Fewer Are Investing Hearts and Money Into Baseball Cards Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times Sara Wright opened her collector's card shop 33 years ago in Cornelia, Ga. CORNELIA, Ga. - Just before noon, Sara Wright unlocked the small store on the first floor of a fatigued two-story building and flipped the sign to "Open" from "Closed." On went two fans in place of the broken air conditioning. A small ringer was positioned on a glass counter atop a handwritten notice that read, "Please shake the bells. I am in the back. For the next five hours, Wright enjoyed the inanimate companionship provided by the beloved baseball merchandise at her Cornelia Sports Card Shop. There was no other option, given the scarce human traffic. She made two sales that day, and only one was for baseball cards. "That's just the way it is, and I accept it," Wright said, looking forward to dinner out with relatives at her favorite eatery, the seafood chain restaurant Captain D's, to toast her 89th birthday in three days. She first opened 33 years ago in this tiny town tucked into the northeast corner of Georgia. It was an era when baseball card collecting engaged scores of passionate Americans, especially children. The hobby ultimately engulfed adult baby boomers - some driven by the investment potential, others willing to spend considerable discretionary dollars just for fun. By the early 1990s, baseball cards were the engine of a full-blown billion-dollar industry that capitalized on a card collection craze. Wright's involvement can be traced to her two young sons, who swapped cards with friends. When they grew up and moved out of the house, she gathered the cards left behind and performed a parenting role reversal - following in the footsteps of her children. She took it a step further, at first operating card shows at a local school in the 1970s, with dealers renting tables for $5. Then, freshly retired from her job as a school dietitian, she scraped together $10,000 for a baseball-centric shop located a hilly block from Cornelia's compact downtown. Wright immersed herself in the trade, educating herself on the value of cards. She boned up on baseball by making televised big league games, especially those of her Atlanta Braves, a nightly ritual with her husband. Customers came - and still do, if less frequently - from neighboring cities as well as metro Atlanta, at least an hour's drive south. Children gobbled up the small packs, their fathers the jumbo ones. One Atlantan paid $2,300 for a set, her biggest score. Her next largest sale was a single card. Ordered shipments sometimes included a special pack with one player, unidentified, inside. Attempts to sell it for $5 proved fruitless, so she tore open the silver wrapping to discover a Joe DiMaggio card from an exclusive series. For once, she resorted to the Internet, relying on one of her sons to list the no-longer-hidden treasure for sale. It fetched $1,800. Mostly, Wright has catered to the casual collector, marking up the price of packs and sets just enough to assure a small gain for herself while keeping them affordable. "This has been such a fun thing," she said. But not nearly as profitable over the last two decades. As much as nostalgists might like to protect the collecting hobby with the type of clear cellophane case that keeps vintage cards from aging, interest has faded from its peak period. "The standard card is no longer a draw enough for an average baseball fan," said Tom Bartsch, the editor of the Sports Collectors Digest. It won't ever be what it was. It's a different culture now. At the annual National Sports Collectors Convention, which begins July 31 in Chicago, the inventory devoted to baseball cards will fall to about 15 percent from more than half in the late 1990s, according to Mike Berkus, the convention's founder and executive director. Berkus estimated that the amount of money from card sales across the country each year has declined by nearly two thirds from its peak. Illustrating the trend is the reduction in the number of manufacturers licensed by Major League Baseball to one this season, from five during collecting's heyday, though at least two other companies still churn out cards.