Need help understanding-property of...

[Goaler33]

Alright so i get for alot of the older guys i could totally pay these amounts but for the newer players like kessel and spezza these guys go through hundreds of sticks a year. For example at the leafs gear sale there were atleast 20+ kessel GU sticks , or at the sens gear store any GU stick is 100$ . So explain to my why anyone would ever pay 300+ for any of these guys stick,minus the super super stars like crosby as GU will always be in high demand.

[brian045]

IMO, you can display cards better. You may pay more, but the aesthetics of a card in a collection, you can't beat that

[Kessel_fan_87]

Agreed. I paid $~200 for a 1/1 tough patch of Cam Russell the other day. Sure I coulda paid that for a complete game worn jersey. But where am I gonna display it? Plus the design of the card is top notch.

[RGM81]

As a guy that owns a couple sticks, I totally see where you're coming from. When I see what some of Carey's Property Of cards have gone for I kinda chuckle. I mean, yeah, the Krunk Juice one would be a great conversation piece. But the others? I got the full deal, including tape, paddle, handle, knob tape, you name it, for less than what they tend to go for. It took me a long time to really "care" about stick pieces as a result of that, but I do have a couple in my collection here and there. A couple are pretty sweet pieces to boot, but yeah to me the full stick takes priority over little pieces. I can't really go that route with gamers and patches of Price, since they sell for $2,500 and there's a wait list with the Habs.

People talk about displaying stuff easier...let's be honest this is how 95% of our cards are "displayed":



Some cards do get special treatment on the shelf of course. :)

[KingKuba]

It's the uniqueness and desirability of the limited card.
False scarcity but it's like commodity.

Like when you get in person autograph they are essentially worthless but on a card it can be $100 depending on player.

You can go to Walmart and buy bunch of one of one shields that people pay thousands for too....funny huh..

[MattDMC]

I never understood the hype of the Property Ofs either. Every time I see one of a modern player sell for $200+ I just stop and think why? $200 for a sliver of stick with a name stamped on it, I can buy the full stick for less than the actual card.

Sure its harder to display a stick but like RGM said above, how many of us actually have our cards on display in our house? Most of us likely have them sitting in a storage box and might have a small shelf to display a couple of cards but most will likely sit in a box for a while so the its easier to display a card vs displaying a full stick is a rather silly argument.

Just my opinion but I'd never spend anything more than $100 on a Property Of so I already know I'll never own one, I'd rather spend less and have the full sticks like these:

[bdiam]

Alright so i get for alot of the older guys i could totally pay these amounts but for the newer players like kessel and spezza these guys go through hundreds of sticks a year. For example at the leafs gear sale there were atleast 20+ kessel GU sticks , or at the sens gear store any GU stick is 100$ . So explain to my why anyone would ever pay 300+ for any of these guys stick,minus the super super stars like crosby as GU will always be in high demand.

Reasons? Well, they were only available in The Cup which was a $500/pack product and the estimates of pulling a Property Of at one time were estimated at 1:30 cases. Second, at one point in time, "one" collector owned over "100" Property Of cards, so it became a supply and demand thing - there was little or no supply and "if" one ever made it to ebay, your chances of outbidding the one party were slim and none. Last but not least, no matter the product, "quality" stick cards have always been attractive to collectors.

[sedinfan]

I'm not surprised at all what Property Of's sell for... sure you could buy a game-used stick cheaper than a Property Of, but there are endless other things we could buy other than hockey cards, one could also ask why would anyone pay the same amount for a piece of cardboard with a picture of Sidney Crosby (say a young gun RC) rather than buy a pair of tickets to go see him live when he visits your home team's rink. I'm not sure there's much that really makes sense about our crazy hobby, but hey, if it brings us enjoyment...

But specifically for Property Of's, I think these are some of the nicest cards out there, and if anything I'm pleasantly surprised at how 'affordably' my pair of Sedins were. Sure they cost maybe double or triple a game-used stick apiece, but they're amongst my favourite cards. There are almost no other memorabilia cards where you can clearly identify the item as definitely belonging to the player - maybe the occasional Mei Gray / team-issued tag, but the vast majority of the random jersey / patch / shield cards out there could easily come from any other player (we've all seen numerous examples of swatches that a player could never possibly have worn in their career - and it's not a stretch to imagine that if there are obvious cases, there are equally a lot of mistakes made where we just don't know because anyone could have worn that plain white swatch).

Compared to shield cards, I'm much fonder of the Property Of's - they are much rarer (more than 3 times as many shield cards in The Cup over the years compared to Property Of's), the memorabilia piece is more unique having the player's name, and I love that they are all single player and single-sided cards - much easier to display than dual-sided shields and you don't end up with one player you collect and another you couldn't care less about.

[30ranfordfan]

Why do pieces of cardboard, without any autograph or memorabilia pieces, sell for hundreds and even thousands of dollars??

It's because people collect cards, and the scarcity of those particular cards makes people willing to pay big bucks. You're right... you could buy a GU stick for less than the cost of a lot of those Property Of cards, but if you collect cards and not sticks, that may not be something you want to do.