Sixty Years of Collecting
From stock car racing’s infancy in the 1930’s to NASCAR’s inception in 1947 and all the way through the superspeedway era to today’s glitz and glamour, collecting motorsports memorabilia is tied directly to the history of the sport. The true value of collecting memorabilia is to honor the memories of cherished events and iconic drivers of days gone by.
Early on, race day items were saved as mementos by enthusiastic fans-but people didn’t do much more than create scrap books or toss items in the drawer to save for nostalgic reasons. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the collecting of NASCAR and auto racing memorabilia materialized into a bonafide hobby and recognized collecting segment. In 1979, the first national show devoted to racing memorabilia took place in Indianapolis. During the 1980’s, racing collectables began to take form as trading cards, models, and die-cast cars exploded into the marketplace.
As the popularity of the sport grew in the 1990’s, the hobby of collecting motorsports memorabilia grew as well. The merchandizing blitz in the souvenir industry flooded the market with low-end product-however, high-quality items could still be found and rare highly sought after older items called more people into the collecting brotherhood.
Today, due to a combined influx of collectors and rarity of early items, NASCAR and motorsports collecting has turned into a fun hobby and potentially a lucrative pastime. Older memorabilia in good condition has become extremely valuable. In turn, high-quality and rare collectables such as certain MAXX trading cards and OWNER’S ELITE® die-cast have become quite valuable as well.
A passion for the sport and an appreciation of auto racing heritage are great reasons to get into collecting-however, if you get smart and learn what to buy, why and how-you just might turn your hobby of collecting what you love into a true investment.