Also, unrelated entirely (except that Charizard can't go on the restricted list),
If you want to go worst case, Trevor Bauer's 1st Bowman Auto Limited to 25 (Orange) went for 1.1k in March of 2021 (graded a gem mint 9.5). An ungraded version of that same card sold for $300 last month (it'd almost certainly go for less if auctioned). The market has shifted a lot and the grading makes it different but probably imagine that, except even more high profile, with a substantially higher number of cards and much bigger money invested
Nowhere near the most important thing about this but if the Franco news turns out to be worst case or near worst case, I imagine the effect on the sports card world will be fairly big.
He is easily a top five current player in terms of speculative baseball card value. Imagine how much is being lost there if the worst outcomes prevail?
It may be a better topic for the Sports Card thread in the end, but Franco's market is very large especially for a player type that can see depressed value (Latin American, small market team). He was the poster boy of the tail end of the card boom in early 2022. Even recently his highest end stuff has gone for 50-75k for a card. He was generally, I think, considered the "safer" big rookie investment last year compared to guys with lower ceilings (Torkelson, Witt Jr.) or even Julio who became the name to have but Wander quietly kept playing well and people picked up some stuff.I was surprised to see some comment from someone who claimed to own a Franco card worth 13k, which is far more than I would’ve thought modern cards could reach.
If you want to go worst case, Trevor Bauer's 1st Bowman Auto Limited to 25 (Orange) went for 1.1k in March of 2021 (graded a gem mint 9.5). An ungraded version of that same card sold for $300 last month (it'd almost certainly go for less if auctioned). The market has shifted a lot and the grading makes it different but probably imagine that, except even more high profile, with a substantially higher number of cards and much bigger money invested
Nowhere near the most important thing about this but if the Franco news turns out to be worst case or near worst case, I imagine the effect on the sports card world will be fairly big.