Used Basketball Cards

[NOlowryVA]

I think the game-used industry has gotten way too big.. I mean they are barely worth anything now-a-days.. And the event used shooting shirts??
What the heck!?! ... Who wants a piece of a shirt that a player wore for on epicture(less than 5 minutes).. Let me know about what u think about this..

[tradebark]

agreed

i remember when the first GU's came out (upper deck game jerseys) and they were inserted at a rate of 1 in 2000 packs or something ridiculous.. and people were all over those :)

I come back to the hobby years later and find that there are dozens of GU's every year.. yikes.

don't get me wrong, I am a Hill collector and am going through great pains to pick up as many of his GU as I can, but they aren't what they used to be.

They also pretty much destroyed the value of any non-numbered insert card, since people would rather have a card with memorabilia than not, when they are equally easy/difficult to pull.

[gatorboymike]

The last valuable non-numbered/auto/GU cards ever made were Jambalaya.

[WilyWestbrook0]

They are still popular, but the values have gone way down - and if companies aren't careful with this, it could become a problem in the hobby like overproduction in general was in the early 1990s.

[tradebark]

If you ask me the hobby is pretty obviously dying

I just got back into it after a long break, but from the outside looking in, there is not much reason for a truly new collector to get into the hobby

The only cards that are worth money are autographs, which come at a rate of around 1-2 per box

Packs that yield good odds for those cards cost upwards of $10

BV's for anything that isn't an RC parallel, numbered patch, or auto are basically meaningless outside of trades..

I don't see how anyone who isn't working or rich can afford this hobby anymore. Overproduction in the 90's was an issue of oversaturation and then loss of value since no insert could hold interest with 50 of them coming out..

Nowadays you have fewer inserts (GU's/autos whatever), but they aren't worth much because the same inserts are in every brand..

Sad part is I have no idea how they could fix this; they basically geared the entire hobby toward high-end collectors, which is dumb since most of those guys will be dead in 20 years.

[NOlowryVA]

Overproduction is the main cause.. They could have avoided this but all the companies worried about is the sacred dollar... They knew they could make money on those event used cards.. For Example, In Carmelo Rookie year I bought a box of Bazooka.. I was so excited to pull a Melo swatch.. I turn to the back and i read and it says event.. That crushed my excitement

[WilyWestbrook0]

I definitely think there is too much high end product out there these days. Fortunately, there still are some affordable and collectible sets, like Topps (which was really well-done this year for basketball IMO).

I'm still a low-end collector by all means..I am not out of college yet, so dropping $100 for boxes all the time is not an option. I have one of the most unimpressive trade lists on here value-wise. :-)

[movel23]

I agree with Khendra, way too much high end product out there these days, like exquisite... am I the only one who finds that set ridiculous, who pays that much for a card! Oh and I think I may be able to compete with you for the most unimpressive tradelist award :) LOL

[tutall]

i disagree.. i love overproduction and i think it adds to collecting... many kids would not be in the hobby for the simple cardboard i was used to until 02-03... once the GU started to come out they had no choice but to explode it... that is what the people want... look how many people dont even list base cards in box breaks... most people want what they cant have... high dollar cards from a low dollar set at an affordable cost..... not gonna happen

[dirtydistance]

be a singles collector, don't throw away money on packs and boxes...then you don't have to worry so much about overproduction especially with ebay prices on stuff