GAMBLING ON BASEBALL MEDALS

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The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 22, June 3, 2018, Article 31

GAMBLING ON BASEBALL MEDALS

On April Fool's day I published a fake article about collecting digital coin images. I did it by tweaking an article from the baseball card collecting world. But a point I was trying to make is that there is actually a lot the numismatic field can learn from today's sports collectible market, which includes a heavy gambling element embodied in the packaging of boxed sets which sometimes contain a rare card worth much more than the price of the box. This encourages people to buy again and again, like mice in the Skinner box pressing a lever to get food. This gamification is driving huge sales.

A June 1, 2018 Numismatic News article by Editor Dave Harper describes a new marketing scheme selling packs of medals in a similar way, seeded with random silver and gold medals. -Editor

A firm called Baseball Treasure has created 30 medals, one player from each team, that it calls coins and is selling them.

The medals are licensed by Major League Baseball, so you know this is serious.

The question is, will potential buyers like to buy unknown medals as we once bought baseball cards?

You can buy a pack of three one-ounce copper medals for $19.99.

That price is a bit more than a nickel for five cards from my childhood.

A six-pack is $39.99. A pack of nine is $59.99.

You can even buy a case containing 432 packs for $2,999.99.

But there is a further inducement to potential buyers.

The desire to get a favorite player is augmented by the possibility of getting a silver or a gold medal instead of a copper one in the packs you buy for a copper price.

The firm says the odds of obtaining a .999 fine silver version of the medal are one in 432.

It is probably no accident that you can get 432 in the $2,999.99 case.

The odds of getting a gold medal are one in 21,600.

Who will be a buyer of these baseball medals?

To read the complete article, see:
Baseball medals go on sale (http://www.numismaticnews.net/article/baseball-medals-go-on-sale)

To read the E-Sylum April Fools article, see:
COIN COLLECTING GOES DIGITAL (http://www.coinbooks.org/v21/esylum_v21n13a37.html)

To read the original article, see:
From wax packs to mobile apps: Baseball card collecting goes digital to reconnect with kids (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-baseball-card-collecting-industry-20180326-story.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum

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