Home Shopping Network (HSN) Baseball Card Sales – A Brief History
The Home Shopping Network (HSN), founded in 1982 as the Home Shopping Club, became well known for selling a variety of merchandise directly to consumers via television programming. While HSN is best associated with selling jewelry, electronics, and home goods, in the late 1980s and early 1990s they also began regularly featuring auctions and sales of sports memorabilia, particularly baseball cards. During this time period, the sports collectibles market was booming and HSN was able to capitalize on this trend by reaching the many households that had HSN programming.
One of the first major baseball card sales featured on HSN was in 1988. Through a series of daily auctions over the course of a week, HSN sold over 15,000 individual cards from various baseball card sets from the 1950s through the 1980s. Top cards from the 1953 Topps, 1975 Topps, and 1982 Topps sets achieved high bids. The most paid for a single card was $1250 for a near mint condition 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle. The weekly sales event brought in over $150,000 in baseball card auction sales for HSN.
Encouraged by the success of this initial event, HSN began regularly devoting weekend programming blocks to sports memorabilia sales. A portion of each block would be dedicated to live auctions of higher end individual cards and complete sets. Other portions involved straight sales of discounted commons and star player lots. Vendors would bring in vintage and modern cards to be displayed and sold on air. During busy weekends, HSN could move $250,000-$500,000 worth of sports collectibles in a single marathon programming session.
Some notable baseball cards sold during early HSN sales events include a near mint 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson that brought $3000, a gem mint 1966 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie that sold for $5000, and an uncut sheet of 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookies that realized $18,000. Complete vintage sets regularly found buyers too, such as a 1950 Bowman set in graded holders closing at $27,500. Even common modern era stars like Donruss Derek Jeter rookies or Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. update cards would move brisky during straight sales segments.
The advent of the Pro Set baseball card company in 1989 further fueled HSN’s card sales boon. Pro Set overproduced their early sets dramatically and glutted the marketplace with cardboard. This depressed prices across the entire baseball card industry but created a fire sale environment where bargains could be had. HSN took advantage, procuring collection lots containing thousands of commons and stars from Pro Set’s flagship 1989 and 1990 offerings. Entire long boxes jammed with Pro Set cards could be had for $20 on air.
During the early 1990s, HSN branched out from solely baseball cards to feature sales of other sports too. Vendors brought in boxes of football, basketball, and hockey cards to round out programming. Icons from those sports like Montana, Jordan, and Gretzky rookies and star cards would reliably sell. HSN also began offering sealed wax packs and factory sets of various sports for at or below retail prices. This helped create additional interest in the collectibles market HSN had fostered among its viewing audience.
No discussion of HSN’s baseball card sales history would be complete without mentioning The Card Guy, Barry Halper. As HSN’s resident memorabilia expert for over 15 years hosting numerous live card shows Barry became nearly as famous a personality on the network as their jewelry sellers. Halper’s encyclopedic knowledge of the card market, enthusiasm and humor made him a must-watch for any collector tuning into HSN’s sports offerings. His evaluations and commentaries during auctions kept viewers glued to their TVs pouring in bids.
By the mid-1990s, the frenzy surrounding sports collectibles began slowing and HSN scaled back their sports memorabilia programming accordingly. They continued periodic multi-day card sales-a-thons for many years after. HSN provided an important sales outlet for collectors, dealers and consignors during the boom years and played a seminal role in popularizing card collecting on a national scale through television commerce. While few homes today get HSN via cable or satellite, collectors remain grateful for their contribution to the growth of our hobby during its most mainstream period.
The Home Shopping Network made a significant impact on the sports collecting world through their innovative use of television infomercial style sales programming throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. By opening their airwaves to vendors, HSN was effectively the first shopping channel dedicated strictly to buying and selling collectibles. They helped fuel surging interest in the memorabilia market while educating millions of potential new buyers. While card sales may no longer dominate their programming, HSN nonetheless remains an iconic retailer synonymous with the boom era of baseball cards.
