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what other reliable sources for 1970s and early 1980s unopened product?
lseecon
Posts: 318 ✭✭
Looking at Baseball Card Exchange Website today is quite depressing. Barely any 1970s baseball, football or basketball unopened and early 1980s is pretty thin. There have to be other stores in the country that sell this stuff? I know you can pick up packs on ebay from the 1970s but its sporadic and a lot of times the authenticity is questionable. Boxes come up from time to time on ebay too, but that isn't very often and some of the buy it nows seem ridiculously high (though maybe not as ridiculous as they appear given the limited quantity).
Are the only other sources the big auction houses and private collectors?
Have people had success at some of the big card shows finding quality unopened from dealers.
I wish I could stroll down to my local card store once in a while and pick up a few 70s wax packs every once in a while, but it seems like that is a pipe dream at this point.
While I am in the camp that does believe there is not a lot of unopened out there, seems like there should more available that there currently is. There have to be some big hoards that will come out of hiding soon? Prices certainly seem to justify somebody releasing some product they have been sitting on.
Also, as mainly a baseball card collector, who dabbles in other sports also, I find the prices on the mid 1980s football topps unopened product, getting prohibitively high for purchasing in quantity. Compared to baseball, the 1984 to 1987 topps football boxes seem unbelievably high and sell for many multiples of the baseball boxes. Is this mostly due to relative scarcity of the football compared to baseball? As has been pointed out before, I remember being able to buy 1980s football wax boxes for $5 a box as nobody wanted them and there were tons of them in card stores in late 80s, early 90s (while I kept a few, I opened most of them). So was production really that limited? Perhaps the ratio of baseball card to collectors to football card collectors back then was 10-1 or higher and thus demand and supply was a tiny fraction of baseball production. Is $600 plus a box for 1984 and 1986 football boxes sustainable? Any football card enthusiasts have any recommendations for other years of unopened product which may be good buys right now? 1987 football seems fairly reasonably priced, but I just don't have any perspective on production run whereas I know that 1987 topps baseball was printed in the gazillions.
Are the only other sources the big auction houses and private collectors?
Have people had success at some of the big card shows finding quality unopened from dealers.
I wish I could stroll down to my local card store once in a while and pick up a few 70s wax packs every once in a while, but it seems like that is a pipe dream at this point.
While I am in the camp that does believe there is not a lot of unopened out there, seems like there should more available that there currently is. There have to be some big hoards that will come out of hiding soon? Prices certainly seem to justify somebody releasing some product they have been sitting on.
Also, as mainly a baseball card collector, who dabbles in other sports also, I find the prices on the mid 1980s football topps unopened product, getting prohibitively high for purchasing in quantity. Compared to baseball, the 1984 to 1987 topps football boxes seem unbelievably high and sell for many multiples of the baseball boxes. Is this mostly due to relative scarcity of the football compared to baseball? As has been pointed out before, I remember being able to buy 1980s football wax boxes for $5 a box as nobody wanted them and there were tons of them in card stores in late 80s, early 90s (while I kept a few, I opened most of them). So was production really that limited? Perhaps the ratio of baseball card to collectors to football card collectors back then was 10-1 or higher and thus demand and supply was a tiny fraction of baseball production. Is $600 plus a box for 1984 and 1986 football boxes sustainable? Any football card enthusiasts have any recommendations for other years of unopened product which may be good buys right now? 1987 football seems fairly reasonably priced, but I just don't have any perspective on production run whereas I know that 1987 topps baseball was printed in the gazillions.
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I'm trying to gather Topps wax boxes of football and baseball for the first 10 years of my life. (1980-1990) About a month ago, I started an excel sheet to keep track of the average prices of wax boxes for both sports. Right now, the most erratic box is 1987 Topps football. It's very volatile! I have record of one going for $49 and as high as $109.99 and everywhere in-between.
There haven't been a lot of sales this month, but 1985 Topps Football seems to be the most reasonably priced box for what's available (not much) and what the possibilities are inside.
Another football box that is plentiful and reasonably priced is 1988 Topps. I've had really good luck with them, purchasing 4 boxes in the last month for under $30 on each box. I've opened 3 and saved 1. I've hit 7 Bo Jacksons, 5 Chris Dolemans, 4 Kevin Greene's 4 Testaverde's and many of all the other stars. All of them have been in extremely good shape. The quality of 1988 is much much higher then 1984-1986 so hitting 9's and 10's and making your money back on the boxes seem very much worth the risk.
I agree that 1984-1986 is expensive. It will take me a while to muster up the courage to buy one of the boxes from someone other then BBCE.
As far as football prices go. I think 84 and 86 are on the high side but reasonable given the potential value of the cards within. Given the supply that is evident now, I don't necessarily see the value of them going down though. At this point, I believe it would take some sort of macroeconomic event/downturn that takes money out of collectors budgets to cause dips in unopened value (baseball or football). 87 and 88 are good values relative to how much the early 80's prices are. The 87 is surprisingly hard to find, but I feel is somewhat limited in upside because of its unimpressive rookie class. The 88 has Bo, but also an otherwise uninspired rookie class. The 88's are also higher in supply, but at <$30/box I think there is value there. I also think 89 Pro Set series II is very underrated. Better looking set than the 89 score mug shots (for the rookies anyways) and a killer rookie class. I would rather spend $400 on a case of 89 Pro Set Series II than $300 on a box of 89 Score.
I think 81 and 82 are undervalued boxes relative to 84 and 86. 84 and 86 seem to have increased dramatically in price over the last year. I don't think 81 and 82 boxes have seen as large of an increase over the same period. The 81 obviously carries the Montana RC and I would believe have a lower print run than 84 and 86. I think there is value in that box. The 82 is underrated as it houses 3 of the greatest players of all time (Lott, LT, Munoz). Unfortunately, they don't play glamour offensive positions so the set may forever remain underrated.
scarcity of available product. And that becomes even more limited if you
want to be dealing with a reputable source.
Sadly, the auction houses are hit and miss unless you know the provenance
of the unopened items they are offering. They have very little in-house
expertise to be able to verify unopened product items consigned to them,
and usually accept at face value anything that has been slabbed by the TPGs.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of unopened items in slabs that are not legitimate
(Look at all the early 70s racks that were auctioned late last year in GAI slabs
as perfect examples of questionable legitimacy).
Other than the above-mentioned trustworthy dealers, a handful of knowledgeable unopened collectors
and solid item provenance most of what I have seen available was
not what it was proporting to be.
Dave
Robb
<< <i>Since getting back into unopened collecting last summer I have been lucky to get my hands on a good amount of product. I have largely got most of my unopened collection from group breaks, other members on BST, eBay (including off eBay deals), BBCE and DACardworld. I haven't checked out auction houses yet, but I will likely look into that this year.
As far as football prices go. I think 84 and 86 are on the high side but reasonable given the potential value of the cards within. Given the supply that is evident now, I don't necessarily see the value of them going down though. At this point, I believe it would take some sort of macroeconomic event/downturn that takes money out of collectors budgets to cause dips in unopened value (baseball or football). 87 and 88 are good values relative to how much the early 80's prices are. The 87 is surprisingly hard to find, but I feel is somewhat limited in upside because of its unimpressive rookie class. The 88 has Bo, but also an otherwise uninspired rookie class. The 88's are also higher in supply, but at <$30/box I think there is value there. I also think 89 Pro Set series II is very underrated. Better looking set than the 89 score mug shots (for the rookies anyways) and a killer rookie class. I would rather spend $400 on a case of 89 Pro Set Series II than $300 on a box of 89 Score.
I think 81 and 82 are undervalued boxes relative to 84 and 86. 84 and 86 seem to have increased dramatically in price over the last year. I don't think 81 and 82 boxes have seen as large of an increase over the same period. The 81 obviously carries the Montana RC and I would believe have a lower print run than 84 and 86. I think there is value in that box. The 82 is underrated as it houses 3 of the greatest players of all time (Lott, LT, Munoz). Unfortunately, they don't play glamour offensive positions so the set may forever remain underrated. >>
I couldn't agree more with Slum...81's, 82's and 85's will all start moving up a bit more but with the way baseball is going, I hope to see football following suit...I bought a perfect 84 football wax box from bbce at the national last year for 450. Not even a year later it's almost doubled.