Sports Cards Mania

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
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Apr 12, 2005
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Apparently, Panini now feels like they can replace Panini Noir RPA's for guys like Justin Patton from 2016-17 with NFL Sparkle Silver packs from 2022 (3 cards, no autos, non numbered). Fucking amazing. The value of the replacement should be based on the value of the card when the product was released, not when Panini waits 7 fucking years for a guy to wash out of the league.

I'm at the point where I'm emailing Panini for Jaylen Brown RPA's that they've been sitting on for years and writing "Now that he's hurt, you can save another $1 on the replacement value."

Fucking assholes have now "replaced" all of the shitty redemptions that I was waiting on, but all of the cards/players that have retained value (Jaylen, Jamal Murray, Demarre Carroll logoman, DeRozan, Joey Bosa rookie autos) aren't being sent out, because the fucking pricks know they can't replace them with sparkle packs.
 

Fishercat

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Apparently, Panini now feels like they can replace Panini Noir RPA's for guys like Justin Patton from 2016-17 with NFL Sparkle Silver packs from 2022 (3 cards, no autos, non numbered). Fucking amazing. The value of the replacement should be based on the value of the card when the product was released, not when Panini waits 7 fucking years for a guy to wash out of the league.

I'm at the point where I'm emailing Panini for Jaylen Brown RPA's that they've been sitting on for years and writing "Now that he's hurt, you can save another $1 on the replacement value."

Fucking assholes have now "replaced" all of the shitty redemptions that I was waiting on, but all of the cards/players that have retained value (Jaylen, Jamal Murray, Demarre Carroll logoman, DeRozan, Joey Bosa rookie autos) aren't being sent out, because the fucking pricks know they can't replace them with sparkle packs.
I know this is your hill to die on, just gonna echo how insane that is. At the very least, the NFL Sparkle Silver Pack cards can have some value and a Sparkle pack is worth a lot more than a Justin Patton RPA today....but I imagine a lot less than what a Justin Patton Noir RPA from that era is worth. I'm still flummoxed they're allowed to do this.

That a Joey Bosa rookie auto is still in redemption is absolutely insane. There is no way Joey Bosa is that hard to get in a room to sign that stock - he has on card autos half a decade newer than that.
 

Oil Can Dan

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Apparently, Panini now feels like they can replace Panini Noir RPA's for guys like Justin Patton from 2016-17 with NFL Sparkle Silver packs from 2022 (3 cards, no autos, non numbered). Fucking amazing. The value of the replacement should be based on the value of the card when the product was released, not when Panini waits 7 fucking years for a guy to wash out of the league.

I'm at the point where I'm emailing Panini for Jaylen Brown RPA's that they've been sitting on for years and writing "Now that he's hurt, you can save another $1 on the replacement value."

Fucking assholes have now "replaced" all of the shitty redemptions that I was waiting on, but all of the cards/players that have retained value (Jaylen, Jamal Murray, Demarre Carroll logoman, DeRozan, Joey Bosa rookie autos) aren't being sent out, because the fucking pricks know they can't replace them with sparkle packs.
This hobby is insane. I watched a youtube video laying out how there are over 1,400 Trevor Lawrence 1/1 rookie cards. A Justin Hebert rookie card sold for $1.8m (NT Shield). AND that card explains on the back that the NFL shield/jersey part isn't even from a game or an event and it's not necessarily worn by the player. It's likely just from a store-bought jersey. And there are over 900 Justin Hebert 1/1 rookie cards.

Who in their right mind would spend money on modern cards at this point in time?

edit - it's 1,400 Trevor Lawrence cards, not Justin Hebert cards.
 
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Kenny F'ing Powers

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This hobby is insane. I watched a youtube video laying out how there are over 1,400 Trevor Lawrence 1/1 rookie cards. A Justin Hebert rookie card sold for $1.8m (NT Shield). AND that card explains on the back that the NFL shield/jersey part isn't even from a game or an event and it's not necessarily worn by the player. It's likely just from a store-bought jersey. And there are over 900 Justin Hebert 1/1 rookie cards.

Who in their right mind would spend money on modern cards at this point in time?

edit - it's 1,400 Trevor Lawrence cards, not Justin Hebert cards.
I absolutely agree on the premise, but obviously not all 1/1s are made equal. There is definitely a pecking order of value on them.
 

Fishercat

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Topps Breaks seem fun. The design makes some parallels ugly but the foil parallels look great. I really like the Aces and City Connect inserts, lots of the mem seems game used and more on card autos than I thought. I might need to pick up some of the Sox '88 autos when that cools down

Edit: After watching a ton of it, I'm not really convinced on the value of boxes/wax to this point. Not that Topps ever has a ton of it but I had to have watched 50+ jumbo boxes get opened and maybe 2 of those 9 cases felt really good. Lots of no-names in the autos - albeit better than last year but not by a ton. I maintain the new Aces insert is one of the best Topps has had in years. The SSP/Golden Mirror hunt will be really interesting to watch. With Jumbo Boxes rising in price as people realize the odds breakdown, I think it's increasingly not worth it until if and when retail or hobby hit a major discount/liquidation price.

For those unaware, Topps moved away from the "some players have SP/SSP/USPs and you need to read a tiny code for it" and instead gave every card its own SSP - rough print count is 150 but its unnumbered. The upside is they're so much easier to see - clearly in the insert slot, gold Topps logo on front, and golden print on the back.The downside is that those very cool Sox legend SPs seem to be entirely gone. I hit one in a break (sadly not exactly an exciting team card, but still neat) and they seem to be realy tough hits - jumbo odds are the best and it's still 1 every 46 Jumbo Packs (4.6 boxes), so 4 per three cases would be average. I saw cases yesterday where none got hit.

Photo wise, mixed bag. Frankly, I think Topps did try and make great ones for the biggest "chase" players in the set. Casas is in the shopping cart (as is Franchy), Bello's is a cool looking up at the crowd photo, Gunnar's has the braids, etc. Some of the other ones are wholly unremarkable. With that said, I imagine some very deep pocketed people are going to try and build that set, it's a distinctly new/cool thing. Also kind of nice for breaks given most teams have 9+ subjects in the base set to add a bit of an equalizer of a chase.
 
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Bergs

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Jul 22, 2005
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This is getting to be ridiculous. I'm pretty much just buying singles now.
 

JoePoulson

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The base auto 1/1s of Boggs, Nomar, and Papi were already on eBay a day after product release. It's crazy to see what's been pulled so fast, and how much people are paying. I mean I'm guilty of paying higher prices occasionally for something that just released, but this seems crazier than usual. Mixed with the awful quality control, for sure gonna stick with singles on this product.
 

Fishercat

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The base auto 1/1s of Boggs, Nomar, and Papi were already on eBay a day after product release. It's crazy to see what's been pulled so fast, and how much people are paying. I mean I'm guilty of paying higher prices occasionally for something that just released, but this seems crazier than usual. Mixed with the awful quality control, for sure gonna stick with singles on this product.
I'm sure it's just small sample but it does make you wonder if they deliberately front-loaded some of the bigger cards - Fanatics in particular is very concerned with marketing and given how many of these boxes go to breakers to where the people who get the cards can't have them in hand yet, it is distinctly weird that those 1/1s are already pulled, in hand, and on eBay. Especially when there are cards that should be much more populous (paralles with higher numbers, rare inserts that you know exist, etc.) that aren't showing up yet in volume.

Redemption wise, as I said I watched a lot of breaking and I don't think I saw a single redemption in those breaks. I only saw 2 1/1s and both were the "In The Letter" 1 of 1s (which are functionally like 1/9 or 1/11 given the number of letters available).

I think now that the breaking itch is done, unless I can find some cheap Sox slots, it's gonna be a singles or bust product. It's a shame because I'd genuinely like to bust open packs and build the aces insert set but retail is SO bad that it's impossible to actually justify.
 
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Ale Xander

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Oct 31, 2013
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The base auto 1/1s of Boggs, Nomar, and Papi were already on eBay a day after product release. It's crazy to see what's been pulled so fast, and how much people are paying. I mean I'm guilty of paying higher prices occasionally for something that just released, but this seems crazier than usual. Mixed with the awful quality control, for sure gonna stick with singles on this product.
It’s called corruption
 

JoePoulson

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Post pics ASAP! I know we're a little down on it right now but I still wanna see it all. I've got a couple Sox break slots paid for, I'll let you guys know if I score anything. There are a bunch of cards I want but will definitely let the madness cool. Usually I'm all about trying to get a numbered auto or something more "unique", but I'm gonna stick with base everything here to save a few bucks.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Apr 12, 2005
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They will get a message in 3 years that they will receive their 2014 autographed Marlon Byrd in the mail shortly.
Got a much better shot at getting them from Topps than Panini. Topps has always been better at fulfilling redemptions quicker, but they still fucking drive me insane. What other industry is selling products worth thousands upon thousands of dollars and essentially giving you an "I owe you, trust us, we'll send it" to their clients?
 

opes

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I didn't get much. A Seth Brown auto (OOOOHhhhh!) I'll go through them again and list the best ones. I doubt I could resell the best I got for another box. Going to just stick to buying singles from now one. I have better odds with pull-tabs at the bar. Absolute dreck of a box. The 3 player cards are a waste. You get 3 or 4 of these bullshit cards per pack that are just worthless. I can always use them for target practice at the range I guess. Seriously disappointed. - I got a couple foils, no numbered cards. A brandon Crawford patch relic which is about worth 1.99.
 
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Fishercat

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I stopped by the local shop on lunch to grab a storage box. Jumbo Prices there up to $225 which pushes it from "hmmm" to "nope" pretty hard in my view. I'll probably just hold out for when Hobby and Retail inevitably hit clearance pricing.
 

Tim Salmon

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Oct 24, 2005
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I stopped by the local shop on lunch to grab a storage box. Jumbo Prices there up to $225 which pushes it from "hmmm" to "nope" pretty hard in my view. I'll probably just hold out for when Hobby and Retail inevitably hit clearance pricing.
I saw an interesting YouTube video where a breaker was trying to estimate this year's Series 1 print runs using the stated odds of hitting parallels. The takeaway was that it is much easier to pull limited inserts and parallels from jumbo boxes this year than in the past, and that the odds leave no room for dispute about that. The breaker speculated that Topps may be intentionally loading the more-expensive jumbo boxes this year at the expense of retail and hobby boxes. But he also acknowledged that Topps could just be printing so much retail this year that the odds of getting anything good have measurably worsened.
 

Fishercat

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I saw an interesting YouTube video where a breaker was trying to estimate this year's Series 1 print runs using the stated odds of hitting parallels. The takeaway was that it is much easier to pull limited inserts and parallels from jumbo boxes this year than in the past, and that the odds leave no room for dispute about that. The breaker speculated that Topps may be intentionally loading the more-expensive jumbo boxes this year at the expense of retail and hobby boxes. But he also acknowledged that Topps could just be printing so much retail this year that the odds of getting anything good have measurably worsened.
Absolutely, I touched on it a bit but I think Jumbo Boxes would need to reach like $350 a box with Hobby remaining the same to be equivalent "buys" in terms of insert hits. With that said, it also comes down to - as a product - is it worth $220? Or more? And I don't think it is in terms of what you end up getting. And to that point, that just brings a jumbo even with hobby box in terms of the average price to get the biggest desirable cards. A jumbo would have to be like $1000 a box to get to the point where full price retail is an equivalent buy beyond base cards and unnumbered regular print inserts,. Like, I'm not even convinced that print runs are dramatically different...they just shifted a lot of the mid and high-end cards to jumbo (and a bit to hobby) from retail. At $220 a jumbo box I think you can buy nearly any card from the set that you want except maybe some 1/1s or VERY high end low numbered stuff. As a comparison

The Brayan Bello Golden Mirror was listed on eBay for 225 and sold for $120. I think if you asked me any Red Sox non 1/1 or non relic/auto i'd want out of the set that's probably the card. A Casas to /50 sold for $200. The Heavy Lumber Devers sold for $75. Like...that's a tough ask when the peak cards in an on-fire post release market are bringing that. Obviously much of the point of a box is that you get all the cards and if you're so inclined you can hustle and deal and set-build and all of that and most boxes you will get aren't meant to "earn" their money back, but it just gets really difficult to justify spending that kind of cash in that spot.

I think it sucks they shifted that way. Frankly, I do think they needed to make Jumbo better than it was but not at the expense of both hobby and particularly retail. I'm probably waxing too romantic on the hobby but baseball cards was how, I, as a kid, really fell in love with the sport on the whole. A lot of that was taking a semi reasonable amount of cash and getting a fun mix of packs. Even last year a $25 blaster at least gave some real hope of pulling something fun. Update had good rates for parallels, inserts, etc. Completely neutering that is going have such a harmful effect on an element of the hobby longer term if it's the strategy. That's where a lot of parents get cards for their kids or where kids would buy their own cards. I'm not saying every six year old needs a 1/1 sapphire Mike Trout insert in every blaster or hanger but those "show off" cards are what keep younger collectors coming back. And there's no way it's just print runs - we'd see the odds for all products shift like they did for retail. They just screwed over retail. Someone enterprising will crunch the numbers and see if they did increase print runs but if they did it wasn't to that extent.

IMO, if they wanted to do that, I think it's okay but they should've slashed retail prices back down to compensate for it somewhat - like $2.50 a pack or $15 for a blaster. Now that I know the math I cannot justify, in my head, buying S1 Retail or Hobby until the price drops a ton even if Jumbo is out of my range. And given hobby shops often don't even sell Jumbo packs (just boxes)? It's a bummer. You're basically having people choosing between choosing a bad format at nearly $4 a pack or dropping 200+ for a box for your flagship, base level product.
 
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Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
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You always want OF and SS, and perhaps CIF. Pitchers are undervalued in the hobby (other than Nolan Ryan). I don;t think you want Bello, (as a first choice) purely because of position. Dominicans/non white are also undervalued to me (just look at Pedro values and pre-HOF Papi).
 

Fishercat

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You always want OF and SS, and perhaps CIF. Pitchers are undervalued in the hobby (other than Nolan Ryan). I don;t think you want Bello, (as a first choice) purely because of position. Dominicans/non white are also undervalued to me (just look at Pedro values).
Purely on personal preference, not value. I doubt Bello is even going to be the priciest Red Sox in the set (Casas seems to be outpacing).
 

Sandwich Pick

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Figured this was the place to ask:

Is there a specific app anyone could recommend to track my collection? Apologies if it was already mentioned but I couldn't find it through the search function or the few pages I browsed.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
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Figured this was the place to ask:

Is there a specific app anyone could recommend to track my collection? Apologies if it was already mentioned but I couldn't find it through the search function or the few pages I browsed.
Can’t recommend them per se, (don’t use, don’t have enough expensive cards or time) but know people who use cardbase and center stage
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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Traut

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I kinda hope Topps just forgot to SSP like two of them. It’d drive them nuts
A case goes for about $1100. Let's say they get it for $1000 a case. That's 300k in search of a 250k bounty. Sure you sell breaks, and hawk singles on eBay, and there's a publicity element for the store. If you hit all of the SSPs you probably make money or come very close to breaking even. But you raise a great point - they are betting on Topps quality control. They could easily forget to print a Nick Pivetta SSP and you don't hit that 250 and then what? You are left with cutting your losses on eBay and a ton of trash?
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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A case goes for about $1100. Let's say they get it for $1000 a case. That's 300k in search of a 250k bounty. Sure you sell breaks, and hawk singles on eBay, and there's a publicity element for the store. If you hit all of the SSPs you probably make money or come very close to breaking even. But you raise a great point - they are betting on Topps quality control. They could easily forget to print a Nick Pivetta SSP and you don't hit that 250 and then what? You are left with cutting your losses on eBay and a ton of trash?
Breakers of that size don't lose money on breaks. If they have $3000 in product being ripped, they either set a minimum buy-in bid where they make 20% or whatever, or know their audience well enough to understand what bids usually go for.

If they rip the 250k bounty, the card still goes to the person who bought the spot on the break, they just get the credit - and cash - for finding the card. They don't need to get the card to make money. It just is an extra free $250K for them.
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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Breakers of that size don't lose money on breaks. If they have $3000 in product being ripped, they either set a minimum buy-in bid where they make 20% or whatever, or know their audience well enough to understand what bids usually go for.

If they rip the 250k bounty, the card still goes to the person who bought the spot on the break, they just get the credit - and cash - for finding the card. They don't need to get the card to make money. It just is an extra free $250K for them.
Exactly. If it’s costing them $1000 a case they’re selling the spots for $1200.
 

Fishercat

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I feel like it they are breaking while keeping the biggest chase (imo) in the set they either are bountying it to the people in the break or charging less? I'd hope? Frankly a decent chunk of the value in some of those lesser slots is the ssp potentual
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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I feel like it they are breaking while keeping the biggest chase (imo) in the set they either are bountying it to the people in the break or charging less? I'd hope? Frankly a decent chunk of the value in some of those lesser slots is the ssp potentual
Whoever owns that team in the break gets the card. But the breaker gets the $250K bounty.
 

JoePoulson

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That's exactly what it reminded me of! Crazy that's something the hobby has evolved into, but when so much money is involved...

At least this solidifies sticking with singles for the most part, which hasn't changed over the years. Still, that product isn't really grabbing me. I honestly think a big part is because I hated 1988 Topps when it came out when I was 14, so now I'm like why would I want to spend big money on 1988 Topps??
 

Tim Salmon

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That's exactly what it reminded me of! Crazy that's something the hobby has evolved into, but when so much money is involved...

At least this solidifies sticking with singles for the most part, which hasn't changed over the years. Still, that product isn't really grabbing me. I honestly think a big part is because I hated 1988 Topps when it came out when I was 14, so now I'm like why would I want to spend big money on 1988 Topps??
Maybe I have a soft spot for 1988 Topps because I'm an old-timer. I was six when that set came out, and I still remember the excitement of seeing "RED SOX" pop up in bold, beautiful red letters as I thumbed through the cards. It didn't matter whether it was Todd Benzinger or Steve Crawford. As soon as I saw the team's name at the top, I squealed and put the card in my special pile.
 

JoePoulson

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Understandable, nostalgia is a hell of a drug. These new cards certainly take me back to 8th/9th grade and that's not always bad, plus I have to admit it's pretty neat having new, on-card autos of so many 80s stars. I'll be owning white boarders of them all once this initial madness blows over.

Those SoSHers in NYC, you ever go to the MLB store to shop for cards? I saw a reddit post tonight showing what they had and it's current buy 2 get 1 on on their 22 and 21 boxes. Wasn't sure if that was a decent deal or not.

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/116hwwd
 

Fishercat

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The Willy Wonka references surrounding the Golden Ticket Mirror have been great. The hunt is also a bit odd because they're really taking the chance that they'll end up pulling all or the vast majority out of packs before someone goes ham on Ebay building it themselves. Prices vary pretty dramatically but commons seem to have an early settle point in the $20-$40 range (which frankly is still insane for any Kyle Bradish card) where more notable players go up from there, but for a 250k bounty for a 330 card set, you could drop an average of $100 a card and come out multiple times ahead if you do get a bounty. You could drop $500 a card - which only a small number of the top rookies have sold for, and still win that. I am assuming our Verucas of 2023 will probably get to something like 300 of them and then just snipe what they're missing and ask to expedite shipping to complete this, but imagine if they miss out to someone who just decided to more aggressively pursue singles sales and now they just spent several hundred thousand dollars to build a set that now has...market value, which they inflated.

For folks who have some experience with redemptions, I hit one in a break (nothing major, probably would pay for the break spot at best), but looking at eBay there's actually in-hand versions of this exact card out there already. Do we think it's just a matter of Topps packing some product formats before other formats and swapping out the redemptions for actual cards there? I'm used to seeing all redemptions or all card so it's confused me a bit.
 

JoePoulson

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I've seen the same thing, my assumption is they (Topps) just weren't able to get out the number of that card they wanted so they did a redemption/in-hand combo. Pure speculation of course.

Soooo I went looking for Jayson Tatum rookie cards recently. Holy crap did his All-Star game performance annihilate prices! Gonna have to get lucky now, considering he's gonna be finals MVP in June.
 

Deathofthebambino

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Whoever owns that team in the break gets the card. But the breaker gets the $250K bounty.
Am I missing something? I didn't think these guys were doing this chase as part of a break?

I thought they bought the 300 cases, and ripped them open looking for the SSP's to go after the bounty. They were then selling the autos, parallels, value cards, etc. on Ebay. People didn't buy into a 300 case break....
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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Am I missing something? I didn't think these guys were doing this chase as part of a break?

I thought they bought the 300 cases, and ripped them open looking for the SSP's to go after the bounty. They were then selling the autos, parallels, value cards, etc. on Ebay. People didn't buy into a 300 case break....
Could be. I didn't see the post before it was removed.
 

Traut

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Am I missing something? I didn't think these guys were doing this chase as part of a break?

I thought they bought the 300 cases, and ripped them open looking for the SSP's to go after the bounty. They were then selling the autos, parallels, value cards, etc. on Ebay. People didn't buy into a 300 case break....
That’s what it seemed to be from their post.
 

JoePoulson

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1 off from 58/, JoeP. Birth year numbering would have been (even more) awesome. These are some sweet cards. I wish I had more disposable income.
Haha I try not to pay *too* much attention to that sort of stuff.
Whelp, for the first time really ever I made a special effort for a jersey #'d card:

61504

I've never really had a "marquee" Manny card, so obviously that takes care of all that. Absolute perfection.

Edited to show the card I use for my bookmarks, highly recommended (2008 Upper Deck):

61505
 
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