Etopps Improving!
gregmadduxfan
Posts: 556
I know there has been a ton of bashing on here about etopps and I myself have had negative feelings about it at times but etopps is going up hill quickly. If you get a chance go to cardtarget.com and check out the graphs, the low print runs have been producing profits for the etopps community. I myself have made over $1,000 just in the past 3 weeks for doing basically nothing. I really do believe this program has potential and hopefully it will continue to grow. I know there will be a lot of negative comments after this post but the graphs don't lie. If anyone has any questions don't hesitate to PM me.
0
Comments
<< <i>what a bubble >>
and like most,
it will burst soon enough
(and it really already has, this is
just an illusion of increase... that
won't last!)
they never tell you about the millions, yes millions of cards that are now worth 2 dollars a piece
that they bought for 4, 6 and 9.50!
Im still amazed at the number of suckers still over there buying this stuff.
JS
Those brainwashed to think eTopps sucks don't know eTopps period.
not of high quality. I can buy a 1 dollar pack of topps gold label and get not one but 4 cards
just as "high quality" as etopps cards are. If you attempting to get us "cardboard" collecters
to jump on board because of the look of etopps, you better stop there because there is NOTHING
special about these cards...and what do you portfolio guys care? You have taken all the fun out
of it...we collect who we like and who we grew up watching or maybe who we think is going to
be playing well...you all only care about print runs, afterall who cares who is on the card??
There was a boost in the etopps market in June of 2001
There was a boost in the etopps market in August of 2002
There is a boost in the etopps market now....and what does all that mean???
more and more cards will be worthless because etopps keeps cranking them out the overall pool
of money will be stretched thin...
I don't believe you when you said you only buy in aftersales, Im sure you have bought heavily at
IPO's and are just too proud to admit that you lost your *ss on it. Do you actually expect newbies
to understand how to make money on etopps? Guys go into this buying their favorite players and
that usually means spending 9.50 a card and we all know that there is NO room for profit in these
cards....remember when Ichiro 2001 card was around 22 like Lebron is now?? I do....why don't
you mention that?
The fact of the matter is, we DO know etopps and we know that we pay for cards that we can't
even touch or sell for free or to ever we want. We know that the cards in most cases aren't even
printed yet, and if we all actually wanted our cards tomorrow etopps would crap their pants
and fold. We know that the little sticker on the "uncirculated" cases can be peeled of by anyone
with two fingers and 2 minutes. So why pretend that these are special?
Thanks
JS
<< <i>more and more cards will be worthless because etopps keeps cranking them out the overall pool
of money will be stretched thin...
Thanks
JS >>
The only thing "improving" with Etopps, is the Topps Co bank accounts. The Lebron card is this year's Ichiro. Let's look at the value in about 6 months.
Let's get something clear here also. Are you guys pumping this product up as a great set for collectors, or as a good investment. There is no way you are buying Lebron James after the IPO for $9.50 because he would have already made his jump. If I knew that I could have gotten 50 of these cards at the $9.50 price, I would have bought them only to relist them immediately after the IPO closed. But ever since I tried to get some multiple copies back in 2002 of some other rookies and I was told only one was allotted to me, I gave up on this junk.
Buy and sell right away in bulk on any of the hot rookies may have worked if they gave you what you ordered. It should be first come first served, but I don't think they work that way and that sucks. I ask for 20 copies and I am only given 1. That's not worth my time. The only way to have made any $$$ nowadays would have been to get in on the hot rookie and sell immediately to those that missed out. If any of the veterans cards drop below their IPO price, they usually never make it back up.
It's like giving someone a $50 bill for a $20 bill in return.
TheRoach
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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it? Do you have to keep track of where you put the card, or do you have someone who keeps it
for you? Is the value of the card tracked on line by the very same company that made the card?
LMK
JS
With baseball this past year I bought 8 cards at IPO and haven't finished the set yet. Now with football I ordered about 60% this year at IPO, and am glad I did, for the 03 football set is doing ok - up 8% so far from IPO. I do have this set complete now and my cost is about 80% of IPO so my set is doing well. And basketball 03 - I'm ordering all the cards at IPO right now as they are coming out in smaller numbers.
To my fellow Raiders fan Nick about the Jerry Rice card - the problem is there is no community, no group, no base of collectors for that 1/500 refractor you mention - but there is for the eTopps cards. There is an active community - they get a lot of bad mouthing here from Joe and his friends but they have stuck together through bad - and good times. Some go back to the beginning, some started later like me, and some are just starting now. Nick they just released 2 Raider classics (Bo Jackson and Fred Belitinikof). They were sold at 12.50 each - a price I like to avoide but the Fred is now $42.50 and the Bo is $20.00 so I'm happy I did order them at IPO...I'm bummed I didn't order the whole classic set at IPO this year.
In the case of etopps, it needs to attract new collectors in greater numbers than old collectors quit - and it needs to have those collectors not drive the print runs up on the new cards so that it rapidly becomes a money-losing proposition to buy them. These 2 goals are in conflict, and I expect that for the entire life of etopps it will fluctuate between boom and bust periods (possibly a year or more each) where cards from different etopps sets all move up or down. This is not a recipe for long-term success.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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Nick I'm not one of the "investors" who follow eTopps to make money. I truly like the cards. I really like that I can get complete base sets and not have to chase a subset I couldn't get in a box. Its just me, but there are others there like me. It seems that eTopps is moving further away from the "cards that pay dividends" investment motif to the best collectible set of cards out there. I think of them as the later.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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taste profit more than anyone! Im sorry but if Tony Banks is selling for 300 bucks a pop, this
operation is not about fan favorites!
This disgusted me most about etopps...print runs were everything! The year Anthony Thomas
won ROY his etopps cards were nothing..but someone like Edgardo Alfonzo was hot...why??
because of money...and heck the two etop geeks that have been here defending this garbage
have only said how this is up, and this is worth more than this, and.blah blah blah...
netjr...I know you, you were once about the money. You may now be a collector of just players
but NO ONE got into etopps because of the looks of the cards, there are FAR much better looking
cards out there than these.....its the money and you all know it..but now, there is no profit in
this junk....
Ask Ronin how my 33 Shinjo rookies are doing!
LOL
JS
<< <i>
This disgusted me most about etopps...print runs were everything!
JS >>
kevin i agree with your stance on etopps, but isnt this statement true about most sports cards?
Kevin Joe yes I readily admit I got caught up in the idea of speculating...and I'M sooo lucky I watched the likes of Ronin, SteelerFanatic and so many others. I bought up the 01 football in the spring of 02 and sold most of it in the late summer of 02 more then doubling my funds. I was quite happy, but I did it so I could afford 02 football which I really really wanted. I bought 02 football at IPO for about 3 weeks and realized what was happening...stopped...and later started buying it on eBay. Today I have the 02 football set in hand and in port. I LOVE IT and its value up or down has little or no meaning to me now.
Tony Banks has been a bone of contention for many at eTopps especially new folks. I mean Tony Banks for $400? Yuck...but he's the rarest card. Its kind of like a Barber Dime from the 1893 San Francisco Mint...just another dime right...but since only 6 to 8 are known to exist they fetch a little premium...no difference then Tony.
One thing I think you are wrong about Kevin, is that eTopps seems to be around to stay. Topps reports thepit.com could be history, but eTopps is doing "all right." We're looking forward to see what the fantasy game element will do for it in the Spring.
I'm not on the Raider Nation message board. I used to be on serveral Raiders discussion lists, including one created by the originator of the term Raider Nation, but those have all become fairly inactive or closed.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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Our current ebay auctions, and of course BaseBallCardHeaven.com
<< <i>Tony Banks has been a bone of contention for many at eTopps especially new folks. I mean Tony Banks for $400? Yuck...but he's the rarest card. Its kind of like a Barber Dime from the 1893 San Francisco Mint...just another dime right...but since only 6 to 8 are known to exist they fetch a little premium...no difference then Tony. >>
I think there is alot more than 6-8 copies of the Tony Banks card, but I know what you mean. I'll say it again though. Why not just pick up a Tony Banks card numbered out of let's say 50 for around $2 ( if that) on Ebay, or say #'d of 25 for around $3-$4 maybe, or to top it off, how about a Tony Banks 1/1 Masterpiece, about $10 maybe, from either Ultra, Upper Deck or any of the other companies that offer these type of cards?
Even the one numbered out of 50 is produced almost 4x less than the stupid Etopps card. If you get the 1/1, you can be guaranteed that no one else will own that one either. With the Etopps, you know that there is at least 180 other copies out there if you buy one for $400. Buy the 1/1 card I mentioned a minute ago for around $10 or so and you'll be THE ONLY OWNER!!!!
It seems pretty simple to me. I just don't get your rationale though?
TheRoach
I can't justify paying more for a player's eTopps card than for the same player's card #ed to 799, 900, 999, or a similar number from one of the high end sets (Leaf Limited, Timeless Treasures, Ultimate Collection, etc.) Those cards I can often pick up for under $1 apiece -and sometimes $0.50 or less apiece in quantity. In the case of the players with very short print runs (300 or so), I still wouldn't pay more for their cards than I could get a parallel #ed to 100 of their card from another set for.
But, someone else's eTopps purchases certainly don't harm me, so I have no quarrel with how they spend their own money.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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Last year when one of the guys on the etopps board lost his home in the southern CA fires we thought we'd help - Topps Inc. - put the request for help on their etopps.com home page and donated product to ebay auctions for full benefit to the person in need. Sure we argue (kevin joe knows that) but there is a "larger" group there (I believe) that collect and yes invest in these cards then most any other mentioned so far on this thread. That is what makes Banks more valuable. His card defines the total number of sets. Because eTopps does not have chase sets, subsets, parallel sets, auto sets, jersey sets - just one solid premium base set - the rarest card has the most value.
The etopps classic football from 2003 is on fire dollar wise. As a collector it was necessary to buy them at IPO. That hasn't happened in a while, but it appears it might happen for hockey (it did happen for basketball and late football too).
Stay tuned...2004 eTopps baseball along with a fantasy sports element should kick in - April 1
Do I bid on other eTopps cards? Yes - I do player searches, and if I see an eTopps card up of a player I collect at a low price, I will sometimes bid. I haven't won any other eTopps cards though. I have a feeling that many of the 30,000 eTopps collectors are in situations similar to mine, where they have little urge to complete a set, but consider eTopps just another type of cards to collect of favorite players or prospects they think will be profitable.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
Need to buy something for the wife or girlfriend? Check out Vintage Designer Clothing.
<< <i>Why not just pick up a Tony Banks card numbered out of let's say 50 for around $2 ( if that) on Ebay, or say #'d of 25 for around $3-$4 maybe, or to top it off, how about a Tony Banks 1/1 Masterpiece, about $10 maybe, from either Ultra, Upper Deck or any of the other companies that offer these type of cards? >>
roach you answered your own question, because when you add up all the 1/1, #/25, or #/50 and parallel's, commons,.....etc, + all the company's who makes cards (upper deck, fleer, donruss, topps, etc...) there will be plenty of tony bank cards to go around that are cardboard....
and in the e-card community there are only 186 2001 tony banks.
no insert's , parallel's, #/???, 1998, 1999, 2003, and so on and so forth
get my drift just 186 total!!! etopps did not make a 2002 or 2003 card for him, so in the cardboard world I think there are more than just 186 tony banks card out there!
Long live etopps!
Nick I think you are right. In fact we have speculated there are no more then a 1000 active participants in eTopps right now - active meaning consistently buying at IPO or the cards within 3 months of IPO for set building or speculating. In 2002 the number was probably two times that level. Its just a guess mind you - no one knows for sure. So if 30k ebay ID's have actually bought or sold cards (a number that can be tracked - I'll get the real number in a minute) then most are player collectors like yourself. I think that is one of the best things eTopps has going for it - and it really peeves the Upper Deck fans - eTopps has an exclusive with eBay. The only e.card service that is traded exclusively through ebay. Some even call this a negative - but I think its awesome. I just wish eTopps would use it and issue rookie sets the day after the draft
Ok the number: 28,569 actual ebay ID's have bought eTopps cards and 14,339 have sold them