Hobby slowed down, is still slowing down, is free falling... is it just dead now?!

[jsokol1626]

MJ Holding / Walmart have always over charged for product. Last time I went to walmart they were selling 2022-23 OPC blasters for $40

Wax sold at Walmart and Target nearly always come from third party vendors and they set the prices.

[jsokol1626]

It sickens me to see the seconday market prices for Upper Deck 1 and 2. This was a great product for years and with 6 rookies per box and a price point of $70 or less it was a good value. Now it's loaded with a bunch of inserts/rarallels., the game used are gone and it's a big gamble. This seems to happening throughout the hobby and I think the high prices are making the cost of busting wax prohibitive. I was breaking boxes on a weekly basis until 6 years ago or so and have now gone more than a year without buying a single box.

[doniceage]

@doniceage, when ever you're selling stuff or doing a group break for hockey you might also want to post in on here in the main message boards. Definitely more eyeballs on here.

Probably be better but I just Putin in the respective forum Selling lol. I agree it would be better there.

Don

[sleepn0t]

Wow! There's much activity in my thread... Some have talked about the number of trades they're making within a month. Well, for my part, lately I'm lucky if I conclude two trades a month. And that's also why I claimed there's been a slowdown on here... Btw, I read all your posts, even if/when I don't reply.

Concerning my Patrick Roy cards, I always sell them on here at better prices than what the comparatives will go for on eBay... I just don't seem to find the Roy collectors on here anymore. Are there still some of 'em on SCF?! Finally, I'm also usually rather open to trading my Roy cards instead of selling them, but again, as former Habs GM was saying from time to time, it takes two to tango!

[odjickfan]

Or wait until the product hits Epack and the value gets cut in half.

I was astonished the other day when I went to Wal Mart and the price for a 2023-24 tin....A TIN...was $90!!! The website price (Black Friday) has them posted for $75 now. This is absolute madness. I know they reconfigured the tins as well as the hobby boxes, but c'mon guys. This is excessive. What family these days is going to drop $75-$90 for their kid to get that?

I picked 3 Pokemon boxes (Mimikyu EX) for under 60Cad delivered (yes, under 60Cad for 3 boxes) for my childrens for Christmas. The cards are almost always in great shape out of the packs, the jumbo promo cards are nicely packaged in plastics (not like the jumbo YGs in UD blasters, I had some bad experience with them...). A very fun break, my childs love them, and I have to say that I have fun too.

[doniceage]

MJ Holding / Walmart have always over charged for product. Last time I went to walmart they were selling 2022-23 OPC blasters for $40

To the counter point they also sometimes put out older product that are worth more than they are charging. I seen a few friends pick up some blasters or hangers that sell way more than the retail prices they charge. In the end is that not good for the hobby when you can get better deals on the product than Wal-Mart?

Don

[waf]

I agree the hobby is slowing down. Main 2 reasons are
1. The further we get from the pandemic shut down, people are finding other things to do with their time and money and no longer are into collecting.
2. Upper deck is trying to gouge on new releases and the keep boosting production runs, just like in the 90's when they did not shut off the presses. And now they put the first overall draft pick into Series 2 and create an extended series of young guns, so I no longer buy the Walmart black Friday blasters. In 2016-17 when they had 3 young guns per blaster I spent over 5000. on the product.

I enjoy staying low end and have opened 3 cases or more of the last 6 hortons releases. Looks like next year I won't be doing it as hortons is now looking into selling for 3.00 a pack and I am guessing boosting the print run by 2.5 million packs like they did this year. I personally believe we are heading into another junk era like the 90's. They had to extend the sales of cards at Hortons trying to clear out product. It was to end weeks ago but I can still buy packs in my area. Just like you can still buy unopened packs/boxes from the 90's.
I also heard they are only going to be doing the 1 release next year.
This is why I do crazy trades for people building the lower end hortons. I do lots of trading on Kijiji (have 3 meet ups planned for later today) have regulars who once are completed give me their extra base, HT, SS cards. I build donation sets for the Salvation army toy drive. Between the Legends and NHL collection I have over 50 sets to donate. I get free boxes from a local card store as I give them many cards for their inventory.

Point is enjoy the hobby as best you can. Everything has cycles.

[doniceage]

I agree the hobby is slowing down. Main 2 reasons are
1. The further we get from the pandemic shut down, people are finding other things to do with their time and money and no longer are into collecting.
2. Upper deck is trying to gouge on new releases and the keep boosting production runs, just like in the 90's when they did not shut off the presses. And now they put the first overall draft pick into Series 2 and create an extended series of young guns, so I no longer buy the Walmart black Friday blasters. In 2016-17 when they had 3 young guns per blaster I spent over 5000. on the product.

I enjoy staying low end and have opened 3 cases or more of the last 6 hortons releases. Looks like next year I won't be doing it as hortons is now looking into selling for 3.00 a pack and I am guessing boosting the print run by 2.5 million packs like they did this year. I personally believe we are heading into another junk era like the 90's. They had to extend the sales of cards at Hortons trying to clear out product. It was to end weeks ago but I can still buy packs in my area. Just like you can still buy unopened packs/boxes from the 90's.
I also heard they are only going to be doing the 1 release next year.
This is why I do crazy trades for people building the lower end hortons. I do lots of trading on Kijiji (have 3 meet ups planned for later today) have regulars who once are completed give me their extra base, HT, SS cards. I build donation sets for the Salvation army toy drive. Between the Legends and NHL collection I have over 50 sets to donate. I get free boxes from a local card store as I give them many cards for their inventory.

Point is enjoy the hobby as best you can. Everything has cycles.

I concur on the hobby being flooded with stuff. Will see how the prices look 20 to 30 years from now. As you said the hobby is to enjoy it the best you can. Problem is for too many folks this is not a hobby.

DON