Derek Jeter Gold sells for $200,000+

Tomi

I don't collect modern but this just sold for $202,000. Seeing that it's PWCC sale it's hard to tell if it's legit or not, but still wondering why this would sell (if it was legit) for more than twice his RC in the same grade. Can anyone shed some light on why this card is that desirable. I know inserts are the thing, but this is just nuts.

artee

How real is this sale and on so many different levels? Sad.

NGS428

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/352816860218

artee

I like the part where the underbidder threw out $200k along with his 2¢. And still didnt win.

Dpeck100

Both of the top bidders profiles look very good. Not an exorbitant amount of bids with any seller and very limited bid retractions with zero and one.

This looks totally legit to me and a modern white whale that several people with a lot of resources went hard after.

I honestly figured when I clicked on each I would probably see one had something fishy that stuck out but not in this case.

Someone pull up the Precious Metals Green Jordan and see if the winning ID is the same. It wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Very cool to see a card sell for this kind of bread from the modern era.

artee

Don’t think it was Nat. Unless he switched user ids after the PMG. Which would have been smart. So could be, I guess.

dictoresno1

its a limited print run and the foil surface can be tough. and I think most of the bids were pre-approved so its probably a perfectly legitimate sale. some 90's cards are nuts.

brad31

Who makes this card is it Score (seem to remember a Score select card at some point)? How was it issued and what is the approximate print run? Not familiar so trying to learn.

Parkerplenty123

That's an incredible amount to spend! Congrats to the buyer and the seller. When cards sell like that, what is the possibility of the buyer selling the card and getting even more for it? It just seems like most of the value and future value was just spent on it.

LarkinCollector

@brad31 said:
Who makes this card is it Score (seem to remember a Score select card at some point)? How was it issued and what is the approximate print run? Not familiar so trying to learn.

I think these were Pinnacle that year, before Score bought them out. Insert, print run of 30.

ETA: Just checked insertion ratios, 1 Mirror Gold/300 packs (15 boxes) w/ 144 subjects, so basically one Jeter Mirror Gold per 2,160 boxes/108 cases

secretstash

This sale seems so crazy to me. I realize it is Jeter, but is anyone else's 4th year Mirror Gold worth more than their SP Foil RC?

I still think the foil is much much harder to grade at a 9, let alone a 10 than this card ever will be. The entire pop report of all mirror gold's shows that these cards have an 80-90% PSA 9 and 10 rate for all players.

So the limited quantity numbered is all that is unique to this issue. It apparently isn't very hard at all to land in high grade, and for that reason, I do not see how this inflated value couldn't collapse.

LarkinCollector

The next highest sale of a Mirror Gold PSA 10 is $3,501 for Clemens: https://www.psacard.com/auctionprices/baseball-cards/1996-select-certified/45275 (click Grade 10 & enter Filter gold)

1951WheatiesPremium

Derek Jeter played his first full season with the Yankees in 1996 after a brief call up at the end of 1995. From that perspective and by modern definitions, this would be a rookie card insert with a limited print run.l and a shiny pretty surface.

The 1992-1995 cards all predate his rookie year.

mintonlypls

I would much rather have a vintage card from the 50s or 60s for that much money!

secretstash

@mintonlypls said:
I would much rather have a vintage card from the 50s or 60s for that much money!

Or almost every other card you ever dreamed of in an acceptable lower grade. Your choice. xD

brad31

Thanks Larkin for the response.

craig44

rare 90's inserts have been seeing a big resurgence in the last few years. I certainly think this card is more desirable than the 93 sp. that card is a simple condition rarity. there are thousands or tens of thousands of those cards out there. i would imagine the only difference between many of the 9's and 10's of the sp are the grader looking at the card on a certain day. I am sure there are many tweeners. the mirror golds, however, have a total population of 30. thats it. the bulk of those are locked up either in player collections or with set collectors. very rare to see a Jeter come up for sale.

If a Griffey ever came up for auction, you would see some scary high bids for that one too.

PaulMaul

I just don’t understand the appeal of manufactured rarities like this.

Dpeck100

@PaulMaul said:
I just don’t understand the appeal of manufactured rarities like this.

There are only 30 and just select company can say they own one.

Modern cards are exciting to many and the limited print runs legitimately make it harder to own a copy and growing up the chase cards everyone could have and these they simply can't.

I recently bought a Brock Lesnar numbered to 25. I have only seen two in ten years and bought both. Ten years and only two have surfaced when checking constantly. If you like to collect, cards like this can make for a real challenge and that drives people. Brock's cards will never have the appeal of Derek Jeter obviously but there are some hard core collectors out there with cash and they just don't get shots at cards like this that are considered marquee hobby pieces.

BLUEJAYWAY

It's said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe this activity will provide a boost to the modern market.

artee

@PaulMaul said:
I just don’t understand the appeal of manufactured rarities like this.

Sure you do. It’s the hunt. Plain and simple. Manufactured or not, the thrill of the surface and slay is half the fun.

Or to put it in your collecting terms, it’s all about finding that one printed sheet that turned ever so slightly to allow the clammy card to be printed without that inclusion of the baby runt card in its border. Does it truly exist? Does bigfoot? I don’t know, but it doesn't stop folks from hunting it. You best believe if when they do sight it, their going to pull that trigger with everything they've got!

Or how about a perfectly centered Bird Magic rookie without pd and without that pesky black line. The mere presence of that lil black line represents an auto-holster for me and wipes off half of the entire print run right off the bat. There’s no serial number there but there better not be a line there either.

Or how about that ‘72 Erving with great registration however also happens to be free of that damn elbow blob.

Best of luck finding that ‘79 OPC Gretzky with rough cut edges, the 1st run skate lines on the back AND that damn red oil drip that’s perfectly centered in the Whalers logo on the front.

Want those centered ‘55 cards of The Big Three that also happen to be free of those freaking black smudges while having great color and registration? Happy hunting! While these rarities are not serial numbered, they are extremely rare within their own right.

One could argue that for the stars to align for just one of these examples to exist it was a truly and in it’s own right, a manufacturing rarity. And that’s all it really is. You dont really hear stories and fables from big game hunters endlessly vying to bag their first elusive gray squirrel. Why? Because they arent rare. There really is no hunt.

But just like the vintage cards mentioned above are special, there is also rarity among the manufactured rarity.

Take the ‘18 Topps Chrome Update Gleyber Torres auto xfractors with a print run of /125. It’s estimated that only 10-20 of these are actually on card auto versus the ugly stickers with auto. Some of the regular refractors have on card as well, however the “manufactured rarer cards” like the red /5, oranges /25 and golds /50 are all stickered. For my tastes, I’d rather have one of these on card x’s than a stickered red /5.

Don’t quote me, but he might even be the only guy in the entire list of guys that actually does have an on-card auto. Ask big foot or Nessie, where there is mystery, they’ll be a hunt, hunters and money.

If I lost you on the verbiage of the Gleyber card and I probably did, take a look at the “W” on the National logo on the HMT55 card from that same set. Base, refractor and serial numbered or not, it’s not easy to find one where 20% of that “W” isnt chopped off in the lower left hand corner.

In the end, it’s all really relative regardless of year, make or model.

And if that long diatribe didn't work for you then how about The Different Strokes theme song? 😉

doubledragon

I actually own two 1/1 cards, a 2014 Panini Crusade George "the iceman" Gervin, and a 2017 Topps Fire Inferno Sandy Koufax. It is a rush owning two cards that no one else can ever own. I have them hidden in my home. Not even Shane ( a banjo playing squirrel that lives in our closet) can find these cards.

jay0791

There are people who have more money than they know what to do with.
Given the bids this might be a good investment.
His cards probably all will rise next year.
If you can afford 150K this year then next year you probably can afford 250+K

PaulMaul

@artee

That’s exactly my point. All of the other condition rarities you describe occurred as the unintended result of circumstance. That makes them interesting to me. Topps saying “we’re only going to release 25 of these so it will be a rarity” does not.

Huskies11

@BLUEJAYWAY said:
It's said that a rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe this activity will provide a boost to the modern market.

honestly, the modern market might be the thing creating the wave. I collect pretty much everything and I think the biggest run-up I see on a regular basis is for speculation on modern cards (outside of rare 90s inserts, especially MJ inserts, etc). I think demographics also play a huge part. Kids who collected during the 90s are now adults with disposable income helping fuel a bid for that timeframe.

artee

@PaulMaul said:
@artee

That’s exactly my point. All of the other condition rarities you describe occurred as the unintended result of circumstance. That makes them interesting to me. Topps saying “we’re only going to release 25 of these so it will be a rarity” does not.

I guess I lost you on the modern rarity amongst rarity. Now, I dont know much about this particular card, but I think it came with a peel and are prone to bubbles with and surface issues without amongst other issues as with any other key rookie card.

vols1

I'm not a parallel collector, but the Select Mirror Blue seems like a steal if it's limited to just 45...
smalltraditions.com/Rare_1996_Select_Certified_Mirror_Blue__100_Derek_-LOT15621.aspx

artee

5 years ago. But still.

coinspacks

what does the box look like that these packs came in?

is it this $480 box?

https://www.robertedwardauctions.com/auction/2018/fall/1463/1996-pinnacle-select-certified-baseball-unopened-box/

softparade

I used to look very negatively at the manufactured rarity but I'm somewhat changing my mind. After pulling a couple numbered items in Topps Heritage I was surprised at the rush I got.

GColton48

There's a lot of reasons this card went for 200k+. 1) As several people have mentioned, the card only had a print run of 30. It's super rare, period. 2) It's INCREDIBLY condition sensitive, much like his '93 SP card, which makes it more difficult to get a 10 (currently pop 2). Unlike the SP which - while rare in a 10 - still has 22 so far (with more to be found I'm sure considering the print run, as over 15k+ have already been graded!). The gold foil that run all the way to the edges of this card make it highly prone to even just the most minor of chipping - so to find one that's pristine is literally nearly impossible. 3) Again - as mentioned above, it's a true rookie card, as it's 1996. 4) Probably most importantly - in the 90's, the insane PSA high-grade craze wasn't in full effect like it is these days. So yes, while the card was rare then and always loved / taken care of - people weren't pulling the cards out of packs with nitrile gloves in order to not totally damage the card in the hopes of the elusive 10 grade that they could sell for big money. The value's weren't at that level. So undoubtedly there's a handful of them that probably sustained light amounts of damage over the years due to trading, handling, etc. - knocking the possible PSA 10 population down even further, from its already anemic supply. 5) These cards were made before this new, modern idea of 'manufactured' rarity as is en vogue now. For sure it was rare then, but today you can pull 1/1's out of every other pack - it's not the same. The overall print runs of product today are also much slimmer, so the 'rarity' is completely manufactured. These Mirror Gold cards are from an era when it was ACTUALLY rare to find one, considering the glut of 90's product they produced - which makes it genuinely a rare card. It's like the early Elite series Donruss cards - while numbered to 10k, go try to pull one out of a case, much less a box. Incredibly difficult to find, if you're ripping packs for them. These mirror gold cards, with just thirty total, are almost mythical in their rarity. 6) Aesthetically, it's probably the most beautiful card made of Jeter. Combine that with the rarity, rookie year and condition - it's not difficult to see why someone (with the bucks) would pick this up for that price. It's like a piece of fine art - a small portrait in a shiny package, of which there's only 2 on the planet. And all it takes is 2 people with enough disposable cash, that want it bad enough, to get it to that price. Even compared to rare vintage cards, it's in a league of its own... Not surprised at all by the price, and could see it balloon even further in the coming years, were it to even come up for sale again.

Tabe

@PaulMaul said:

That’s exactly my point. All of the other condition rarities you describe occurred as the unintended result of circumstance. That makes them interesting to me. Topps saying “we’re only going to release 25 of these so it will be a rarity” does not.

What about a Goudey Lajoie #106?