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Thread: depressing...

  
  1. #1




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    depressing...

    I collected pretty heavily from about 98 to 03...but since then have only picked up the occasional pack here and there, not paying any attention to the hobby.

    Yesterday I pulled out all my boxes and went through looking cards up on ebay, and yikes, I can't believe how FEW cards have held value over the years. It seems just about the only thing that's held value is the top notch Young Guns RCs...I've got a number of SP Auth FW autos, even those dropped pretty significantly. My favorite player is Marian Hossa, I went hog wild buying all his RCs and parallels from 98...the guy has had a great career, and yet the cards are worth far less than when I got them! The Donruss Preferred, once $150, is now down around $15....just 10% of it's former value!...ouch. The parallels which were super hard to get are not really worth any more than the base cards. Even ice blue parallels are pretty much crap.

    I have a Donruss Elite Master Craftsmen Gretzky, which was $500 at the time I pulled it. I can't find a price for it, but from what I gather it may not even be triple digits anymore.

    I was trying to go through and see what I've got to offer in trade to catch up and pick up rookies and autos from the last 10 years that I've missed out on...but as it turns out, I don't have a whole heck of a lot that's even held any trade value. I kept just about every RC, but it seems like other than UD Young Guns, even the RCs of top guys are pretty worthless.

    I don't know if this is a gripe, a question, or just observations...but what the heck happened to card values? Heck, even stuff like 80's and previous RCs seem to have dropped quite a bit over the years! If anything, those are the things that should have held up!

  2. #2
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    Weclome back :)

    As someone who collected for most the 90s, a little bit around the early 00's, breifly again just after the last lockout... and very consistantly over the last 6 years, I will agree with the fact that a lot of cards from that era have dropped in value - but lots have held, and even gained in value.

    To mention a few cards from the tail end of the years you're talking about - players like Zetterberg and Nash have gained in vale over the last few years. Their RCs are still very high priced. Other player from the same era though, their cards have dropped over time - much like today's rookies do on a year to year basis.

    While I think the hobby has always been very RC centric (at least since I've been collecting) it's become even more so now. As new sets come out each year.... you'll see that RCs sell for decent money, but quickly drop in value as a new crop comes out. The biggest names (current guys like Hopkins, Hall, Eberle, Tavares, Stamkos, Crosby, etc) do well holding (and even gaining) in vlaue - but the mid-end, and low-end guys.... $15 cards turn into $5 cards, and $5 cards into $1 cards very quickly. Set / Player / Team collectors get what they want (when they're new) and then interest in those cards drops. As interest drops, so do prices. You'll see the same thing has happened to cards from the early 00's. Young Guns from 2001 aren't anymore plentiful today than they were 12 years ago... but not many people are building those sets anymore, and people arn't exactly throwing around top dollar for a guy that played a grand total of 45 games, over two seasons, more than a decade ago.

    The same thing is true of the 90s. But what I would suggest the biggest thing to look is percieved rareity, vs actual rareity. In 1998..... a card that was limited to 5000 copies would have seemed very hard to get, would have shown up once every couple of cases, and made it very desirable to get - and attached a big price tag to it. That card would likely have dropped big time in value, becuase with 5000 copies out there, its relativly easy to find one now. Maybe you've got to put in a little bit of effort.... but between eBay, and forums like this one, it shouldn't take too long to find someone who can hook you up.

    On the other hand, cards that were very limited (i.e. 25 copies) may not register as having a very high value in a Beckett (a magazine that I havn't bought in about 3 years) but cards that limited, and that old, are near impossible to find. As a result, you can see auctions on eBay go for final prices many times higher than any price guide would list them. The catch though, it's got to be someone that's got a few pretty hard-core collectors. Myself... as you can probably tell by my username... I'm a huge fan, and collector, of Bill Ranford. I know I've paid much higher than book value on several occasions, becuase the card that becomes available was something that at least one other Ranford collector really wanted too.

    80s cards have dropped in value a lot too. I'm sure if you compared a price guide (or just looked at eBay asking prices) you'd see that the RCs of players from most the 80s do not sell for as much money as they did 15 years ago. This, IMO, has a lot to do with the Internet. Over the last 10+ years, the internet has made these cards readily available. If you were looking to buy a Brett Hull RC in the late 90s (as an example) the amount of online activity would have been fairly limited. You probably would have had to go to a local card shop to buy one, and the limited availability meant the asking price would be significantly higher. Today - you can hop online and find 100s of people looking to move that same card, and they've had to be competitive with each other in order to get the sales. As such, those prices have come down.

    Even a Gretzky RC... it's dropped in value, sort of. I think the price guides list it around $900 still, which is basically the same as it was priced 15 years ago. While that's not exactly a 'drop' in price, when you consider that $900 was worth much more 15 years ago (what you were able to buy with it, I mean) then really that's a drop in price.


    I hope that helps a bit. SCF is a great place to get info, so I'm sure if you've got many questions, people here will be all too happy to answer them as best they can.


    As a side note - if you've got any 00/01 or 01/02 Young Guns that you'd like to trade, I've got lots of stuff (Rookies, Autos, Game Used) from the last five years I'd be happy to deal.

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    Having just gotten back into collecting after 20 years, I also feel like their are just too many cards out there. It seems like there is so much product out there that nothing could hold a value since nothing is really "special" anymore. Getting back inot it has been sort of frustrating, but in the same way, I know I am collecting because of the connection it gives me to the players and the history of the sport. I am still just going to build sets of the basic cards, and not play the for profit game. If I get some valuable cards, the n that is bonus!

    I don't know if the saturation of the hobby is a factor, but it makes sense to me...

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    I agree with everything that has been said in this thread. For me personally, I've been building my collection by picking up 90's and 00's sets over the past year that I like for a fraction of what they used to sell for. For example, I snagged a 2000-01 Ice set with all rookies (Heatley, Gaborik, etc.) for less than what a box of that product used to cost. From a collecting perspective, there are some true deals out there. If you are in this for investment you should reconsider as there are very few cards in the past 10 years that have held or increased in value after their initial year of release.

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    oh I'm certainly not in it for investment, but it would certainly be nice to know that I could get SOMETHING for a lot of those cards I have been holding for 10-15 years that I thought would be worth something today.

    I initially started with 90-91 when all the hockey sets suddenly made a surge. In fact, that's how and when I discovered hockey, and I never looked back....quit following all of the other major sports and became a huge, lifelong hockey fan.

    On the plus side, I may be able to take advantage by picking up a lot of the 80's and before RCs that I couldn't really find or afford before...but on the downside, my tradebait to acquire those cards isn't nearly as impressive as I thought it would be.

    For what it's worth, first and foremost I am an auto collector...I try to collect 1 auto of every player. And then I more or less do the same for RCs, but am more interested in collecting autos than RCs....but if I've got a Rick Nash UD auto and other Nash autos, the other ones go into my tradelist...

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    oh I'm certainly not in it for investment, but it would certainly be nice to know that I could get SOMETHING for a lot of those cards I have been holding for 10-15 years that I thought would be worth something today.

    I initially started with 90-91 when all the hockey sets suddenly made a surge. In fact, that's how and when I discovered hockey, and I never looked back....quit following all of the other major sports and became a huge, lifelong hockey fan.

    On the plus side, I may be able to take advantage by picking up a lot of the 80's and before RCs that I couldn't really find or afford before...but on the downside, my tradebait to acquire those cards isn't nearly as impressive as I thought it would be.

    For what it's worth, first and foremost I am an auto collector...I try to collect 1 auto of every player. And then I more or less do the same for RCs, but am more interested in collecting autos than RCs....but if I've got a Rick Nash UD auto and other Nash autos, the other ones go into my tradelist...

    You would be very surprised as to what your tradebait is worth!! One mans trash is anothers treasure and boy is that ever true on this forum. Just make a list of what you have and see if you get any interest. Stuff from the 90's is pretty popular around here which brings me to my point: if you have any Yzerman or Zetterberg stuff, I'd surely be interested!!

    Just remember to have fun. This will get maddening if you start worrying too much about value and all that stuff. To me, it is about enjoyment and the chase/hunt.

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    There still are some of us looking for old Hossa cards and maybe I can help you get some of the newer cards you are looking for. I'll PM you a list of the Hossas I would like to trade for.
    Last edited by piper1; 01-20-2013 at 08:56 PM.

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    its all how you market your stuff when you go to sell your stuff on ebay. it drives me nuts when i see people just give up on stuff and list items for live auction and just let it go. your gretzky master craftsman card might go for $50-60 on ebay if you were to list it for $0.99 live auction and let it go. if you list it for $299.95 buy it now - with BEST OFFER, it gives the potential buyer confidence that you have a badd-a** card and when you accept someones offer of $175 or so, youre way better off. i have literally 20+ 5,000 count monster boxes full of inserts, rookies, game jerseys from 2000-2009. im in the process of weeding out the random non-#d $2-4 BV inserts from ud and fleer ultra, but all of the tough parallels, nice jerseys, most autos are all going to be listed for sale individually (eventually).
    look at this guy - ive known him for 20+ years - ebay seller rwrccollector. he is an extremely organized person who has implemented his traits and his diligence to sell all his stuff individually...instead of ppl just listing stuff and giving stuff away, its what hurts the hobby more than anything

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    I collected heavily with my former PC-players like Lemieux, Jagr, Hasek and Joseph at 2000-2003 and guess what...of course the most of those cards are almost "worthless" now like a $450 card then at 2002 but now only at measly $40-$50....but there are some older parallels who're extremely expensive while mostly ofmemorabilia cards from that time are poorly valued in nowadays....

    Not fun for me because the dollar rate was insanely high at early 00's who was almost double compared with the current dollar rate!

    Just wonder how much all those crazy The Cup ARP or NHL-shield cards will be selling 10-15 years later from here now?

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    While over saturization and short numbered, limited, cards have an effect on long term value i think the real reason is simpler.

    More people are storing, protecting, and stashing away their cards with the belief they will be wortn money some day.

    Back in 1952, how many people put their Howe RCs into protective cases? Sports cards were for kids and they were treated as such. They were traded, folded, drawn on and stuck in bicycle spokes. How many of the cards produced still survive today? I think that enhances the value and gives it staying power. Compare that to today when every Nugent-Hopkins or (insert any rookie name) goes from the pack to the top-loader. The widespread hope for riches in the future is, ironically, what ensures that most cards will not hold their values.
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