Anyone besides me have a problem with the massive variety of cards now?
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I mean, it's crazy that a player would have almost 1,100 cards in only five seasons.
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It’s horrible. “Hey, I have a tiger stripe Zion rookie and only 10 were made. It’s worth thousands.” Never mind the fact that he basically has over 500 different rookie cards when you count all the variations. Charles Barkley has one (two if you count Star which I do) and many of these Zions are worth more than Barkley’s rookie. Crazy.
This kind of question will always bring out what I think are the two main and opposite arguments to this situation. (1). the buy what you want/makes you happy camp, who seem fine with a billion different cards, as long as you just buy what you like or can afford. Their answer also always seems to include the comment that it is better than just the 1 RC you could get for anyone pre 1981. (2). The people who think it is overkill.
I won't hide the fact that I enjoyed the wide variety of cards available as a player collector for many, many years After Steve Garvey (my favorite player) retired in 1988 with maybe 100 different cards for his career, he had a handful of cards made in the following decade, before retired players made a huge resurgence beginning with him in 1999-2000 time frame. By the end of the 2000s, his card count had jumped up to 1000+ different cards. Considering his popularity after retirement is pale in comparison to a lot of former stars and greats, it is still a lot to take in.
Combined the massive numbers (hard to keep up with as it is) with the endless supply of low numbered parallels (impossible to keep up with) and his has turned me sour on it all. I could not even begin to imagine having fun collecting a current, active popular player.
I still pick up a lot of the Garvey cards, and thankfully he is not in a lot of new products recently, but not all of them. Add 1 or more people who are able/willing to pay whatever it takes to win most cards, it just gets old when you are competing for every new low print run card like it is the Holy Grail. Afraid that if you don't win the first one you see, you'll never have another shot, and frequently overpaying because someone else thinks the same. After a couple copies show up, the price dives into the toilet, because in reality the market is quite small.
no decrees stating you have to collect every card on the registry.
i only really pc one current player. have zero interest in any cards after his rookie cards, parallel or variations other than a single basic topps/chrome card and then any jersey numbered or bookend numbered cards. my guy debuted in 2018, didn't make it in half of the '18 products but already has nearly 1700 cards. i couldn't imagine even having the urge to go after them all or even feel compelled to spend money on cards that i don't even find aesthetically appealing.
Maybe it’s one reason why PSA has such a large backlog. Modern cards and the like.
Same here. I can’t even figure out what the flagship set it for football or basketball. I don’t spend a dime on either.
Only a few cards matter. Get those.
prizm. for now.
I was a set collector into the early 90s and to think that I stopped doing that because the numbers then made me feel like it was overkill. Clearly there is a market or they would not be producing what they are, but it most certainly does seem incredibly excessive to me. But, as has been said in this thread, just because they are there does not mean they must be collected.
I will also agree whole-heartedly that the influx of these cards is part of the reason for the grading backlog. But that is just another aspect of reality that we all must live with when it comes to the leader in the TPG market
one thing to keep in mind, it's not the card companies that want to produce 50 different lines of product each year. it's clearly stated that in the players association contracts that the companies MUST produce so many lines per year. more products of the player, the more money in the players and associations pockets.
not saying the card companies would scale it back to just 3 lines or anything rather that it's not necessarily their fault that there's 50 different products to chase. we can fully blame them for the 30 different colors and variations though. but i will say, considering i don't chase full sets and only collect 1 or 2 cards of my guy each year, chasing the colors has kinda become the new set build. now instead of the full set, it's just that cards full run. smaller scale but way more challenging.
and "estimated" print run on those tiger stripes. there's a reason they aren't numbered. 😉
I much prefer things the way they were in the 60s thru early 1980s. Like mrmopar, my favorite player is Steve Garvey. The limited number of cards produced during his playing years makes it relatively easy to collect him.
I am simply overwhelmed by the number of different cards produced for players nowadays. The cards are freakin' gorgeous, but I still find it overwhelming.
This is the reason I stopped collecting modern day baseball cards in the late 1980s. Too many companies entering the sports card market...big turnoff for me.
To each his own but I prefer vintage. One rookie card is all a player ever needs. I would enjoy putting a complete set together by hand when it was only 660 cards. Now that is impossible with all the variations.
families & folks only had one tv and one car not terribly long ago. attention spans were longer, too. something about "the times, they are a changing"? a lot more player collectors out there these days vs. set collectors. one is boring by today's standards but agreed, to each their own. and with the price of wax, i couldn't imagine trying to piece together a 660 card set each year.
Having so many different sets and parallels allows card companies too still over produce, yet still retain value due to the limited parallels and grading.
You used to be able to walk in your local store and buy a pack or box of cards. Good luck with that now.
Ironically, this was one of the major arguments for MLB for eliminating the variety of manufacturers and only allowing one (Topps) to make licensed products. The massive proliferation of different sets was cited as an example of how silly the market had become, and how some order and meaning could be imposed on the market by using just one manufacturer. Now, even just the different lines from Topps exceeds the number of mainline manufacturers in the early 1990s. Base, Chrome, Bowman, Bowman Chrome, Archives, Heritage...and that's just the ones you can get at Target! Personally I think that competition would be good for Topps, and would naturally eliminate some of the dumb sets Topps produces. I also think collectors would enjoy the variety, because competition will naturally require innovation and improved design. If your product sucks, nobody will buy it. I am a big advocate of MLB allowing Donruss, Upper Deck, Score and others back into the business of making baseball cards. I also think the environment many of us grew up in, where cards were stuck onto and into cereal boxes, on the back of Twinkies packages, in loaves of bread, as handouts at Denny's, and seemingly everywhere else was good for kids and good for baseball. It let us see our favorites everywhere, and fostered a love for the game that many of us still have. That's just my two cents. And yes, I think that the massive variety of cards now is just stupid.
kevin
@tulsaboy
read the above post about the players unions being the ones who dictate how many lines must be produced. i can assure you from merely a design and production level that there is no way topps for baseball or panini for basketball WANT to produce and design 50 different lines each year.
I was looking at 2019 Panini Prizm basketball recently and noticed that while the base set is only 300 cards, each card has 40 different parallels. That's 12,000 cards in the complete set!
This is the reason I quit buying Ripken Jr. cards 1998-99. To many auto's, bats, jersey,
refractor cards. The Topps TEK cards sealed the coffin on his collection. Graded cards
as well. Just not for me. I wonder if the winner of the "Cup" lot in the recent Goldin auction
was a card company. Maybe in the near future we will see bits and pieces of it, no pun intended,
on a card like we do jersey and bat cards.
I have no problem with it, I just haven't bought a box of new release since 2014 or attempted to build any sets newer than that. That will change in 2021 with UD finally doing a few golf releases, but I don't feel that I have to have every version of every card that comes out these days.
Some of this started way before the modern era though. I still have no interested in submitting 54 Landsman/Sports Deck Division playing cards from the 1978 sets for players that I collect. As always, to each their own.
That is insane......ridiculous actually. But I've noticed that there is just as much (if not more) demand for the base set versions as a lot of those parallels. There are obviously more collectors looking to complete a base set than any of the parallels.
Also, this has introduced some interesting ways to collect a "set", but doesn't really address the OPs player collector issue. Unfortunately, if that's your gig, you have to understand to commitment it requires or modify expectations to something reasonable for budget/space.
There's a 40 card Panini insert/subset from a few years back that I collect that comes in base, /25, and /1. I collect one of each card number, regardless of variety, keeping the rarest of each that comes my way. There's no way I could ever expect to complete a 1/1 set and the /25 was going to be next to impossible (thanks to the Puckett hoarders
), but I've got 5 of 40 1/1s, nearly half the set /25 or better, and the rest base minus a few I'm still missing. I upgrade when I find the right deal, but don't feel obligated to pay whatever it takes to complete the more difficult parallels as a "set".
Using the BkB example from @AFLfan, it could be fun to collect all 300 cards this way while trying to include one of each of the 40 different parallel varieties as a "set".
Kyle, your middle paragraph is the way I do it too. For Heritage Red Sox team sets I collect the best parallels I can, when I can, but I don’t go crazy. I only keep my best version of each card in the team set. When I collected Brady I would do that too. Didn’t try to complete “rainbows,” if I had a Brady /99 and I could replace it with /25 I would do that.
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I would disagree. psa 10s of hot rookies are like day traded stock these days. collectors/investors are sitting on stacks of them. and when I say stacks, i literally mean 100s. they aren’t building sets w them and probably don’t have 1 completed set.
haven’t seen anyone really hoarding raw, psa 8 or even psa 10s of 2019 albert puljos cards.
not only this, they are actually buying the factory sets to rip for these rcs and parallels that are found in them. for $50, they know they get at least one of each of these rcs and the gambling fix of the parallel packs found within, ie foilboards.
for example here’s a pic of josh donaldsons Zion stash. most are silvers that are pic’d but there’s prolly 10+ bgs pristines and psa 10 base cards in there. Can’t say with 100% certainty, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet he doesn’t have 10 base prizm sets:
Sounds like that would be good business for the card grading companys.
indeed. figuring out all the names / street names for them and then getting everyone on the same page would not!
i still get dizzy sometimes.
father's day or powder blue
aqua blue or carolina blue
red white blue prisms or barber poles
list goes on....
Too true. Accurate identification is one thing that makes grading ultra modern a challenge.
Unless you are 21 and starting to collect. Go for vintage.
I'm only back into sports cards after having not collected since around 1991 when Stadium Club and Studio sets came out. I thought the numbers were getting crazy then until I saw now that Panini has the NFL to itself and they alone make dozens and even hundreds of cards a year on one player.
OK, I don't necessarily want to complete a FULL set, but lets say I just want to collect a basic Cooper Kupp year set. Just one card per year. What is the go-to card for one basic card per year? No special, no limited run, just the basic trading card of his that Panini makes each year? That is my own problem. Not knowing where to start or connect cards from one year to the next.
Currently, I'm working on a 1951 Bowman football set grades 7-8. Honestly, been very fun and not difficult to accumulate although some cards in these grades are hard to find.
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#1 1951 Bowman Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#2 1980 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#8 (and climbing) 1972 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
Collect a card that you like. Goff has a rookie card from 2015? Pick one. Pick one from 2016–17-18-19-20. Maybe pick the same card. You like Panini refractors? That’s your registry set. Remember if he plays 5 more years that’s 2000 more cards.
Have fun. 😉
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
I hear you. The registry serves as my checklist more than anything. I'll never have the top set in the 1951 Bowman but I do want a nice one that balances out between 7.5 and 8. Mostly I was looking at what master sets look like and was shocked at the number of cards whereas a Jack Youngblood master set is probably just a couple dozen cards.
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#1 1951 Bowman Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#2 1980 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#8 (and climbing) 1972 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
I’m an Earl Campbell registry set fanatic!
😂
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
I’d better get moving then. I’m only 11,999 from a complete set. I plan on picking up one a week until I finish it.
"I spent 50% of my money on alcohol, women, and gambling. The other half I wasted.
that sounds horrible. i remember completing the nolan ryan basic set...5 times over, claiming the 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 set. problem was...now what? and guess what? even he had 4 versions of his rc card. 6 if you count single auto, double auto.
contentment blues.
you guys are putting too much pressure upon yourselves. try just completing one year of modern. quit looking at the registry checklist. it's more fun than you think and you get to actually follow the sport again instead of reliving glory days.
and i'm 21 & 1/2. born on a leap year though.
don't forget to grab some more vanilla ice cream! 😉
I gave up on new stuff years ago. Don’t miss it at all as it has gotten and keeps getting worse. Too much to try to keep up with for me but to each his own. Never understood spending thousands on new cards when compared to what you can get for the same money vintage wise but that’s just me.
How many cards did Lynn Swann and Earl Campbell have? Like 3 apiece total?
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
just completed both of these player runs. even checked out in one ebay cart for ease. was a blast, but now what? 😉
Ya, I too am giving up on the new card market (for the most part). I was down to Topps base and buying a case of Heritage to stash, along with trying to assemble an annual set of Heritage. All of the SSP's, chromes, refractors, and whatever else they threw out there was just BS. The same card with a different border does nothing for me. I still focus on HOFer's, raw and graded, but the jump in these prices has made it hard to find bargins. Maybe it's time to go through my 500,000 cards and find stuff to grade. Not sure, but there will be no more Heritage cases starting this year. Maybe it's time to open up an ebay store. Maybe it's time to find something else to collect.
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