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What brand do you guys recommend to get your kids(young ones 7-9 range m) into it but also have some investment potential and shot at fun inserts like autographs etc? Football would be the preference or baseball/basketball if they have different options.
Idk what cta even is lol. Raw, there’s only one that sold on eBay for around a hundo.
Honestly--it all depends on what you are willing to spend. Wax prices are crazy high--so that will limit which products you can consider and the "investment potential" for them. For football--if you want to open a product with your kids that actually have lots of packs and lots of base cards (so that you can teach them how to organize cards, and spend 30 minutes to an hour ripping packs)--maybe Score football hobby or Donruss football hobby (those will cost you in the 200-300 range). If you want to avoid having a massive amount of base cards--you can also do a product like Origins football. You only get one pack per hobby box--but the cards are thicker and nicer, and you are guaranteed a couple autos (one that is on card--meaning not a sticker auto), you get a patch card, you get a couple base cards and a couple parallel inserts. It will cost you $250-300 a box---but you'll end up with fewer but nicer cards--and if want to collect without taking up much space--its'a decent option
If you want fun and investment potential-Prizm football hobby is the "gold standard" for football cards. They are literally what Bowman is to baseball cards. The PSA graded 10's of rookie qb's in prizm command great money--and they also have what they call silver/color parallels (they effectively are refractors). The only issue is this--it'll run you $1000+ a box--and the ROI is a gamble. With that said--Prizm cards are soo popular that they actually sell singles on sites like StockX. If you are willing to take the risk (and its a big one)--that's probably the product I would recommend.
Ah that's a very interesting idea. I am a degen so the quick gamble of the boxes is tempting but I do like the challenge of trying to pick undervalued players like in fantasy. Awesome post, thanks for the detailed response!
This is very true. Football card collecting in regards to values are about rookie qb's and rare inserts/parallels from stud qbs/hof players..etc. There generally isn't a lot of room for prospecting in football because most rookie qb cards command a decent amount of money from the moment they are released nowadays. There is definitely more potential for "prospecting for value" in baseball and basketball.
Who knows, maybe I’m sitting on a fortune. I have a lot of score 1/1 gem masters, roughly 40-50
Feel like I need a dm on here or fb about what you have!FairWarning said:
The other product I’d suggest is a mosaic hobby box too. The autos in that aren’t even the best products in there!CR69 said:
Holy hell, how are you doing buddy? Long time no chat (Trailer Park Boys from FCP), good to see you're still around.
I know who you are haha. Pretty good man, just working a ton and have two kids that are 14 months apart so it’s nonstop
. How are you?!
Same with work, the mortgage business is booming right now. Glad to hear you’re doing well thoughI know who you are haha. Pretty good man, just working a ton and have two kids that are 14 months apart so it’s nonstop
I’m poor because of these damn kids hahaha. I know steel city collectibles is very reputable. They have a mosaic box listed at like $750ish which isn’t up charged ungodly like some of the cellos/hangars/retail boxes are. I don’t really have much of a local card shop here now. The one I knew about seems to have went out of business unfortunately.
Dude ended up with a Joe Burrow Rookie Scripts and a Dak and Zeke Genesis. Unreal.
That’s sick man. It’s so hard getting any autos in blasters let alone a burrow. That’s close to a $1k haul for everything there. Probably more like $1200ish
Do you recommend trying to get the Auto Burrow PSA'd? I see they were shut down "as of May 20" due to da Corona. I'm telling him he should look into trying to drop it off, since PSA is located in Orange County, about 20 miles away from our local area. Or should he just toss these up on Ebay asap?
Mosaics have been grading pretty rough. Only one that was graded (from BGS) came back a 9.5 and sold for $725. Raw ones are selling for $600+. You’d be paying like $100 for ten day grading and it’s not really going to pay off unless it’s a 10. I’d put it up raw on eBay if you sell it and list it for $750 and probably take an offer of $675 min.
Mosaic is an interesting and intriguing product. This year is the first year that Panini is doing it for football and the hobby has seemed to like it so far. Much like Prizm--it's a product where the parallels/inserts carry an appeal that is not so dependent on pulling a big name auto. The weird thing about Mosaic is that before this year--it was one of Panini's "affordable" products. For example--Panini had a suggested retail of $120 per box on mosaic basketball hobby this year--and they ended up selling it for $600 a box direct to the public (it sold out in minutes). Being that its the first year for football--there is some potential collectibility to it this year. Layton Sports Cards currently has hobby boxes at $739 with free shipping anywhere in the world currently. If you do order from Layton--you go to the website--click where it says "personal boxes" and when you add it to your cart--make sure you click the "ship it" option. If you click "rip it"--they will open your box live on youtube for you--which can also be fun and also beneficial if you are looking to sell whatever cards you happen to get. Dozens (if not hundreds of people) watch the live stream and if you land a card from players they collect--often times you can connect with them on chat/facebook and work out a deal.
This thread has made me nostalgic and I feel like opening up some old packs from when I was collecting. (1986-1990) My concern would be people opening and resealing wax for good cards. Obviously that will be less of a problem for the mass produced crap sets like 1988 Topps.. or Donruss... or Score... man 1988 really sucked. I'm guessing there's less of a problem for sealed foil packs? I'd love to get some 1989 Upper Deck, still remember the smell when you opened a pack. Maybe some 1990 Skybox? Would like to get some other bball like 88-90 Fleer, 86&87 too expensive for screwing around. What do you guys think would be fun packs / boxes to target?
Well Panini has a product called encased where you are guaranteed a graded card in every box--so you might be a little late in your prediction. Lol.
Only buy sealed wax boxes. Even if they're foil you can still manipulate the packs by figuring out the sequencing. I think I had about 30 Griffeys doing this with Upper Deck in 89.
If they're not in great shape, save your money especially if you're not looking to sell. If you're curious, send in a test run of your gems and you'll likely see how tough it is to get anything above a 7 or 8 with older cards. You could also do a search on Ebay to get a handle on what properly graded cards of Franco, Swann, etc look like and then search completed deals to see what the market price is for a given grade. Sometimes, it'll cost more to get the card graded than the actual value.
Yeah agree with Major. Check the Sold listings of eBay (one of the filter selections) to see different grades and what they went for. It will likely depend on the "population" of how many there were of a certain grade on a particular card as to the variance in value. But in general, older cards don't need to have a 10 grade to carry a decent increase in value over the base card. As for getting cards graded, you can buy in to grading groups where they do batch submissions. I've seen a couple of advertisements but haven't done it. But looks like they charge you a flat fee to submit your card for grading (along with their other submissions). I guess they put together enough to get a minimum order graded. Maybe @jvdesigns2002 or one of the others can give more insight on that.
Preservation, curiosity and maximizing your value mainly.
I have a few unopened packs/boxes on ebay
Been saying this for years but felt like it was falling on deaf ears. It was obvious years later with the birth of ebay when the Beckett guide clearly said it wasn't monitor actual online sales.The Noid said:
Decent resale on 87 Topps?comfortably numb said:
The answer to this question is completely subjective and varies based on who you ask. One great thing about collecting sports cards is that there is no "one way" to collect. Some people collect players from certain teams, some collectors like prospecting where they try to target players before the hobby becomes privy to them, you have set builders, you have collectors that just love the thrill of hitting a big card in a pack or a break--those collectors are almost part gamblers..etc. Just as there are different types of collectors--they are different beliefs in when it's appropriate to grade cards.Steve Tasker said:
Can you expand on that? I was completely out of the hobby for several years, so I guess I missed any scandals that happened.
Both BGS and PSA have a history of grading trimmed cards as not being trimmed. Either graders there were incentivized to do it--or they didn't take the time to notice and examine them (which would arguably impune their reputation more than bribery would). I'll throw a link down at the bottom of this post that is a quick summary of that particular scandal. There is also many instances where people send a card in for a grade--they don't like the grade--so they break the slab and re-submit the card as if it was a new submsission and will end up getting completely different grades than they got the first time. Also--until recently--people would be sending in cards that were cleaned with liquids or waxes and it wasnt mentioned on the slab or reflected in a grade. It's considered standard to very carefully wipe a card down with a micro-fiber cloth before submitting it--but people were literally waxing some of their cards with chrome finishes to mask surfaces scratches and such.
Its all flippers and speeulators buying. The retail packs are different than the hobby store packs, usually for the worse. Its funny as I live by two Meijer and that section sits empty 99% of the time. Well this past Sunday, the lady filled them, took a picture and left. As soon as she walked away, a twenty-something-YO bought out the entire section.
Funny thing is, people are flipping complete sets, or even breaking down the sets and selling individual rookies. I have ripped a bunch of Donruss, and I have pulled just 1 RR Herbert and zero Tua or Burrow. Including 3 megas I ripped this weekend, and the "best" thing I got was a signed Cam Akers card. Whereas, you buy the complete Donruss set, you know you have the big 3 QB's. But yeah, retail is tough right, especially in city style markets, but you can still get lucky. Mosaic is the craze right now. Chasing that, Donruss, Optic when it comes out and Prizm I guess is the Cream of the Crop. All of these do go retail, you just have to figure it out.
People are selfish. Those $19.99 Panini blaster boxes, if you can find one, are selling for the mid $40's on ebay. Anything for a quick buck I guess.
What is really criminal these days is the price on penny sleeves and top loaders. There is a huge shortage of both these out there--I think BCW is back ordered through almost next year. Looking on Ebay, people are selling packs of 100 card sleeves (which are normally .99) for 4-5 dollars--sometimes a lot more.
Agreed, but at the same time, they are wasting their time. For instance, I knew I wouldn't be able to get these Donruss Holiday Blasters, so I found 2 on ebay. All in it was $73+ with shipping taxes. In store, after taxes is like $52. Not a huge deal here.
Nice here! Not a huge fan of XR, but you nailed it, wow. I got a couple of White Hot Donruss Jeudy's this weekend and an Optic (mainly broke Donruss). Got a silver Mosaic NFL Debut. Big fan of him!
