Is This Even a Baseball Card?

This post was partially inspired by Sport Card Collectors' box break of 1995 Topps Stadium club.

I love baseball cards.  I grew up collecting baseball cards and using all my allowance, birthday, and Christmas money from 1987-1993 on just baseball cards.  1993-1995 saw me add football, basketball, and comics to the group.

I remember getting 10-15 cards in a single pack of cards just enjoying looking for singles of my favorite players.

I lost focus on card collecting around 1996 until about 2009.  I still followed sports, but wasn't into collecting much anymore.

In 2010 I came back to the hobby and have been going strong ever since, but it wasn't until I was showing images of my Andrew McCutchen collection to a coworker that I got to thinking "Is this really a baseball card?"

Baseball cards (or any collectible cards) based on perception should be able to fit into a 9 pocket page and stuck in a binder.

Many of the hits these days can't do that.
Many of today's products wouldn't dare do something like that.

2020 Topps Definitive is on absolute fire 🔥 🔥 🔥 right now.  Individual boxes are selling for $1,600-$2,000 a box. 

Each box contains only 8 cards.  I plan to eventually get a McCutchen pinstripe Phillies relic from the release, but prices are super high for a plain white swatch numbered to 50 copies. 

The above green parallel is numbered to only 15 copies, features a great patch, features a Pirates jersey, and the color is bold.

When I show cards like that to non hobby people though, the consensus is "that's what a baseball card looks like now"?

Look at the thickness of this card compared to a standard flagship card.

Now look at the design of the card

It looks radically different than traditional cardboard. 

Hits like this don't even have set numbers. 

The landscape of trading cards has transformed drastically in the past 30 years. 

Where do you think the hobby will be 30 years from today?