Out Of "The Game" For Quite A While - Can Anyone Fill Me In?
oddball
Posts: 119 ✭
ok......the last single, pack, or box that I bought, sold, or traded was around March of 2004...when I was younger I swore I would never "get out" but then college and jobs came and I just didn't have the time to sit around for hours searching through ebay and making trades on message boards...now things have slowed down a bit and I'm interested in getting back in a little bit
before I stopped in March '04 I was an absolute card freak...I wasn't into vintage much at all, focused on modern baseball, football, and basketball...but I could recognize any card from 1980-2004 from 10 feet away and immediately tell you what player, year, set, insert set, serial #'d to, etc...and for 99% of those cards I could tell you the average ebay price and an estimate of the beckett price that was usually right on or within a few dollars
but now I have not dealt with cards in well over a year and everything has changed...to tell you the truth, I haven't even watched many sporting events or sports news in the past year so I don't even have a good idea about what players have gone up or down in performance since then...I want to start buying cards again, but I'm afraid that I will still be using my 2004 knowledge and overpaying...I have tons of cards that I'd love to sell, but I'm afraid that I'd use my 2004 knowledge of prices and either price things way too high and make people laugh or way too low and not get as much as I could
how is the card market doing? when I stopped it was getting out of hand...new sets were coming out faster than babies in government-provided housing developments...I was going to card shows and seeing game used cards of superstars selling for $1 each, so I can't imagine how bad it is now...a lot of people were "getting out" of the hobby and encouraging others to do the same thing before it crashed like Beanie Babies. I heard Donruss is out of baseball and Fleer is out of everything...what kind of an effect is that going to have? are there any signs of Topps or Upper Deck following any time soon?
basically what I'm wanting to know is how card prices have changed in the past 18 months. are they the same for the most part? or have older singles taken a huge drop since then? I have hundreds...maybe even thousands if the market hasn't made too big of a drop...of dollars worth of cards sitting around and I'd like to get rid of most of them, I just don't want to take them to a card show and price them based on my knowledge of the market 18 months ago and either have people laugh at my high prices or give people steals on cards that have gone up since then...but at the same time I don't want to keep holding onto them if the prices are going nowhere but down
I've got all kinds of stuff...Legendary Cuts signatures, 1/1s, press plates, premium patches...certified autos of Namath, Unitas, Ripken, Garnett, Webber, Jeter, Griffey, Shaq, Manning, you name it...enough low #'d rookie cards to fill a Honda...game used jersey and bat cards out the wazoo...all that crap...I don't expect anyone to help me price every card, I'm just looking for some help on the general state of the market so I can get an idea about what things have stayed, gone up, or down
before I stopped in March '04 I was an absolute card freak...I wasn't into vintage much at all, focused on modern baseball, football, and basketball...but I could recognize any card from 1980-2004 from 10 feet away and immediately tell you what player, year, set, insert set, serial #'d to, etc...and for 99% of those cards I could tell you the average ebay price and an estimate of the beckett price that was usually right on or within a few dollars
but now I have not dealt with cards in well over a year and everything has changed...to tell you the truth, I haven't even watched many sporting events or sports news in the past year so I don't even have a good idea about what players have gone up or down in performance since then...I want to start buying cards again, but I'm afraid that I will still be using my 2004 knowledge and overpaying...I have tons of cards that I'd love to sell, but I'm afraid that I'd use my 2004 knowledge of prices and either price things way too high and make people laugh or way too low and not get as much as I could
how is the card market doing? when I stopped it was getting out of hand...new sets were coming out faster than babies in government-provided housing developments...I was going to card shows and seeing game used cards of superstars selling for $1 each, so I can't imagine how bad it is now...a lot of people were "getting out" of the hobby and encouraging others to do the same thing before it crashed like Beanie Babies. I heard Donruss is out of baseball and Fleer is out of everything...what kind of an effect is that going to have? are there any signs of Topps or Upper Deck following any time soon?
basically what I'm wanting to know is how card prices have changed in the past 18 months. are they the same for the most part? or have older singles taken a huge drop since then? I have hundreds...maybe even thousands if the market hasn't made too big of a drop...of dollars worth of cards sitting around and I'd like to get rid of most of them, I just don't want to take them to a card show and price them based on my knowledge of the market 18 months ago and either have people laugh at my high prices or give people steals on cards that have gone up since then...but at the same time I don't want to keep holding onto them if the prices are going nowhere but down
I've got all kinds of stuff...Legendary Cuts signatures, 1/1s, press plates, premium patches...certified autos of Namath, Unitas, Ripken, Garnett, Webber, Jeter, Griffey, Shaq, Manning, you name it...enough low #'d rookie cards to fill a Honda...game used jersey and bat cards out the wazoo...all that crap...I don't expect anyone to help me price every card, I'm just looking for some help on the general state of the market so I can get an idea about what things have stayed, gone up, or down
0
Comments
2) Vintage rocks
3) Certified autos are good
4) Game used cards are bad
5) Packs are overpriced
6) Fleer is history
7) Donruss is on the way out the door
8) People still argue over which grading company is better.
Certified autos are still running strong, especially if the run is very small, but they have become almost expected and logically the "premium" aspect of it will fade away.
Modern cards that have no GU, no auto, no limited serial number, are fireplace kindling in terms of value. There are exceptions, like Heritage (which I thoroughly approve of because it gets modern collectors interested in vintage). Monetary value is one thing, enjoyment is another kettle of cats altogether. If that's what you enjoy, then there are a zillion shiny modern cards to wallpaper your room (or fill your Honda), just like when you left.
<< <i>Game-used cards, unless it's a bat or jersey used by one of the huge names in baseball history, have gone out the collective wazoo along with your wazoo. >>
Is that why my wazoo is burning?