SPORTS FLASHBACK 1991: Sports card collecting snowballs

The newest rage among elementary school kids is the collecting of sports cards. With the card collecting fad snowballing, indeed it is drawing in collectors from all age groups. Many adults are reliving their childhood by taking up the hobby once again. Some do it for fun, others do it for money.

With the current interest in collecting, it is not surprising that more and more card shops are springing up in Steinbach.

Main Street Sports has been selling cards for two years, and in the last month, two more card shops have opened in the area. Collector’s Choice opened in Steinbach May 1 and Mr K’s Sports Kards opened last month in Grunthal.

Mark Hiebert of Main Street Sports says the card collecting business has taken off in the last two years. Hiebert says with most collectors, the whole emphasis is on profit.

A wide range of cards are being produced in a number of sports. For example, six sets of hockey cards are now on the market: Bowman, Topps, O-Pee-Chee, Upper Deck, Score and Pro Set. Another six sets of baseball cards are also available.

Other sports with cards are golf, NFL football (but not CFL), basketball and wrestling. For collectors who are interested in non-sport cards, Pro Set, an American company, has come out with Desert Storm cards, to commemorate the allied forces “glorious victory in the Persian conflict.”

With the hockey card explosion in the last couple of years, more and more companies are producing cards. This year, the six different card companies produced about 2,700 hockey cards, and Steinbach collector Murray Chornoboy has two complete sets of all of them.

Chornoboy has been collecting hockey cards for about 20 years, and has been a diehard collector since the age of 10. His cards, always safely stored away in a shoe box, Chornoboy began to get more serious about his collecting about 10 years ago.

Chornoboy says although many of his fellow classmates also collected cards in elementary school, he says few, if any, have kept up their collections. In a collection that includes more than 20,000 cards, Chornoboy says the card that he wants the most to complete his 132 card 1966-67 NHL set, is the Bobby Orr rookie card, which at $1,500, is the most valuable hockey card on the market.

Chornoboy’s most prized card is a Wayne Gretzky rookie card, worth about $550. Chornoboy still views his card-collecting as just a hobby, unlike many of the new collectors today, who are in it for the money.

He says he is not particularly pleased that his hobby has become a recent fad, because as a collector, trying to acquire older cards is becoming more difficult, because prices are up because of the increased demand.