Sportscaster Cards (the Finnish versions) - What's hot nowadays?

mikafilm

So, I found thousands of old Sportscasters -cards, the Finnish versions, in my parents house this weekend and I'm now trying to learn what are actually worth something. I seem to have two full sets in the original plastic Sportscaster -cases that were sent to collectors and some bonus cards, several seem to be in insanely good condition, as if they were printed yesterday. Mostly probably because they haven't been touched since the late 70's. There's even payment receipts of the packs and some "What's new this month"-letters.

But... what's hot in Sportscasters these days? What should I look for when browsing these and looking for treasures? I've identified some that seem to be up on eBay, but... you guys are the pro's! What should I be on the look-out for?

Nathaniel1960

Great find - here are some ebay recent completed sales.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=sportscaster+gretzky+finnish&_sacat=0&rt=nc&LH_Complete=1

miwlvrn

I am going to re-post the comment I put up on the other similar thread where the OP was asking about Finnish Sportscasters (Larry Bird thread). Note that barely any items at all from that set would ever break even on sales relative to the new/current cost of grading supersize items anymore.

This comment is purely from a resale perspective, independent of your own interest in keeping them in your personal collection.

I have subbed tons of Sportscasters for grading over the years. Pay attention to the pop reports on them, as the registry participants collect these in graded form but they don't have a huge amount of popularity outside of that, with the exception of a small number of players in the sets. The cost of grading has increased a whole heck of a lot on supersize holder items, so you will not have sales prices that exceed the grading costs anymore except for a small list of players. Also, the Finnish set is one of the most common produced/available sets relative to the other nation versions out there. The ones in the Finnish set worth grading are as follows:

Grade these regardless of which nation issue (Finland vs. North American; these ones not available from the other countries versions) :
Gretzky
Magic
Bird
Maradona

Exclusive to the Finnish version, so worth grading (but they wouldn't be if there were other lower print run nations versions out there) :
Kurri
Pelle Lindbergh
Tretjak

Possibly worth the grading fees but a gamble since only if you land a high grade:
Orr
Pele
K. Dryden

Formerly worth subbing, but will no longer beat the grading fees unless you get a 10 or maybe even a 9:
Ali
Howe

There are a lot of other stars in the Finnish set that would have been great to sub back when you could get them in at a per card fee of approx $20 or so, but those days are long gone. Almost every one of the graded ones now will sell for under $100 even on the top end stars. The player set registry participants pretty much all have the ones they need by now since the Finnish versions are so incredibly plentiful compared to other foreign options, so you'd have to be pretty lucky to land a 10 on something not on my list above and then find a participant interested in upgrading his set.