I read that Sotheby's, the famous New York auction house, had a major sale of baseball cards, with at least one selling for more than $300,000!
There are several shops for card collectors in my hometown, and periodic shows in shopping malls and such. In addition to baseball cards (yes, my mother threw mine out, too), you can purchase NFL cards, NBA cards, even Desert Storm cards (the prices on those probably haven't gone up much, recently).
Never one to let a good (or even average) thing slip away, I've decided it's time to launch a Preaching card collection. We'll issue full-color trading cards with well-known preachers, affordable and suitable for trading even at Sunday School meetings.
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Maybe well start with a "Classics" series -- folks like Spurgeon, Wesley, Edwards, and the like. The back of the card can have a brief historical profile, along with a particularly gripping quotation from one of the preacher's sermons.
Then we'll branch out. We can have the "Eloquent Evangelicals" series, featuring favorite preachers like Stuart Briscoe, Bill Hybels, and Steve Brown. Or the "Televangelist" limited edition set, with Oral Roberts, Robert Schuller, and Jimmy Swaggert (with each ministry's 800-number on the back for the convenience of prospective donors).
I think our "Denominational" line will have real potential -- such as our "Powerful Presbyterians" series, featuring preachers like Lloyd Ogilvie, John Huffman, and Frank Harrington (we'll need a supplementary "PCA pack" as well, with D. James Kennedy, Ben Haden, and brethren). I have a particular interest in doing a "Battlin' Baptists" pack, but haven't decided whether we need to issue separate cards for conservatives and moderates.
Can't you imagine the fun kids will have as they buy and trade their cards in order to put together their own "all star" lineup of great preachers? And imagine the profit potential for a collector who recognizes early on some remarkable talent; wouldn't you like to have a Billy Graham "rookie card" from his days at Youth for Christ?
There's just one technical problem still to be ironed out: kids have a tendency to fall asleep when playing with their Preaching cards for longer than twenty minutes. We're working on it.