[pigeons]

Nowadays a significant number of people who buy trading card packs/boxes do so as speculation of making money via obtaining a card they can sell for money. Baseball and sports cards weren't exchangeable for significant money 100 years ago.

[anthk]

You must be young. Sport trading cards have been there forever and for instance in my country, Spain, OFC some of the rare -soccer related- sticky cards were sold by big amounts of money (not millions like TCG), but for sure you could buy a new cheap PC with some of them.

And don't let me start with the old t-shirts. A weird one from my sports club today it's sold over $1000 even when back in the day no one liked the futurist design. Ditto with books celebrating the 100th anniversary of the club foundation day. These can produce a big chunk of money too.

Even if I don't like Nintendo, these Japanese company didn't invent any gambling. It always was there.

[pigeons]

There were no PCs 100 years ago. I didn't think it was common for them to be exchanged for money until around 1980 but yes it did happen before that. Probably would have taken several Mickey Mantle rookies to get an Apple II.

[anthk]

I am not saying that they were PC's 100 years ago; I'm saying that a bunch of marketing items/books from Soccer in Spain can be really expensive. I still have that oddball T-shirt from the Athletic Club with blobs instead of the classic soccer stripes. Guess what? Now it can be sold over $500 and up with ease.

Similar case with retrogaming. Random ROM of Earthbound in 2001? Even the cartridge would be found by $5 in thrift stores. Nowadays I've seen ridiculous prices for it, and with Shantae for GB it's even worse. The news back in the day in magazines/webs? Amazing graphics, the last game for the GBC, but the cool stuff was for the GBA. That's it. Move on, kid.

Can't wait to pulp novels/magazine to raise prices too, even if they can be reedited today at almost no cost. There are zillions to choose from, they are easy to read, they require no battery, and even if tons of them are really cringey, they are jewels found in ease, and not just the Western novels for grandpas. Scifi, spies and whatnot. Even more today when the average Best Seller it's over 600 pages long and the current generations can't properly focus anymore.

[pigeons]

Yes, I love all that stuff its great. I personally think that stuff has more value than modern collectables as far as connection to history, connecting to feelings, and just art expression. I misunderstood thinking you meant the old stuff had value when it was contemporary.

[FrustratedMonky]

Speculation is bit different than gambling. The stock market is gambling, really, but socially ok.

You are gambling with your money.

But that seems different from kids exchanging money while playing the card game.