Sports Cards Mania
- Thread starter brandonchristensen
- Start date
I'm in a discord group with 2 of the 3 guys who hit that card and I watched it get pulled live. I've been watching these guys buy into ridiculously high priced breaks for close to a year now. Like, buying a team in an NBA or NFL break for 1-2K multiple times per week. Or buying into a divisional break for 3-4K. It's insane how much they spend on cards every week.
I'm building my first set in 41 years. The sheer number of inserts/parallels/variations makes my head spin. And how long before relics feature a player's lock of hair/DNA?
I'm also buying every Esteury Ruiz I can find:
2022 (AA+AAA): .354 BA (229 AB), 13 HR, 48 SB, 1.105 OPS, 40 BB, 54 K
I'm also buying every Esteury Ruiz I can find:
2022 (AA+AAA): .354 BA (229 AB), 13 HR, 48 SB, 1.105 OPS, 40 BB, 54 K
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I didn't really know what to pick, so I went traditional: 2022 Topps Series 1 and 2, also 2022 Topps Heritage. Having the license to show MLB logos, etc. separates these from all the others in my mind. Probably will also collect what ever Update sets emerge from those product lines. And I don't really care about getting 'hits,' would much rather target individual 'buy low' players on eBay or Blowout Cards.
I have a fuckton of commons for both of those sets. Once you get going, PM me a list of gaps and I'll give you what I can.
Awesome, I will take you up on that. Thank you!
Took home a collection from an estate sale today. $15 for 7,000 cards from 1974 to about 1983. Most of the older ones are in Fair or Poor condition, but seriously considering trying to start a (somewhat rough) set from the 700+ from 1975, the first year I collected.
But what to do with 6,300 kinda worthless cards? It’s against my religion to just put them in with the paper at the transfer station.
A friend of the ette is dialed in to a company that runs estate sales for the dearly departed's next of kin. They tell her what sales are worth the trip. She makes probably $30k/yr. buying/selling other people's high end handbags, furniture, etc. She doesn't know shit about cards, but called me when she saw this lot. The upside of unsearched boxes of old cards is obviously immense.
Estate sales advertise heavily on the internet. Mine has tons of 70s,80s and 90s cards in a few weeks.
I've spent a little time looking for some around me, but struck out. Are there specific sites where they advertise?
I haven’t followed cards in 30 years. Today we went to Target and they had a sign up saying they no longer carry some cards due to safety. Whats that about?
Their workers would get accosted by idiots who were camping out waiting for the cards to be put out on display.
Fights breaking out over them.
Has anyone had any luck with any of the recent football sets like Prizm or Optics? I've had kind of shitty luck, but there's obviously been some heat pulled.
Blows my mind at the amount that Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, or Justin Fields cards go for. Flip em before they flop.
"only" went for $2 million, plus $400K Buyers premium
https://goldin.co/item/2021-22-panini-flawless-triple-logoman-3lg-lbj-lebron-james-game-usedc3kir
It is how the auctioneer makes their money and covers their costs of running the auction. They also may take a fee from the seller, although that can be negotiable.
It’s alot of work. They have to have qualified appraisers and card and signature graders, pay to get the merchandise to them and to the buyers, run the auctions in a way that sellers and buyers trust them, warehouse the goods between receiving and shipping, and pay for all the folks behind the scene.
I think you will find the fees are industry standard, but maybe you can find something better?
2022 Stadium Club releases next week, and it’s my favorite set every year. Presale Hobby boxes going for 175-180 on eBay - anyone know if there’s a better way to pick a couple up?
That seems high. You can usually score some on the Topps website if you log on close to when it goes live. You need to have a Topps account so make one ahead of time. Last year I believe the hobby boxes were $100 and you could order 2. My local card shop had them for $130.
When we did the case break last year, I believe they were around $130ish per hobby box. I plan on jumping on the Topps website on 7/6 and getting 2, but not sure what time they will release. I am seeing $170 presale on ebay and distributors. I believe the crazy market and the Wander rookie may be driving the prices up a little.
Seller's fees, at least in the case of Goldin, is minimal. I sold a card through them and my fee was $5. I had to get the card graded by PSA (which they helped arrange at the time because PSA was so backed up they weren't taking new submissions) and that was my major cost. Buyers premiums are generally how auctioneers make their money. They try to avoid charging the seller because they want material to sell.
Chrome Anniversary boxes on sale. Looks like a nice product.
https://www.topps.com/cards-collectibles/2021-toppsr-chrome-platinum-anniversary-baseball.html
https://www.topps.com/cards-collectibles/2021-toppsr-chrome-platinum-anniversary-baseball.html
Yeah, I brought two of those off eBay yesterday (for about $10 a box less than listed on Topps at this link) and I am excited to crack them---I am thinking about building a set of these as they look great.
For Trade
2022 Topps Series 1 NEED (30)
7 8 32 33 38 49 50 70 74 109 119 127 134 138 139 147 173 180 181 184 185 186 199 202 227 260 267 290 302 318
2022 Topps Series 1 AVAILABLE (37)
13 14 15 26 40 42 51 54 60 67 69 77 84 102 112 137 151 153 155 168 171 191 194 212 213 228 251 272 279 280 299 303 306 309 310 312 319
2022 Topps Series 1 NEED (30)
7 8 32 33 38 49 50 70 74 109 119 127 134 138 139 147 173 180 181 184 185 186 199 202 227 260 267 290 302 318
2022 Topps Series 1 AVAILABLE (37)
13 14 15 26 40 42 51 54 60 67 69 77 84 102 112 137 151 153 155 168 171 191 194 212 213 228 251 272 279 280 299 303 306 309 310 312 319
This post sent me on a weekend long journey of buying up this and similar Pedro cards. Thank you.
These cards spark joy for me. Pedro is my favorite player and 1987 the first year I got cards.
I collect only Pedro and Ortiz. And I’ll post the cards here when I get them.
The Chrome Anniversary set is a beaut.
Also I found an old binder of 90s cards (sadly all the truly pricy stuff is lost to time or desperation somewhere), man do the inserts and card designs of that era beat the crap out of most modern sets. Like, if 2022 Topps tried to make a set like Topps Laser today I can’t imagine how poorly it’d turn out QA and price wise. I know it’s a junky era and it’s very much a “my childhood is the best childhood” of sets but the creativity in design, price point, and general quality right before the relics/autos/parallel game took over still feels just right.
Also I found an old binder of 90s cards (sadly all the truly pricy stuff is lost to time or desperation somewhere), man do the inserts and card designs of that era beat the crap out of most modern sets. Like, if 2022 Topps tried to make a set like Topps Laser today I can’t imagine how poorly it’d turn out QA and price wise. I know it’s a junky era and it’s very much a “my childhood is the best childhood” of sets but the creativity in design, price point, and general quality right before the relics/autos/parallel game took over still feels just right.
Design-wise, beauty is absolutely in the eye of the beholder. For example, I think baseball cards should look less like masterpieces of modern commercial art/printing technology – and more reflective of the emotions felt when I first was attracted to the sport: exciting, bold and colorful. For these reasons, 1975 Topps is my gold standard.
I think that is quite on point: cards have very much been reflective of the emotions of the beholder. Like to me, in the mid to late 90s baseball was dominate by a lot of glitz, a lot of power, and superhuman figures and the best cards reflected that. I guess it’s another way of saying, to me, that baseball card design has gotten really lazy and up exciting. The product is just a different…thing now. Maybe I’m just an old fart and the 11 year old baseball fans of today think Topps base or Heritage with eight billion variants of the same card in an, imo, clean boring design represent their view of the sport and their feelings about it.
Today is the day for the 2022 Stadium Club release. Will be checking the site periodically to hopefully get two hobby boxes before the bots claim everything. Will post again when I see they are available.
Well it now appears that the release date is back to TBD with some distributors listing the date as 8/31. WTF! May just forget it and scratch my itch with some series 2. Anybody have any luck with series 1 or 2 this year?
Opened 7 packs of Series 2 from a hobby box last night and no duplicates amongst the 84 cards, so that constitutes luck for me
2 parallels: one rainbow (not numbered), 1 gold (/2022) nothing to write home about. Thinking next year I will forgo the Topps regular issue and focus on Heritage, which should be the 1974 design.You da man. LMK what you need in return.
FYI: I'm building a rough poor/fair Topps 75 set, if anyone wants to sell? Need most every star and rookie and a whole bunch of commons still.
A few sites to add to your hobby box search queue. These tend to be a little lower than ebay searches. Should also be able to get on prerelease lists so you don't end up paying markup later.
https://www.steelcitycollectibles.com/
https://www.dacardworld.com/
https://www.blowoutcards.com/
https://onlyatgrandslam.com/
For Series 2, the downside is the main checklist is generally pretty terrible. They're saving a lot of the bigger rookie names for Update or other releases it seems outside of short prints and inserts. With that said, the print run is seemingly a good amount lower than Series 1, so odds on numbered cards are better (I feel like print run is less than halfish). Collector wise, you're probably aiming for short prints where your top name rookies are hanging out (Julio, Bobby Witt, Torkelson, Cruz, etc.) and some rarer inserts. I think the S1 inserts are better visual appeal but I'd rather look for variants or aim for some of the bigger cards in S2 right now.
Sox wise, the base checklist is better for them in S1, and rookie wise Duran is in S1 and their S2 rookies aren't as good. You are likely to get nearly a complete set from a full hobby box of each it seems. I think the rarer Sox hits in S2 are better than S1 if you get lucky - lots of Devers and Bogey with good legends throughout. So it probably depends on appetite and reason you want to buy. I personally like the parallels and harder hits of S2 over S1 but S1's checklist is objectively better.
Personally, I feel like I opened 30-40 packs of Topps S1 retail and really didn't pull much to write home about (Gold Mookie Betts, some cool inserts, a couple Wander base) of value though it was fun. I opened one pack of S2 yesterday and pulled, well...this so I may be biased towards S2 for a bit
(Not my card but I didn't see the need to re-do the pic)
Personally I have cut my buy lists down to Bowman as it seems to be a better and more consistent product to me. I got a /150 Wander (the blue border is an incredible match with the uniform he is wearing in it) in the retail box I bought, and a Brayan Bello 1st Bowman auto, and both are spectacular looking cards.
Not a rookie but a favorite and Series 2 has a lot of Pedro Martinez cards - a SSP, 1987 and all of its parallels, mojo refractors/parallels, a cool 1999 ASG manufactured relic including limited edition ones and an auto/10, and Diamond greats and assorted parallels.
Revised staz need list for 2022 Topps Series 1:
8 Xander (I only have 1)
127 Wheeler/Scherzer/Burnes
181 Duvall/Riley/Albies
185 Justin Dunn
I ALMOST stuck the landing. @staz, shoot me your mailing info.
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Found the undercover Topps rep fucking me out of another couple hundred bucks.
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None of it is all that expensive.
This card /10 is listed for $299. I doubt it gets that. Pedro Sterling quad relics can be had for $125 or so. Slapping a sticker auto on this one just feels cheap. I will bet this can be had for a lot less than $299 in a few weeks or months: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134164239832?hash=item1f3ccfd5d8:g:eO4AAOSw4Apiw4xZ
This Wood Parallel 1/1 is listed at $500. No clue if it gets that or close to it. All it takes is one guy.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284883894824?hash=item4254674228:g:1NsAAOSwQTpiwyUt
Otherwise all parallels go for anywhere from $1 to $30 (orange Mojo /25) with the SSP at $45. No red or platinum parallels or super refractors have hit eBay.
If you like Pedro you can get some cool cards that won't break the bank. I love the 1987 Topps set as it was the first one that I got as a kid. YMMV.
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I have several/many doubles too
give me 48 hours to check
I can send to you free on Monday or Tuesday
Thanks for the offer, I just purchased the last 4 from eBay for like $2.
On to Series 2!
I've got 127 Wheeler/Scherzer/Burnes and 181 Duvall/Riley/Albies
Shoot me a PM with your address and I'll send them over.
The fact that the 99 ASG patch is a sticker auto with smudgy ink is a damn travesty.