I don't know if any of y'all collect basketball cards, but an sort of amazing thing has been happening the last few months. Basketball card collecting has been on fire. There are three basic reasons: 1. Modern cards have seen an explosion do to the Zion chase. New collectors have been brought in chasing Zion rookies and many Paninini products were basically sold out at retail and exploded on the secondary market. This led to big price increases to post-2000 rookies in general. 2. Kobe's death. One of the biggest catalysts in basketball collecting occured when Kobe passed away. Overnight, Kobe cards were selling for 5 to 10 times prices just 2-3 days before. Everybody was going back and looking at their old cards and pulling out $20 Kobe rookies and selling them for $200. This caused a BIG lift in Lebron and Michael Jordan cards too as people have solidified around Kobe, Michael, and Lebron being the "Holy Trinity" of NBA card collecting with a FOMO if something were to happen to them. All of a sudden, Lebron rookies and early cards basically doubled in price, with Jordan cards (already holy grails in the mid 80s) starting to creep up. 3. "Last Dance" Documentary. Jordan cards have skyrocketed. New generations of fans that never saw him play are being inundated with his career highlights. Already expensive rookie and "first fleer" cards are exploding in value. Late 80s Fleer cards that were previously worth 50 cents are now worth $12. All those junk 1990 fleer wax boxes that you could still buy for $12 now sell for $75-80. It has also brought a big increase to Pippen and Rodman cards which may be more temporary. Fairly low priced Starting Lineup figures now are hot commodities too. Inserts from 90s sets (Fleer Ultra and Fleer Metal, UD, etc.) for Jordan have really shot up too. All of this against a backdrop of an economy which you'd expect to see a significant drop in prices of memorabilia. Perhaps people flush with stimulus money and bored at home are scouring eBay. Perhaps a generational shift (people that watched these guys play are growing up with disposable income). I just thought it was amazing some of the prices. Anybody else been following this phenomenon?
All I know is I wish I collected NBA and NFL cards when I was kid instead of baseball. I could have made a lotttt of money. My great aunts husband worked at a wholesale warehouse and my grandma would get me box after box of cards. All baseball though.
Yeah, if you were a kid in the junk era, that was particularly brutal for baseball. Football isn't that much better though. The next era: The very late 90s and the early 2000s is GOLD for basketball and football. Go back and search for Jeters. A TON of people didn't collect Jeter in his first few years. It took a long time for Jeter to emerge as a star, and despite (IMHO) being a little over rated as a player, as a collectible, he's at the top of that era. I was surprised to go back into my collection a few years ago and pull a bunch of Jeter rookies and early cards from my "junk" boxes.
Around that time when Shaq came into the league (early 90's), the basketball card market was inundated with so many cards I think most of them ended up being worthless. There were cards that skyrocketed to $300 because of their supposed rarity. But then you started seeing everybody buying multiple boxes of cards looking for "that one card", an insert, a special edition card, etc. There were so many of the cards, most of them were worthless. Same thing kind of is happening and happened with comic books. "Issue #1" of anything has like 20 variants (nowadays even more) just to get people to buy all the variants or multiple variants. I busted out laughing when I realized they were selling "blank covers" as a variant. LOL. The most desirable comics nowadays are usually ones before 1980-1985.
That's the thing I was talking about though. In those worthless sets, all of a sudden the Jordans aren't worthless. You'd be shocked at 1993 Fleer Ultra insert prices on Jordan. You ARE correct on a lot of that stuff being junk...thus being part of the "Junk Era". Basically ran from 1987 - 1996ish. Those comics from that era...it usually isn't the #1s that are worth anything, its the first apprearances or special stuff. All the Amazing Spiderman from that era is going up, especially with one of the three features of: Being McFarlane era, having Venom, or having Carnage. Also, first appearances by Cable and Deadpool are gold, and have been for a while. Even some of the Valiant stuff that was worth 10 cents for two decades is starting to have some stuff increase to at least 10-15 bucks. Not going to make you rich, but not worthless either. I agree that we are in "variant hell" in today's comic market, but overall production is 1/1000 of what it was in the 90s. Also, if you buy for the stories (to actually read), I think we might be in a mini-golden age for comics. So many awesome writers and artists in the market right now, reviving old properties or building new ones. As for those "blank" covers...those are specifically made for sketches. Have your favorite instagram artist sketch the cover for you, or take them to a show and have the original artist do a sketch. They are made to be drawn on.
Every household on earth had this card somehow. They spontaneously appeared in kids rooms in 1990. You could buy them for 25 cents a month ago. Now they are actually selling for $5-10.
It's funny that all of us that grew up with Jordan have been telling these kids that he was the greatest and now that they get to see him with their own eyes they finally believe us. That **** Jordan was doing on drives to the bucket were nuts even by today's standards. This has got to be my favorite when you put in context that it was a playoff game and Laimbeer was the dirtiest player in the league.
That was my favorite move to pull on Super Nintendo's EA SPorts Bulls Vs Blazers. I'd score 70 with Jordan alone. I collected NFL and NBA cards through the mid 1990s stopped in High school. Then started buying random players I liked growing up out of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a drug!
I’ve been keeping up with the recent prices on eBay. They are insane! I’ve been buying up graded Akeem fleer RC’s and now Drexler fleer RC’s because they have exploded. I hope moestavern kept the Jordan I sold him several years back. He made out great on that deal.
Yeah, I went back and bought some stuff from the 1940's - 1980's for the past 10 years or so, but just for giggles. Nowadays what seems to drive them up is potential movie appearances which then has people speculating first appearances. I generally don't collect modern comics (although I have gotten quite a few for kicks because of the topic). I had no idea about the blank variants. I always had heard of sketch covers, but I thought those had the "clear" cover/sketch paper being a fake cover that sat on top of the real cover of the comic that the artist would draw on. That way they could do pencilwork. I learned something new. Thanks.
Just skimmed through a portion of my collection of cards that I kept since I was a kid. This thread made me dig them up. I haven’t touched them in 12 years since I last moved and the first time opening the storage box they were in in over 20 years. What a trip down memory lane. I saw a ton of Jordan, Hakeem and Drexler cards. I remember trading my Spurs friend all my Robinson cards for his Olajuwon’s. Drexler was my fav so I had to have as much as I could get of his. Looks like my card buying spree came to a halt right around 93-94. I saw way too many Vin Baker, Glenn Robinson and Nick Van Exel cards in my “good pile”. A lot of them were Spoiler in cases. I even had a Glenn Robinson card in a case with the screws
Wow, I just realized that moestavern19 hasn’t been here in over a year. I hope he's doing well. I sold him a Jordan rookie that he then sent in to PSA and it came back a 6 which is worth a crazy amount right now. Probably 2k.
I have a LeBron Topps Chrome refractor rookie. Jewel of my small collection. Remember buying the box way back then and opening it right there in the card store. There was also a Shaq jersey card in one of the packs. I also have a lot of random Jordan inserts. I would trade Kobes for them. Kobe was ridiculously popular back then in the late 90s early 00s. Have a ton of Rockets. Most from the championship teams. A lot of Robert Horry and Sam Cassell. Stopped collecting Rockets around the Steve Francis era so...
Feels like we are approaching bubble territory with sports cards. Bought a Giannis rookie in March during the dump, and also loaded up on several Yordan Alvarez's. Have a Deshaun Watson rookie encased 1/1. Not a popular card, but I like knowing I have the only one. When you have people like Gary V bringing in athlete money into the market it can cause price spikes.
Speaking about cards. Damn YouTube rabbit hole. I came across this video. The guys reaction is priceless Got to 11:20 mark. The guys reaction priceless
Now is the time to buy as people need cash. You can easily make low offers on good cards. Kobe and Jordan are through the roof. The Astros world series topps now autos are going at reasonable prices. My recommendation is the obvious, collect the names of the top 3 in each sport that everyone knows, and buy cards limited to 25 or less. That is where the value will always be, but it takes about 20 years. There will be a time when printed cards no longer exist. And that's when you will want to have them. For me, it's not advisable to buy when they are rookies as the prices are jacked with no guarantee of a return. Also, look for signatures on the card, not on a sticker. I agree with collecting what you love, but also, collect the famous, and they will deliver long term. The Topps now world series stuff is underrated I think, and they've only been doing it for three years. I see a lot of potential there even for the Astros stuff. Kept on through the lean years and it has paid off: 08 Jordan/Olajuwon premier dual auto 00 Jordan Spx Shoe/Warm Up auto 00 Spx Kobe Warmup auto 04 UD links Brady/Montana Dual auto 00 Master Collection Jordan auto 06 Jordan/LeBron Glass dual auto 14 James Madison auto 04 Orville Wright auto 15 Albert Einstein auto 01 SP Legendary Jackie Robinson auto 01 SP Legendary Walter Johnson auto 03 Netpro Serena Williams rookie auto 02 SP Tiger Woods Red Shirt auto My mistakes: Collecting Vince Young/Tiger Woods rookie/Roger Clemens/Chris Johnson/Alex Rodriquez/Barry Bonds/ And collecting in the early 90's. Should have collected, but did not: insert cards. I miscalculated they would be worthless. They are not. Jeter Mantle Steph Curry Kevin Durant