ceasing to exist, it makes me wonder how much longer the printed versions of Beckett will be around. I had not seen a Tuff Stuff on (shrinking) news shelves in a couple of years. In 2010 year, I have only seen one issue of Becketts Sports Card Monthly (which I picked up-I have been wondering if this is the last one I will ever buy) on a news stand shelf. I was never a big Tuff Stuff fan over the years as I always thought they lacked substantive articles.

I remember in the summer of 1984, seeing for the first time a Baseball Card Magazine on a magazine shelf. I bought that magazine (with a cover picture of Cal Ripken and an uncut sheet of 1955 Topps Baseball card) and still have it and probably have read it from cover to cover at least 8 times over the last 26 years. I think that was the 9th issue ever of the magazine which at the time came out quarterly. I started buying BCM on a quarterly basis and some of those issues had some great articles about Baseball Cards.

However now with the Internet and blogging I don't see a need for these magazines. The blogs The Fleer Sticker Project and Topps Archives remind me of some of the types of articles you would have seen in BCM. Most other blogs preview the new material (which is all that Beckett does - though I do like just holding the Mag in my hands), so I don't see Beckett in the printed form surviving in the next 5 years.

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