Quote Originally Posted by warr10r View Post
I think you're right. I've been selling off some Basketball cards I couldn't move for more than a few bucks a years ago for some crazy premiums. Everyone is looking for "an investment". It reminds me of how the hobby exploded in the 90s. Everyone was getting in thinking they had a collectable that would hold its value or increase over time. The print runs were just too large for that to be true. I guess it's getting harder to find gem mint copies of these cards 30 or so years after their release but there are still a ton of unopened boxes around.

Yep, it's the mid 90's all over again. I started collecting in 1988 so obviously I was collecting, buying, selling, trading and working at the LCS to boot though the junk wax era so I was at the forefront back then and even back then I thought these "casual collectors" were auto of their minds, lol. They seriously thought that if they bought a factory set every year that 20-30 years later they would be able to send their kids to college and payoff their mortgage, lol - of course it never even occurred to them that it's not that easy and if it was that easy then everyone would be doing it, and well everyone was doing it but I don't know why some of these people believe sports cards are are a surefire investment? of course sports cards can be very good investment, however you have to know what you're doing, you have to know the industry and hobby - not only that but you need to have patience because obviously sports cards are a long-term investment, not only that but if someone wants to see a return then they're going to have to invest some serious coin in sports cards. You just cant buy a bunch of cheap crap for a few bucks and expect to make a 1,000% return over the course of 5 years, lol..

So yea, now I'm seeing it happen all over again 25-30 years later but this time it's a bunch of cheap crap in PSA holders graded 9 or 10 with pops well into the tens of thousands.. Look, there is absolutely nothing rare or significant with any PSA 10 base card or even common inserts or parallels - graded cards like that are no longer the exception - they've become the rule and sorry, no one in their right mind is going to pay a premium for a $5 dollar card in a holder that certifies that it's gem mint.. I mean the card SHOULD BE gem mint considering it just came out of a pack, lol. So with that said I would expect a market correction at some point in the near future. Insignificant graded cards are either going to tank in value or raw cards are going to rise in value to bridge the gap between their graded counterparts because the cost in grading alone doesn't make a pack fresh $5 dollar card a $30 dollar card just because it's in a PSA 10 holder which cost 20 bucks I might add.. Look, I don't need PSA to certify that my Laferniere YG is a pack fresh PSA 10 or should be - it's not like in the present you can pull a card from a pack that's in VG and not notice it, lol..

I guess my point is that all these casual collectors and investors paying crazy money for graded cards in common sets are going to lose their shirts because we're already in a "junk graded card" era... I mean look, if you're going to get a card graded then the grading fee itself shouldn't play a role in that cards value, but the market is flooded with cards which the grading fee itself creates an artificial premium...

Of course they go have their 1990-91 Young Guns graded, like having them graded somehow changes the fact that there are millions of these things - most of which are already in high grade and plenty are still sitting in packs, lol.. Look, there is absolutely no way whatsoever that a PSA 10 Nick Lidstrom Young Guns should be worth $100+ bucks, a PSA 9 $50 bucks when the raw card regularly sells for $5 bucks, the margins in value there is too significant and don't compute from an economic perspective because supply and demand isn't playing a role here and eventually economics will so there will certainly be a correction here, as I pointed out - modern raw cards which are expected to be high grade will skyrocket to close the massive gap or graded cards will will fall in value - but what's most likely to happen is that raw cards will go up, graded cards will fall and they will meet somewhere in the middle.

My rule or logic behind having cards graded is that the card raw as it sits presently should be valued as much or more than the grading fee itself... So if a card is a surefire $30 bucks as a PSA 7, but I think mine will get a 9 however even if I get an 8 then I have absolutely nothing to lose by having that card graded.. But if a card is worth $5 bucks raw, $10 bucks in a PSA 9, but $125 in a PSA 10 then there is absolutely no reason at all to get that card graded, because it's essentially a $15 dollar lottery ticket if the card is worth $5 raw and the grading fee is $20...

To sum it up there are cards being graded that have absolutely no business at all being graded and fools are buying them up and they're eventually going to want a return on their investment but it's never going to come because their ignorance of the hobby is creating an artificial value.... And the same thing is happening with raw cards again, lol....

And look, I have no complaints it's great that my junk wax era cards are now worth something, lol.. It's nice to see some of these rookie cards get some respect because these cards were criminally undervalued for quite a long time however it's gone too far and too overboard, lol....