Prices in the 1980s baseball unopened market. How low and how long?
Publius1787
Posts: 15 ✭
Now that the sports card market is softening, due to a host of factors that have been long projected over the last 6 to 12 months, I have noticed some of the 1980s unopened prices slowly falling. Granted, they are still up 2x or 3x from 2019 price levels, but nonetheless they are slowly coming back to earth. Consider unopened BBCE wax, rack cases, and cello boxes. My question is how low do you think they will go and how long will it take for them to level off? I am surprised that the boxes from 1987 - 1990 are still priced very high ($100 for 87 Donruss is HIGH) and some are even selling at those prices on eBay, but those really have to take a steep fall in price at some point, right?
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I feel they will drop a bit but settle higher than they were 2 years ago. Those 87 Donruss will probably sell well at the $75 level IMO as they have a strong RC group. Some of the really crappy sets with few rookies like 88-89 Topps are ridiculous and should not be more than 10-15 bucks IMO. The grading price increases will hurt these mid/late 80's product...It's nice to see the 80's OPC and Leaf baseball get some resect finally.
In the last 18 months, I have sold 4 of my 5 cases of 88 topps wax packs.. 20 boxes each.. First one sold for 500, second 450, both in match 2020 (like everything back then) two others have sold for a combined 400 recently and I unlisted my last case... I couldn't believe anyone would buy those., but I actually had fun breaking several boxes from my last case.
The87donruss boxes are being sold at my local shop (valley baseball cards in LA area)for 65
I just bought an 86 tops for 90 on eBay to hold
Finally, I ripped 19 packs from 81topps recently.. So much fun, I'll post in new thread
Until we know where grading fees are going to end up, it's hard to predict.
There's nothing worth grading in those years right now and nobody seems to want raw cards.
At some point PSA is going to decide what the lowest cost per card will be that they want to charge.
If it's $50.00 per card the unopened will be worthless, at $30.00 per card there's still not too many cards worth grading with no one buying 9's and prices for unopened should drop, a lot.
I don't see grading fees ever going below $20.00 per card and going by my last submission of 1987 Topps, you aren't going to make any money if you have to pay $20.00 per card for grading. I got unopened at 15.00 a box and grading fees were 9.00 and I made a little money at 20.00 per card and 50.00 a box good luck. The Bonds card is almost always off center. You better hope you get gem Bo Jackson cards.
1987 Donruss has three cards selling for around $300.00 each in a PSA 10. If you look at the pop report, you will quickly see that your odds at getting a 10 are horrible except for Maddux, and only one in 10 Maddux cards submitted got a 10.
I would not buy this product to rip and try for 10's.
The unopened market to keep unopened, is baffling to me, as I want to look at the cards. Obviously people have invested in unopened and made a lot of money. There's still a lot of this stuff out there.
Time will tell. It will be interesting to see if and how soon PSA opens up more levels.
I might be alone here, but long term I see value/bulk pricing settling in around $10-$12 a card. As they continue to expand, add graders, improve technology, there should be huge improvement in turnaround times. They will need to continue grading a large volume of cards and these years will need to be priced at a point where people will submit.
$10-$12 is the only price I'd pay to sumbit the majority of 1980s cards. If I get a 9 or even an 8, I could break even or maybe make a slight profit, but I save all the 10s. No way this is worth it at $20+ per card
Pricing for 1980s unopened product rose to ridiculous levels last spring (imho) so a regression was bound to occur, as product (especially 1984 and forward) is just not rare enough to warrant those kinds of values. That said, prices are still higher than they were a couple of years ago and I think the "new floor" will remain higher than it was back then.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I only search for FASC because that's all I'm interested in buying at this point. From what I can tell, for late-'80s FASC, prices have stayed the same. Once you go '87 Donruss & Fleer and then older, prices have seemed to actually increase. So my plan to wait it out on some of those boxes may not have been a good move.
The other thing to consider is that it's all part of one connected market. Yeah, unopened prices may shoot up and grading fees will be higher but I guarantee that also results in higher sale prices for PSA graded cards. Collectors are going to collect, no matter what. Once they've had enough time to accept that their specific '80s set has gone up in price and isn't ever coming back down again, they'll settle in and adjust.
Arthur
unfortunately this is exactly it.
I dont really follow stuff past 1984 but early to mid 1980s boxes are definitely lower now than they were a few months ago. I've been able to pick up FASC boxes from 1980 through 1984 at auction at some very good prices lately. Time will tell if prices rise once again.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Does anyone think there will be collectors putting together 80's complete PSA sets? Seems the set registry for 80's and 90's will be gone.
That's a good question. I wonder about that for 1970s sets, too. Hoping at some point sub rates will be reasonable enough or specials offered even if once per year to make it fiscally viable. I enjoy self-submitting cards to PSA.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
wouldnt think so. especially w zero hints of floor subbing fees. most of those who set collected prolly already have it. new collectors are more player, team, hof focused. i certainly wouldnt think someone would rip to build a set these days.
I think the more likely scenario is that the entire set registry as we know it will change into something new for the 1980s stuff. Whether that is a less competitive market for commons due to any of a few different reasons or we see the shift toward team sets, insert sets, or player sets (more smaller sets that are subjective).
Arthur
I've also gained a new appreciation for higher end raw set collecting, too. Something about putting together a set in a binder is always a pleasure.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
There really isn't a ton of unopened cases pre '84 to be broken and wrapped FASC. I feel any current softening of pricing from these years is a prime opportunity to purchase. Long term gain will be slow and steady. There are very few sleepers post '84 that the above applies to also.
Prices have definitely softened and like many others who know this stuff better than me have already said, prices remain above pre pandemic levels by healthy multiples. That said, the biggest risk I see is the massive backlog of product that is sitting at BBCE. Like the impending flood of slabs of common modern RCs that are stuck at PSA, I suspect we could have a similar flood of BBCE boxes of some 80s unopened. Sure to be heavily weighted toward post 1985, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a decent amount of other years as well.
Just my $.02
John
Oh no I’m 2% from 1st place on the 87 donruss registry set and it seems like from reading this thread it’s a bad idea…. but I’ve had worse ideas I guess.
Join the Rookie stars on top PSA registry today:
1980-1989 Cello Packs - Rookies
@rtimmer I had to go take a look at your 87 Donruss set. Very impressive start. Good luck!
It sure seems like there are a lot more legitimate auctions for BBCE 80s stuff on eBay lately. And not just from the big sellers. Not that any of you should bid on them.