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1992 bowman any thoughts?
calleocho
Posts: 1,569 ✭✭
i know many collectors are not familiar w/ modern sets ..however i would like your input on some questions and any suggestion you might have. i chose this set because it has a great visual appeal and i can buy psa 9's which are beautiful cards for less than the cost of sending a card and without the gamble. i have been following this set very closely on ebay for a while now , and im familiar with the prices and avaibility of these cards . my questions are: is this set a good deal right now or is it overvalued. while its a somewhat less common than its contemporary counterparts i still see unopened boxes and even cases from time to time . also i still have many cards to pick up on ebay but eventually i do foresee running into a wall where i simply can't pick up any more cards and might have to start sending in cards myself , would this be economically sound? or would it be wiser to save money and upgrade to 10's in the meantime as i wait for others to summit more cards? and last should i consider buying duplicates if they are cheap or is it just a waste of space and money with some of these cards already w/ populations of hundreds in psa 9 i could not effectively be hoarding the market.? Thanks
"Women should be obscene and not heard. "
Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
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Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
Remember, the set you love is the one worth building. Modern or Vintage it has to be good for you.
RayB69Topps
As for buying PSA 9's and 10's now? To me the market on that set has sunk considerably. The rookies all kind of had either a bad or strange season last year. To me it shouldn't get much worse than it is now. Jones, Piazza, Ramirez, Delgado, Rivera, Martinez and more are not average players by any means as everyone knows. So I think the set can hold up and move back upwards if 2 or 3 of the names get rolling for a couple months next season. If the Red Sox get anywhere, after all these years...expect this set to get out of hand yet again. Buying 9's now is ok if you buy the rookies, as your chances are good of profitting on some if they play well next season.
The newer cards to me are more the tech stocks here and the vintage is your blue chips. I think most would agree with that. The new stuff is always strange especially to throw $500 at a rookie who hasn't even played in the majors yet? I saw a Mark Teixeira SPX Autograph in a PSA 10 go for over $400?? Sure maybe he will be great. To pay nearly $500 for his rookie is a little overboard don't many agree? What about all the Craig Griffey, Ozzie Canseco, Todd Van Poppel, Phil Plantier, Rick Asadoorian type guys?? People were buying Rick's Red Sox rookies 2 years ago for over $100 raw. Well now he has been traded and is still in the minors and is predicted to be for a long time. Kind of crazy that people throw $150 at one of his cards, and still keep throing at newer guys. You can buy loads of Hall-of-Famers in 8's and 9's of some nice vintage stuff for under $500. Even is you did break the bank and buy a real big name rookie from the 50's in a PSA 10, will it really go up or down much in the next year? Probably not unless the population of 10's is so small(less than 5) where it could have a great effect to double to 10. I suppose that is boring though, because the card typically goes up in value fairly slowly compared to a single ball player, who gets called up to St. Louis and wins rookie of the year(Pujols). The blue chip stuff is my new focus after being blown away finally by too much stuff for modern cards. I may try to make a 1992 Bowman someday. Got some other sets to finish first, though
The wall is obviously there, as many of the commons have never been submitted. Alot of sets have this problem starting in the late 70's. So that is a topic often argued on many message boards to buy commons or send them in? The nice thing about this set is it is soft. Getting 10's by submitting yourself will not be tough in comparison to 90% of all baseball cards ever made. 1992 Bowman to get PSA 8's or better is basically as simple as cracking boxes and sending in 85% of what you pull excepting anything noticeably defective(very poor centering, creases). The edges are typically smooth and centering in general is easy due to the lack of a real border. They are very clean cards typically also(no marks, printing, etc). The loads and loads of sealed cases and boxes from 1992 Bowman, makes getting good ones fairly easy to do. Waiting for commons could end up cheaper, but I'm not sure they will come anytime soon. Sending in a card at bulk of $6 and getting a PSA 10 Chad McConnell Common Foil rookie is not going to make a dealer alot of money. Would you pay $10 for a PSA 10 McConnell? I feel like most would not. Maybe someday there will be enough interest, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, as compared to 50's and 60's commons for example for obvious reasons. Hopes this helps some....
I could be wrong about modern commons?
Would anyone on the boards buy modern (1990 to date) PSA 9 and 10 commons???
Kurt
Will slabbed 1990s sets catch on? I doubt it -- too much quantity -- but despite the labor problems, contraction talks and outrageous salaries, there is a good argument to be made that we are in a golden age for baseball. My guess is that a few quality sets from the '90s (perhaps 1992 Bowman?) will be collectible for generations to come.
POTD = 09/03/2003
Groucho Marx
I basically quit collecting cards myself outside of 1977 Topps and some of my favorite players. There is too much and it's just plain annoying sometimes. You can't collect your favorite player anymore, you can't collect your favorite team. These days if you get an Ichiro Suzuki rookie serial numbered to 2000, some think whoa. That will be worth a ton someday. I say ok buy mine I just pulled, because I know they will make 100 different cards all serial numbered to much lower amounts even. Which as you have seen plummets its value. Even Albert Pujols' 1st card went from a debut of $175 steadily downward to it's current $60??? Obvious reason too many rookies cards. The manufacturers are now completely off the wall, hoping to catch the money of fly-by money makers, rather than building steady collectors.
Baseball cards along with everything else has gone to the dogs and is truly driven by money. Most people ripping today's packs are simply doing it to profit, if they can. Met a guy the other day actually, wanted to trade me loads of new rookies for a Yaz jersey card(Another out of control thing for another day, game used cards). I said wow are you collecting all this stuff just out of curiosity, he said flat out "Nope, I don't even know who these guys are? I steal boxes open them up and put everything with the word rookie in a toploader and go make trades." Now I told him, you know half of the stuff that says rookie nowadays is really a 3rd or 4th year card(Soriano, Burell, etc) (Just in case anyone likes gambling I will bet Soriano shows up in a 2003 set on a "rookie" card for the 4th year in a row after his real rookie) After hearing his story I refused the trade. I didn't want stolen cards. So this guy steals boxes, I would presume from the local Wal-marts etc as there are no more hobby shops around here. Then he drives 100 miles or more to shows and trades them at the shows. Simply to make money. Doesn't care about a hobby, or the history, or the culture, just money. Fine by me as I make money on this too. I don't steal my product however.
Golden age of baseball maybe so. As for the cards they are on their way to their death. The new product simply is completely out of hand. I thought in 1995 it was out of hand, I quit collecting then. Then I admit I was drawn back in by McGwire, Sosa and the game used craze in 1998. Well they have succeeded to kill that now too, with game jersey, bats etc plentiful on ebay for under $10, even out of $50 per pack product. Do you know any little kids collecting cards nowadays?? How many have $50 per pack funding for their "hobby"? What about these serial numbered rookies? Limited to 1000? Fine and dandy if they wouldnt produce limited to 1000 out of 28 different sets, and limited to some number out of 100 more sets. Well which rookie is the good one now?? It takes awhile to pan out nowadays, which also annoys people. Not like the days of the Fleer is the good one, or even(pre-81) there is only Topps no problem. now it's well, it is the SPX autograph, the limited gold refractor, the die-cut ticket to have dinner with rookie?? The game used dirt card?? YES DIRT CARDS COURTESY OF TOPPS CAME OUT LAST YEAR!! Yes a card with dirt from the batters box of where your favorite hero stood?? Game used wall?? I mean forget it. I quit! The new stuff simply stinks it up and I think a cheap factory log from Topps each year off of ebay should be good enough for most to stay current if you need to.
The secondary maret should survive for quite some time, as long as the sports themselves do as well. Grading should continue to grow, as I meet people everyday who have never heard of graded cards. So anything made after the mid-80's I would sell it unless you really feel you got a Hall member on your hands, and even still(Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, etc)if he has too many rookies, they won't have a real value to them even PSA 10 versions. Some will argue anything post mid-70's is in trouble. I feel as a 1977 chaser, these cards are not easy enough to find in good shape. From 1977 Topps only 1 PSA 10 exists from the entire set of nearly 5,000 submitted. I think late 70's and early 80's will be popular enough to keep for investing.(Again my 77' set is purely for fun
For those of you who know all of this I'm sorry, i just wanted to vent about the poor condition of the hobby today!! Thanks for reading.
Kurt.
Again, quantity is the issue. I don't see many '77 wax boxes or vending cases on eBay. Give it some time, and a lot of the '77s out there will find their way into PSA holders. I am just speculating, but I would imagine that within 2 years, all the sets of the 1970s will have 100% completed sets on the Set Registry. Good luck Kurt, and don't be discouraged by today's cards. I agree that it's all junk, driven by greed, but there are plenty of vintage collectors and vintage product around to satisfy our appetite for this hobby.
POTD = 09/03/2003
I have a bunch of complete sets, but they are pretty much EX to NM in condition with poor centering as I take out the good ones and replace them with lesser cards. None of them are creased etc as I just throw those away. I have a master set, stored in Card Saver I's, which I will send over time. Always room for improvement as even there I see alot of potential 8's. My goal is to have all 9's one day. I have sent in several singles and I send several per week. Grading fees will run a minimum of around $4000 and I want to do it in small increments over time to carefully not send anything worse than an 8. Haven't gotten any back yet as I just started this set in Dec of 2001. I have 10 cards slabbed(all bought that way), 5 of which are on the registry, the other 5 and there after I will hold until-mid summer to make a jump. Hopefully I will send around 50-100 cards by the end of next month to recieve them all by summer. A guy named Danny is making great progress on his set and I want to save up some and jump past him. Maybe I will add some more earlier if he gets way too far ahead. Part of the fun for me on the registry is competing to move ranks. I know that is competitive but that's my nature.
As for sealed 1977 product, I really don't think it's worth it anymore and it basically never was. I have bought in the past couple months a partial vending box 450+ commons(super cards in the vending box!), several rack packs, and wax packs. The rack packs seem 15-20% centered, let alone corners etc. The wax packs have been horrible yielding 1 or 2 usuable cards. I really think if you bought a box even cheap for say $500-600, you would only get 100 cards or less that would be gradeable. If they were not the stars it's tough to swallow paying $500 for the box, which typically goes for $750 on avg I think. These cards come out of packs absolutely wrecked, sometimes so miscut you get an even 50/50 of two cards. The borders are typically chipped up badly, and the corners vary alot. So if at all I will only buy vending boxes from here on out. This set is absolutely annoying in that even if I go to shows you have all these problems coupled with the usual big problem. That is the stars are easy to locate, but choice commons are nowhere to be found for obvious reasons. So I chase commons now mainly, instead of the obvious stars. If I see a sharp star card I'll pick it up to make money on towards this project. Its funny to ask people at shows for common 1977 Topps, they really give some funny looks. Maybe they are wondering if there is some secret to 1977 commons. I trade good cards for commons, because the good cards are so easy to come by.
I ended up trading that same Yaz jersey(BV $50), which I bought for $18, and getting 800 or so 1977 commons in trade in better than avg shape. Quite a few good ones(Brock, Stargell, etc in great shape) in the stack I must admit and worth more than a silly game used card which may even end up being fake(more and more is being proved as "fakes" as admitted by the manufacturers themselves). If you need proof, read a current Beckett sometime. Example recently was a game used Mike Modano jersey. When did the Dallas Stars play in orange jerseys?? Obvious answer was Upper Deck had to admit is was a practice jersey. What if the jersey was white?? Who would have known?? What about their admittance that they put the wrong jerseys in the wrong players cards(more often than you would guess)?? What about those Subway series jerseys(Yankees), in which they were not really from the World Seris?? and so on. Which brings me to the one good point about todays cards. No harm in picking up some "hot" new cards and trading for the old stuff. There is plenty of fool hearted "dealers" who will give up a 55 Mays for a pile of jersey cards and rookies who will never even play a full season. That's about the only use I see for new cards now.
As my set is for collecting purposes and for fun, I don't mind and it will take a long time to accomplish. The cost is going to be enormous in terms of time and effort. I hope in a few years I am complete and within 10 years can upgrade it to be all 9's or better(a real tall order).
Wish me luck and good luck to all in your collecting endeavors!
My pick for the only set people will really hunt this year? Topps T-206 baseball....the retro thing has room for one more....
Kurt.