Alright, when will it end!

[volkov956]

Im waiting for the pop actually i want to get back to collecting not too much into the flip and sell which has brought us to where we are atm. The Gretzky rookie card prices making it harder to hold onto them for me tho

[shockwiresports]

There is no evidence for “VegasDave” to say there is a bubble en mass for ALL kinds of sports cards. There are plenty of sales prices over the past 6 months to indicate there is not really a bubble for EVERY CARD of EVERY player.

Certainly there seems to be some high end cards people are paying a lot for, mostly specific players deemed to be generational players. I think every player is its own market. I have posted about hockey prices before but here are some other examples:

* MLB, Mike Trout, headline that he is the player with the best chance at eclipsing 770 or 800 career home runs...his card prices deserve to be high.

* MLB, Andrew Benintendi, always a highly touted prospect but most of his rookie cards can be had for roughly a dollar, no bubble.

* NFL, Lamar Jackson, 2019 MVP, set records for rushing yards, dominant regular season winning percentage but lost in the playoffs. Prices over the last 4 months have been stagnant, no signs of a bubble.

* NFL, latest rookie QBs from this season, I saw some auto RCs going for say $250 to $500, but who really knows if that is too much or too little? Who knew in the year 2000 that Tom Brady would go on to win 7 Super Bowls, nobody really knows


I think that VegasDave who is promoting some crash of a bubble while being the same person who bought low and sold high is hypocritical...there seems to be a motivation where he would want there to be a crash so he can buy super low again. Ultimately...each person buys or sells a card based on their own decision criteria, it’s all good.

[bdiam]

There have been many good points made throughout this post, everything from people sitting at home with nothing better to do than spend their Trudeau bucks on hockey cards to those who distinguished the differences on production numbers across other sports. There's also the Vegas savant who basically claims: what goes up - must come down.

One area where most people seem to be over-looking is the fact that the Socialists/Communists are now in control of the US. The death tax which had been repealed will obviously be coming back, Socialist States on the verge of bankruptcy will be getting bailed-out and countless other free-bees to those who don't need it the most, will also follow. However, what scares people the most, is the once proposed "wealth-tax" which at one time was just a joke but which today, has a better chance of passing than ever before. A wealth-tax is much different than a death tax and fortunately for everyone out there, nobody from wall street or Hollywood or your favourite professional athlete will end-up paying a cent - such is the case when you can hide your wealth over-seas. The rest of the people.....sorry.

If you go-back and look at when some of the "card-craziness" started, coincidentally, it was in mid-November. Shortly there after, auction houses, galleries, antique stores, etc., started to see not only increases in purchases but record prices being paid. Everything from artwork, antiquities, paper currency/coins, etc., all started to BOOM! It turns-out, that not everyone who has worked hard their entire lives wants to give all that they have earned away. It's unrealistic to assume that hockey card prices will continue to double and triple in price but......it's also unrealistic to assume that a Gretzky PSA 10 RC is suddenly going to plummet in price.

How many years has the Beckett magazine been out? If you go back to the first issue, what were the prices on a Howe RC? an Orr RC? a Gretzky RC? What are the prices today - assuming they still print Becketts? I remember the Gretzky RC going up $100 about twenty-plus years ago but not much else. Is this Wuhan-flu period the time when we finally see hockey cards and their generally limited print-runs finally take a better share of the overall card market? Even if the increase is due to investors, instead of collectors? Does anyone believe that their are fewer Young Gun RC's produced than there are remaining Gretzky OPC RC's? As always, time will tell.

On the bright-side, Canadians do not have to worry about such scary things like death taxes and wealth taxes and such other communist grabs. Of course, most Canadians were trying to enjoy their Christmas holidays this past winter and were not paying much attention to "things" being floated by the government around late November/December. Those Trudeau bucks aren't going to pay for themselves after-all.

[Rookies_and_More]

Super interesting post!. Love the fact you guys are talking about graded cards. Personally, I don't "collect" any hockey other than some graded Gretzky cards and raw Sebastian Aho (I live in North Carolina!) which I will get graded eventually. So, I'll chime in but we all know it may not mean much.

Graded cards have gone through the absolute roof. As a graded card collector and a huge follower of graded material I have seen some trends over the last 15 years.

I used to be able to buy PSA 10 Dallas Cowboy common for $3-4. I bough a lot of PSA 10 Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman cards at $5 or less. No commons are over $10, PSA 10 cards of Aikman and Emmitt are well over $10-15 for a card you can buy raw for about $0.50. So I went back into the archives of my graded cards and saw this same thing happened before.

When I first started getting cards graded (my first submission 12/2004) it was cheaper for me to buy raw, send into PSA and get a 9 or 10, then it was to buy them already graded on ebay. Then something happened and I started being able to buy PSA 10 cards of Stars and Commons lower than if I sent them in myself, so I stopped submitting cards. I was on pause from around 2005 until 2010. Now this isn't all market issues, as personal issues, etc, play into this as well. But 2010, I pick back up for a few years on submissions and then 2013 is slows down again, until Covid and now, I have multiple, submissions sitting out there (FOREVER 8 MONTHS..LOL). As, once again, it is cheaper for me to buy raw and send in cards to be graded, then to buy them on the open market.

Although my submissions slowed, my graded collection the entire time grew, whether I submitted cards myself or not, including vintage cards, so it wasn't my spending habits (I was still spending) or my collecting thoughts changed (collection was still growing). We all saw this in the 90's as well. As everyone was buying baseball cards, until the bubble popped. Afterwards we couldn't (and still can't) give them away.

Anyone who is spending the money on the big rookies of today is taking a major risk. For every Tom Brady, Gordie Howe, there are 1000 Ryan Leaf's (didn't know any hockey players to put here, LOL) So the risk reward is really huge. Oh, if any of you want to get rid of the Gretzky rookie that my cousin threw away because it wasn't some Bruins player she was looking for, I will happily trade you any of todays stars that have not proven themselves (yet) for that card.

The market will drop again, for sure, as they all do. The HOF'ers/ Major stars will retain most (if not all) of their value. The investors will move on to something else and the collector's will continue to collect. The prices will stabilize and as most of you have said, once people can start going out into the world again, their money will divert away from an indoor at your computer hobby to the other things people do. Personally, I had taken my family to Florida (Disney) every year for almost 20 years (my oldest kids are 22). We didn't go last year and probably aren't going this year either (different reasons), but I still have the money, that I would have spent, so bam...I have to do something with it and saving it doesn't sound fun, so I (and obviously thousands like me) will spend it on cards. Some for myself, some to speculate and sell.

Which brings us to a SCF question. SCF is researching obtaining an account through PSA. The account would qualify SCF for lower pricing on submissions, but the volume has to be pretty high. Given the current market, would SCF members be interested in submitting cards through SCF for a reduced rate?

The reduction comes from the volume of cards submitted. In short, PSA has a preferred pricing program if you submit over 10,000 cards a year.

Second, would SCF members participate in raffles for PSA graded cards? The raffle is to make money to....lower the price for SCF member to send in cards to be graded. Win-Win. There is a full explanation of who we would run this and a poll for SCF members in the graded card forum, if any one is interested.

Other than that, thanks for letting me chime in!

[owmylegman]

I'm right with you. The price hikes have absolutely devastated pure collectors. It must be so difficult for kids to get in the hobby these days.

[cjb]

According to youtube, someone on ebay bought Nic Lidstroms 1991-92 opc premier rookie (mass produced cheap product) graded 10 for 700 bucks.

Who are these clowns buying this?

[mooneyes]

According to youtube, someone on ebay bought Nic Lidstroms 1991-92 opc premier rookie (mass produced cheap product) graded 10 for 700 bucks.

Who are these clowns buying this?

Americans? lol Jagr PSA 10s are going for $1000.
Everyone thinks their copy would grade a 10 but probably won't after all these years.
Regardless there are boxes of 92 opc premier for $20 each so $700 seems a bit much for sure.

[mooneyes]

Latest PSA 10 sale: $7,025.00 CDN

Yesterday PSA 10 Ovy YG sales in CDN $ 7,250, 7,600 and 8,500

Sell your card later in the day I guess! lol

[cjb]

psa 10 score martin brodeur rookie.....$477. A month ago it was selling for $125

1 year ago you could have bought boxes of score for 10 bucks each

[sjw241]

Yesterday PSA 10 Ovy YG sales in CDN $ 7,250, 7,600 and 8,500

Sell your card later in the day I guess! lol

I,cant seem to find the $8500 sale. Do you have the item number? Or was it not on ebay?