Interesting Article on Cards as Investments

Boopotts

Sorry if this has already been posted:

link

TheCARDKid

One million '89 Upper Deck Griffey's were printed? Somehow I have a hard time believing that.

-I have a hard time believing anything could hold a $40 retail price if a million of them were printed.

-Also, the population report shows 56,000 Griffey's graded (PSA).

-The other numbers must be huge....89 Topps and Donruss. 1990 Upper Deck? That set has never had any value. Are there 5 million of those?

I also get leery if anyone talks about a multiplier vs a base card. That was the concept behind....1992/93 Topps basketball. Remember the gold cards were going to be worth 10-20x the base cards? Similar with Stadium Club 1st day cards.

CubsKiller99

They really did print around one million per card for the 1989 set. In addition to factory sets and foil boxes,
individual sheets of just the Griffey card were printed and distributed. The estimated print run is around 800 million total
for the entire 1989 set.

The card does not deserve it's book value. And the number graded is just a small fraction of the number printed.

It is claimed there are several collectors that have 800-count boxes of 1989 UD Griffey cards. God knows what they're saving them
for unless it's to keep the market from being flooded. Some day it's going to be a $10 card when people start putting them
all out there. The card is not even the most attractive Griffey rookie -- in fact it's a really boring photo.

In 1990 Upper Deck printed around two billion baseball cards or roughly 2.5 million per card. 1989 was just a warm-up.

detroitfan2

I do not collect modern outside of Topps Heritage, but I find it impossible to believe that ANY card graded BGS 9.5 would be worth less than double of the card raw, much less factors of 1.2 to 1.7 like many of the cards in the first 2 tables.

ReggieCleveland

Oddly enough, just today I was doing some research and stumbled across the wiki page for Upper Deck. According to the site, UD would replace any card that a customer sent in as damaged. It got to the point where they were printing up 100-card sheets of just the Griffey. Not sure if that translates to whatever the number that's claimed, but there's sure a ton of them out there.

MrNearMint

There does seem to be an abundance of 89 griffeys out there. Every so often I check on eBay for one graded Bgs 9.5 and looks like the price is slowly dropping.
I agree with cubskiller, I have never liked the look of the 89 ud Griffey, it's very plain and boring. I like the 89 donruss (love the purple and black borders) and bowman the best!

miklia

do any just-Griffey uncut sheets exist? One of those would be cool to have.

Time4aGansett

I don't doubt the quantities being mentioned, Upper Deck really promoted that set upon release.

There is always a good supply of this product (unopened and loose) in the marketplace, has been for awhile. That should tell you it was mass produced.

That said, to this day, I have yet to pull a Griffey from any of the Upper Deck packs I have ever opened, a steak that started in 1989!!

Maurice

At least 2 million of each 1989 Upper Deck card.

1 million factory sets and approximately the same amount in packs.

And this was considered a very low production issue during that era.

And during the late 90's / early 2000's, Upper Deck was selling 5000 count boxes of the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey card directly to major dealers.

esquiresports

I was living in San Diego at the time 1989 UD came out and recall being able to purchase 800 count blocks of every player straight from Upper Deck, but you had to purchase the full set. There was one particular duo in particular - friends of Mark McGwire - that had literally 1000s of the Griffeys for sale at the major shows. There were a lot of whispers about back-door deals, even in 1989.

With 55,000 graded by PSA alone, 1 million sounds very low to me, actually. I doubt 1 out of 20 has made it into grading. Probably closer to 1 out of 100.

emar

<< <i>I was living in San Diego at the time 1989 UD came out and recall being able to purchase 800 count blocks of every player straight from Upper Deck, but you had to purchase the full set. There was one particular duo in particular - friends of Mark McGwire - that had literally 1000s of the Griffeys for sale at the major shows. There were a lot of whispers about back-door deals, even in 1989.

With 55,000 graded by PSA alone, 1 million sounds very low to me, actually. I doubt 1 out of 20 has made it into grading. Probably closer to 1 out of 100. >>



Currently nine PSA 10's on ebay....(70) 10's in the sold listings.
$285-$300 average will never be sustainable.
I might as well sell mine and upgrade to a Tiffany version before the market gets flooded. LOL

emar

<< <i>Aren't there like 50,000 graded by non-PSA companies as well? >>



Yeah, I got a GEM MINT company Gem Mint. Paid the fire sale price of $40.00. I figure it's worth $50.

Dpeck100

I think I still have three and none are graded. There has to be tons of people like me that have them siting in 9 pocket sheets or top loaders.

Those production figures are mind blowing.