When I Was A Kid, There Were Many Different Types Of Trading Cards That We Collected And Traded. The Best Thing About These Cards Was That They Were Fun, And They Never Cost Very Much. In Fact, They Were Very Cheap. If We Lost One, It Was No Big Deal, And We Could Usually Find Another. Though There Were Some That Would Gain Value And Would Be Harder To Find When You Wanted To Replace Them, You Could Find Them Eventually. This Isnt The Case Any Longer.My Friends Son Wanted A Certain Type Of Trading Cards For Christmas. I Was Shocked When I Picked Some Up In The Store And Saw The Price. These Were Priced At Around Ten Dollars For A Set Of Eight Cards. I Thought Surely These Cards Must Be A Bit Rare, But There Were Many Packages Of The Same Cards Sitting There On The Shelf. I Could Not Believe They Were About A Dollar And Twenty Five Cents A Card, And Was Even More Shocked To See Other Sets Priced About The Same, Even Though They Were Of A Different Variety.I Guess They Can Charge As Much For The Trading Cards Because People Are Willing To Pay That Much For Them. I Did Buy Them For Her Son, But I Would Not Make A Habit Of It. It Would Seem That An Artificial Value Has Been Placed On These Particular Trading Cards. When I Was Growing Up, The Ones That Gain Value Were The Ones That Were Rare, But They Cost Next To Nothing To Buy. You Just Hoped You Would Get Lucky When You Bought A Pack Of Them. On Top Of That, Many Of The Hard To Find Ones Would Be In The Hands Of People Who Didnt Know They Were Rare, And They Would End Up Lost Or Ruined Anyway. That Gave The Remaining Ones Even More Value.I Guess This Is One Good Thing About Having A Daughter. Though There May Be Trading Cards That She Will Be Interested In, Most Of The Ones On The Market Are Aimed At Boys. She Seems To Be Very Girly, So Perhaps This Wont Be A Problem For Us. I Guess If I Have A Son In The Future I Will Have To Face The Possibility Of Buying Expensive Trading Cards. I Do Know That I Wont Do It Often, So I Hope My Son Will Have The Smarts To Learn How To Trade To Get What He Wants. That Was Supposed To Be The Point Anyway.
