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hall4cy

Active Member
Oct 22, 2007
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Dallas, TX
After reading about the recent decisions from Target to stop selling sports cards, I had to dig a little deeper into the re-emergence of sports card trading to learn the industry is once again booming. Are any of you collecting cards currently? It seems that the sports card companies finally realized that a lower supply has increased demand and some of these newer cards are trading online at some unreal prices.

I am currently collecting duncan, nowitzki, and brady cards. All are pretty timely with their recent retirement or impending within the next year or two for me. New guy that I think had a lot of upside is Luka Doncic.


Are there any players that excite you in the past, present, or future to invest in?
 
I could be wrong but I think there's still a serious delay if you're looking to get something graded. I have a Fleer Jordan rookie that isn't in perfect condition but I'd still like to have graded, when I called a shop in Des Moines he said they were I think a year out from getting anything back from the grading services. Unless you add yours to a big batch or something like that. Crazy.
 
The lack of stock is due to new demand and flippers. The same flippers that buy up new sneakers, PS5 consoles, graphics cards, etc. Also the breakers who sell spots in pack/box breaks. These two groups have had the biggest impact on secondary market in my opinion.
The card companies have increased their production but can’t meet demand in store or online as flippers will buy up all the product and then sell online. The breakers will pay the higher costs as people are willing to gamble and buy into their breaks.
As for grading there are many options. To grade that Jordan rookie card will cost you $300 plus insurance, shipping, and tax minimum with PSA. The turnaround time with that is under a month.
That is the lowest service level PSA has at this time.
So you need to have a very good idea of the grade it will receive and the true sell value in that grade.
The card market went crazy in January/February and has since cooled. The very high end cards continue to set all time records while most other card prices have seen a significant pull back from Jan/Feb prices.
 
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I have boxes in my basement of mostly 1990's era NBA cards I haven't touched in over 20 years probably. Probably wasted way too much money buying them as a teenager but one of these days I may pull them out and try to see if any are worth anything now. Have quite a few Jordan cards and I do have a few others I bought randomly when I was buying someone's collection or sets like a Dr. J card that I have to imagine is still worth something as I think it was valued around $50 when I bought it in the late 90's so can't imagine it has lost value since then.
 
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CYdTracked said:
I have boxes in my basement of mostly 1990's era NBA cards I haven't touched in over 20 years probably. Probably wasted way too much money buying them as a teenager but one of these days I may pull them out and try to see if any are worth anything now. Have quite a few Jordan cards and I do have a few others I bought randomly when I was buying someone's collection or sets like a Dr. J card that I have to imagine is still worth something as I think it was valued around $50 when I bought it in the late 90's so can't imagine it has lost value since then.
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I have a few boxes of cards from my youth, as well. I bought them all the time, but never really dug for those really valuable cards. I'm looking forward to going through them some day and seeing if I can find any gems in there. I'm thinking there have to be some rookie cards in there for guys that ended up being stars.
 
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I found this interesting about this topic when I listened back in September



basically arguing that cards are better investment because they don’t lose value when you get to like the best of the best cards (like Jordan rookie cards, etc.) Unless Jordan or another super super star goes way off the rails, the card will never diminish in value.
 
That's awesome you found that Kobe. I saw that same video about investing and if you find some gems he isn't wrong about the prices going up. Unfortunately most of that I collecting was late 80s and early 90s (the Era that nearly killed the industry for over printing). I still have like 3 complete boxes of all proset football cards unopened. Haha. It's fun to start the hobby over again with my kids this time around.
 
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BurgundyClone said:
My son opened one of my old ‘96 Upper Deck NBA packs Sunday and found a Kobe Bryant rookie. Not sure how to go about grading it, for now we are just gonna enjoy it, was our fave player so it’s fun having it in a case in perfect condition.
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I went through some old boxes of cards and found 17 1996-1997 Fleer Metal Kobe rookie cards. I am hoping to get at least $100 a piece for them when I get around to selling them. I need a new mountain bike.
 
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And I tracked down a 1998 Upper Deck Diamond Futures Quad Diamond Paul Pierce rookie card #'d /50 that I expect will perform very nicely in an auction.
 
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I've gotten really into it the last year, starting with selling all of my old Kobe rookies to fund purchase of a Georges game-worn jersey. After that, I was all in on Haliburton before he blew up, which I ended up selling and turning into even more Haliburton cards. There's a good chance if you've bought Tyrese or Georges cards on eBay that it was one of my listings - although not quite so much anymore now that there's a lot of Tyrese floating around out there. I've also gotten into the grading world, and I highly recommend HGA for modern cards - they're pretty new and pretty small, but they produce a VERY nice slab (better than PSA or BGS) with tough grades and guaranteed turnaround because they have a lottery submission system.

I'm also into Top Shot - that one is dangerously addictive.
 
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Yes, but only interested in Baseball cards.

Recently had a 52 Topps Willie Mays graded by PSA. Took 2 weeks to turn it around.....of course it has a higher value so priority was placed on it vs other cards that are taking months and months to get turned around.
 
randomfan44 said:
And I tracked down a 1998 Upper Deck Diamond Futures Quad Diamond Paul Pierce rookie card #'d /50 that I expect will perform very nicely in an auction.
Click to expand...

Speaking of KU alums..........I don't know if this qualifies as a "card", but I have a card size picture of Wilt and Perry Ellis together when they played at KU in the 50's.
 
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That picture must have been from his sophomore year. Someone needs to explain top shots to me, so it makes me want to even consider buying a digital moment. I cant wrap my head around these or other NFT's that have no "monetary" value.
 
The flippers have ruined it for the people who like to buy a pack here or there for their kids.
 
Fanatics coming into the game seems to be a potential game changer good or bad. Would be great if they were able to cut out the middle man and flippers, but I imagine the prices will remain high as long as the quality of their stuff remains strong and they limit supply.
 
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