Had a campfire last summer that needed reinvigorated. Over the next couple hours, I threw 40,000 commons on it from the late 80's, early 90's. It will happen again with cards from the 2020's
The "State of the Hobby" for us "collectors," is the same today, as it was in the 80's, 90's, and 00's, why? Because we are in it for the sole purpose of, wait for it..."COLLECTING!"
Collectors have never worried about the state of the hobby, because we collect what we love! If I collect Allen Iverson cards, my goal is to collect Allen Iverson cards, not buy and flip Allen Iverson cards! Individuals, like these two, are buying cards just to flip, then when they overpay for a card or cards and end up taking a loss, all of a sudden there's an issue with the state of the hobby? No, the hobby is just fine, thriving and kicking, at least for those of us, who are "only" collecting what we love! "Collect What YOU Love," applies to sports cards, trading cards, comics, vintage lighters, vintage 52-card decks, stamps, post cards, Matchbox, Hot Wheels or whatever. If you collect what you love,, then there is absolutely zero issue with the State of the Hobby! PERIOD!
I'm a Redskins(Commanders), Magic, and Braves fan. I also like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Coco Gauff, Serena Williams and Ali cards. if i come across a card of theirs, that I don't have in my collection, and i can afford it, i buy it nd i never have any regrets. The only possible letdown for me has nothing to do with the hobby, but whether or not a players does something stupid or illegal, like beat his wife or kids, drink and drive, or commit murder, luckily for me, none of the athletes i collect have don either of those.
@@truthminusthebs2896 You are spot on! My only regret with the hobby is the cost of boxes and packs! I do love finding rare cards of players I collect and to be honest, if I pull a high dollar of a player I don't collect, even if it's a 1 of 1, I am looking to sell or trade it for the player(s) I collect!
card collecting these days feels like the sneaker game back in 2005-2006. The hype drives the market, but ultimately we were all suckers to the cash grab from Nike every Saturday. There are still die hard collectors, and always will be, but people are beginning to understand that it’s one big hustle from companies like topps, that goes completely unregulated or audited.
Yes thats true sneakers but Nike has practically made it impossible for us to even get shoes of any site or sneskers app unless you have botss so its completely rigged up market since 2014 pretty much
We are 100% in a new junk wax era. Only difference is the insane price on products! Boxes to singles the multipliers are off the charts. Proving once again, big business doesn’t care about its consumers/collectors
I agree and on top of that the last two years NO top tier athletes have really signed any of the licensed sports cards with the respective Brands being Topps & Panini.
My biggest concern regarding Fanatics and Topps is the sudden increase of hobby. Topps Chrome flagship used to be affordable, even for kids. I get that Skenes MLB Debut Patch is a chase, but for boxes to be 3-4x what they were just a year ago is unsettling. If that's any indication of what Topps/Fanatics will do with box prices moving forward, I think you're pricing out a significant portion of collectors. Once the "flippers" find a new hobby, you could see a major decline.
I'm a flipper, but it's like getting the deposit on cans. I'm not selling cards to make a profit. I sell cards to get some money back to recycle into my collection. i usually only profit from if I pull an unexpected hit
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
Don’t you think people can only buy so many $199 boxes and get a $30 return in cards before they just stop? If the - take this with a grain of salt - ‘ROI’ was more in line with the price of product, you’d probably cultivate a true collector base.
boxes are way over priced the last 20 years. Also there are very Few All Time Greats In Sports now. Maybe just 4-5 in Football and 4-5 in the NBA. Everyone also learned baseball is trash same with hockey.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
Football is a sport that doesnt have the history element of baseball. I think a lot of it has to do with the numbers aspect of baseball and how important records are and remain. Baseball fans remember triple crowns, 755, 61, 70... Cal Ripken, rickey henderson. As a kid i knew all the greats. With footbalk, thats not nealy the case.
Love this!! Ryan’s awesome any card I’ve ever had graded he submitted for me been watching him for years watching his come up is my motivation and he’s a true inspiration and to not listen to his knowledge about cards is shooting yourself lol Thanks for sharing
If people dont think we are in the next junk wax era, then they really need to take a good look at the hobby. When there are tens of thousand of rookie cards for one single player, its just out of control. Take Wemby for example, there are at least a thousand different rookie cards(from base, inserts, paraelles, autos, etc...) that exists for wemby, and just the base prizm is one of highest pop count cards in PSA 10. Back in the days we had 1-3 different base rookie cards for a specific player(Topps, Fleer, Donruss....etc). This is actually WORSE then the junk wax era, and not to mention the cost of these boxes nowadays is just outrageous.
You're junk. You're also a narcissist to think there should only be one Wemby and of course you think you would have that one Wemby. Let me tell you something Wemby is soft and not that guy......... You know nothing about sports cards.
If you like Wemby so much then buy 25,000 of them and sit on them. You would then control the market on him. Good luck. He's just another manute bol. Very soft
You never even thought about that though right..... You probably still live in Your mom's basement. Stop calling it junk and the prices will skyrocket. The junk era was 2004-2019. When everyone forgot about cards and got a job.
We are in a silent depression now. 50 million people on EBT now and we are officially in junk wax Slab, parallels, Auto era. At least the 90s junk wax era had the rare inserts to fall back on. Collect what you like and watch ultra modern fall further down
I agree it's crazy how many versions are out, but is 25k graded seriously all that insane? (I truly don't know so am actually asking the question). In 2023 we broke 8 BILLION people worldwide. There is absolutely NO WAY every single sports card collector worldwide attends The National Sports Card Convention, and yet Google implies approximately 100,000 people attend The National, so is it really hard to believe that there aren't / won't be over 25,000 people worldwide who would want to own a graded Wemby card if he keeps doing well?
The problem, especially in modern cards, is that big companies and breakers have always tried to communicate to people that "in that box you can find a 100,000 dollar card, in that other box a 200,000 dollar card". In doing so they turned the hobby into a game of chance. In Italy the biggest sticker collectors bought because they appreciated the product and did not have a medium or long term resale objective. However, in the modern world it is like this, the final collector does not exist and the cards pass from seller to seller. Vintage, for now, resists these discussions. But in Italy there are many young people who are approaching vintage not to collect, but to earn. The communication from big companies must change, the hobby boxes must cost much less and the breakers must disappear. Only in this way will collectors increase.
As bad as it sounds, a market crash is only temporary. Economies ebb and flow. The difference is being savvy on when to buy and sell. I’ve been collecting for nearly 50 years. The down times allow me the budget to buy cards I wouldn’t have ever afforded. Love this hobby.
Idk why people dont address the percentage of people that are actually collecting in today's market, which is slim to none in 2025 unless its tcg as a good percentage of tcg buyers are still actual collectors. This isnt a hobby anymore , its a stock market with cardboard and will never go back to being just a hobby because vaste vaste percentage of those buying singles or sealed wax are breaker businesses, flippers, investors or reseller business owners with 5 to 10% being collectors total. Huge problem is high print runs and 80% of the sets being produced all being trash that no one wants. Everyone only wants the big sets Prizm that is king, Donruss /Optic and the rare inserts from certain sets like absolute and or the big singles from those sets , panini and fanatics did a horrible job deluting the market producing to much trash product . Good news is card collectibles are now more popular than ever , which is a double edge sword as on one hand its great because i get more customers , on the other hand it sucks because its harder to find / get the products i want and due to product delution harder to hit good cards from ripping sealed wax due to high print runs , botched launch dates and due to shady back door dealings and breaker privilege getting all the monster boxes that otherwise would have been accessible to me in years past like back in the day ,befor the market manipulation started taking place. Trust within the industry is also at an all time low, yet the masses dont care because cards are now mainstream and no one will take a stand to do anything about it. Really cant wait till everyone takes the word hobby out of their vocabulary. Playing with legos or puzzles is a hobby , widdling wood is a hobby , cards and collectibles is an industry and all business now. Its no longer about the card or player/ fans buying cards ........its about the money and how much can be made off whatever card no matter the player or artwork. Im optimistic for 2025 being a good year for sales.
when I started collecting in 1995, there were sooo many options. We had Upperdeck, Pinnacle, Topps. Topps chrome, Stadium club, Fleer etc etc etc. A guy culd afford to collect to actually complete a set, and there weren't so many damn parralells.
We are definitely gearing towards another junk wax era. Too many 1/1's, too many cards of each player available. Too many sets. Getting memorabilias, autos is becoming too easy and common. The real collectors will remain but those who gets into the hobby to make a profit and flip will eventually be driven away. I can even see a renewed interest in the old stuff from the 80's and 90's because it is accessible, there's the nostalgia element and the chase of getting a gem mint of Barry Bonds rookie is more fun than spending hundreds of dollars for a gold Paul Skenes who's value will only go down with time. Today's market is tailor made for people flippin'.
We need more local card shops. Places where collectors can meet. Would love to see Card Collector 2 and Cards HQ team up with Panini and Fanatics to open shops and provide inventory.
I agree with you 100%. I’m in a small town in MS and the collectors/shops are few and far between these days. Wish I had people to go trade with. This is why whatnot and live auction is so profitable, people love the act of trading and interacting with others interested in the hobby and they’re willing to pay a premium to get that excitement/nostalgic experience, albeit digitally.
As a collector/dealer for almost 40 years, I say we will see how well sportscards do as soon as the overall economy has a couple of bad years. People will start selling everything if the economy tanks. True collectors will stay in, but the flippers will jump ship right away. Another point, two things have held football back; 1) baseball and basketball (and soccer) are much more globally collected than football. This won't change anytime soon. 2) Football cards haven't retained value as much as the other sports, this might change with more collectors entering the market, but it might not. A lot of young collectors haven't been burnt by the QB chase yet, when they do, they might leave the hobby. I hope I'm wrong about everything and sportscards go to the moon!
Great points, except I find your "young collectors haven't been burnt by the QB chase yet" offensive as that implies I'm dumber than most! *cough* Trevor Lawrence, Anthony Richardson..
People like Sports Card Investor and CardCollector2, won't be around the hobby in, let's say five to ten years, because when the profit evaporates, so will they!
I am in the crowd of collectors that flip to fund the PC. You get to celebrate the win (big or small) with a new addition to player/players that you have the closest connection with.
I just watched video on the 50/50 cards.. That's a ridiculous cash grab. How many Ohtani's are gonna be rare? That's almost like 08 housing bust foreshadowing. My opinion.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
Did we cover a 2025 outlook…???? I don’t think so mostly what happened in 2024 and when TOPPS gets license rights in 2026 😮😢😮great topics but no outlook
I'm having a moment the date was April 1992 the product was a sealed Upper Deck 1991 baseball box of cards; I still have the box it has gone up 10 dollars since 1992, that was my only purchase as a metal's stacker since 1984 and all is good. Lance.
"Are we in a junk wax era?" the answer is 'yes'. but not nearly as bad as the 80s/90s. I know, because I have a friend that used to work at Panini. Tons of cards were printed. "Prizm Wemby is equivalent to the Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Upper Deck." regardless, there will be collectors still collecting.
I feel like part of the problem bsck then was its just like a base set and that iss it until the early 90s then you see more color and rare inserts case hit etc.
Too many parallels within products and products in general to think it can keep expanding like its been without a drop off unless they keep finding ways to create a chase
I remain shocked at the volume of cards that are being graded since it is a losing game when you go to resell them. Unless you have a rare hit, grading new cards is for fools. These things always take longer for the masses to realize.
The funny thing is if you get a case hit you're probably going to loose A LOT of money if you send it into PSA these days. Every time I've hit a "case hit" shortly after release I'm pretty sure if I would have sold it raw immediately I'd have made far more money than if I were to have had it graded and had to wait 3 months. By the time it's graded the mass printing is known and the prices are already tanking it seems. Nearly 100% sure if it came back a PSA 9 or lower it would have been worse grading. Blows my mind how so many open new packs and send nearly everything in for grading.
I think it is absolutely insane to speculate in the football market. There are no end users. They are all just looking to hold as short as possible and move on. People in the baseball market plan on holding for awhile
The over production just isn’t sustainable. People can only store so many cards in their house and majority won’t take the time to list and sell them so buying naturally slows down.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
I have Ohtani and Judge Topps Chrome cards, but they are worth more than the $20 "STORE CREDIT" offered by three shops, here in Florida, who participate in the Topps Buy Back Program so why would I send it back? Plus, I was under the impression that Topps directs card shops to give people cash, not store credit, am I wrong? Also, when is the last day of the Buy back program for Ohtani and Judge?
Imo whatnot is biggest, they continue to make more fun gambling games , often pass cards to people that are less desirable from the chaser cards they were originally after.....gamble 700 to win a 4.5k card , most cases get other cards you didnt intend to keep that value around 20to2k , those cards get dumped back into system for cheap or at comp , these cards come from shops and go back to shops for cheaper
@@sourcingsailor4987also what are they to be over $20? Because base is $20, non number parallels are $40, number from /100 and up (as in to the highest numbering) is $100 and /99 and down (probably to 1/1 but to the lowest numbering) $200.
As long as you stick to licensed products and /10 and under with a PSA 10 on the best of the best in any league. You can’t go wrong collecting for the most part. All the rest of the stuff isn’t really worth collecting outside the personal liking or for the hobby, more so an investor type collector:
Coolest thing has been MVP Buy Back. First year it was announced by Topps after we knew the MVPs. This year it was a no-brainer who to go after. I’m super excited for a year when AL and NL MVPs are truly up in the air at the time Topps chrome drops.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
The current state of the hobby are creating children flippers instead of children collectors. Also, There needs to be utility for these ever increasing base set junk checklist. Perhaps send in a complete base set and get a special rookie pack in a unique parallel
Unfortunately every kid does not have rich parents. A positive of all the children flippers is they're learning how to be well informed consumers, learning negotiating and are actually getting out of the house instead of playing shooting video games all day.
Do you guys remember Geoff's video where they were breaking down POKEMON Cards, discussing where are all these graded POKEMON Cards going?@17:01 Collectors, people collect them and unlike sports cards they dont see them entirely as investments, they collect them first. Someone pull up that old video....
Yea, I'm with ya. Probably 90% of current Wemby collectors are collecting him for the money, not because they are a true fan of the kid, as most of them couldn't pink him out of a line-up in 2017.
The amount of Wemby cards printed is mind blowing….prizm, prizm deca, prizm monopoly , Topps.., mercury, etc…supply / demand will always win…Wemby needs 30-50X true fans vs MJ
84 donruss baseball,beauty of a set and short print,bonus mattingly!this is just my opinion,i dont personaly buy newer cards just because what this video about.
Too many sets, too many parallels, every color under the rainbow. How valuable is a gold, when they also have 15 other colors in the same set x65 different sets? The NFL/NFLPA should license the team logos/players to two or three companies and then some kind of limitation on the amount of sets each company can produce. Imagine for example, if Panini, Topps and Wild Card had the licenses and each company can only produce 10-15 different sets per sport per year. This would allow them to produce some lower end, mid tier and some high end sets.
Its kind of hard to compare the times since we have way more collectors in total now in 2025 compared to the early 80s and 90s. But i think he is on to something alot of the values for boxes and cards in general are so messed up because so much volume is bought up by the large and small breakers in the hobby because the prices follow supply and demand its basic economics
People have to know the odds of getting good players. Which most people probably don't know now. By law it has to say on the side of the box what the chances are
If it is a junk wax era again I wish the packs would drop where collectors could buy packs again cheap instead of having to pay high prices for raw cards in the base cards.
exactly The cards look like trash the last 20 years. All the same and no character. Weird shiney cheesy backgrounds, Never a good action Photo. Inserts look just like the base cards. cheesy and gimmicky Just looks like foil trash.
That is not how it has ever worked unless there is a player that is young and only I would know is about to average 200 yards per game and 2 TDs over the season
Ryan stating NBA viewership is down 48% is either disingenuous or stupid. That's from viewership 15 years ago in one sample. Guess, what, viewership is down in every single sport from that time period as there are far more options vying for attention spans today.
The hobby is only “dying” to people that are strictly concerned with making profit on every single card that they get their hands on. I collect, sell, buy and trade and still like the hobby just as much as I did 20 years ago. Yes some products are over priced but every market has products that are overpriced. If you think the hobby is a scam or things are too expensive then I would say just find a new hobby. 🤷🏻♂️
@ I’m not buying $500 a box that’s for people that have money to burn. I can still go to Walmart and buy a Topps flagship blaster box for $24.99, pre pandemic in summer of 2019 blasters were $19.99 for a blaster box at Walmart. Just like they make 1 million dollar vehicles for rich people they also make 25k vehicles for the average person. Same thing applies to cards. Remember opening cards is supposed to be fun not stressful. If you are worried about only getting 1 auto out of a $500 box then you shouldn’t be buying that $500 box.
Hand-collated sets from 2020-present, will sell for $10 in 20 years. Worthless. Doesn't matter if a good rookie is in there. They made WAY too many of these. But the demand was there, so can't blame them really.
I recognize that a person can be a hobbyist and an investor at more or less the same time, but sports cards are truly a hobby to just a small percentage of people buying cards now. Terms like "ROI" and "the market" do not coexist with the true hobbyist. Unfortunately the current state is bad for both the investor and the hobbyist; very few cards will hold any long term value (looking at you SSP and color variations) for the investor and the cards are too expensive for the hobbyist. Won't be long before this comes crashing down.
It all has to do with the athlete. Brady's, Emmitts Pippens, Robinsons, Birds and Jordans will continue to go up in value. There skill and athleticism is on TH-cam.
It's extremely good for investing cause over 2 billion new people got into the hobby with money. They will forever check up on the market now even 20 or 40 years from now. More money is good
For true collectors, the hobby is and will remain fine. For them, it's about collecting/owning cards of their favorite sets, players, and teams. The monetary value of the cards is not of primary importance to them. For the pure investor, it's obviously a different story. With the enormous and growing amount of 'special' cards flooding the market each year, it's hard to imagine demand for them will increase going forward, meaning prices should decline. Whether a company like Fanatics that will be looking to increase margins year over year will be savvy enough to find/create the proper balance on the market remains questionable. The pure investor in this hobby should be very cautious going forward.
True collectors are all about the Photo, the Look and the Stats Which have been gimmicky "shiny" trash the last 20 years. The Photo Should Depict how that Athlete is Better than Others. They photographers are GARAGE the last 25 years.
157 doesn't sound that bad for the hobby. At least that means 157 true collectors have a chance at one, opposed to just one billionaire who can afford (1) 1 of 1.
It's all that greediness 😅. It can ruin any type of collecting if you let it. They come through any hobby or collecting, making things crazy and unstable for a while, but then they move on to the next quick cash scheme. "Early" into the game is the exact type of vocabulary that they use, lol. If you collect as a hobby, you are good to go. Sure, some cards may be out of reach, but just stay the course, and it will change. It always does.
Jeff your a fool if you think there is growth. The prices are insane 600-800 for a box to get a 40 dollar card the average person can not afford that. Also Panini with 100+ parallels have over saturated the market.
What players are you looking for. You do know that since 2004. A pack of 5 cards is 8 dollars and all cards are 10 day contract players that didn't make the team. That's panini for you..... Everyone left the hobby in 2004. Everyone just now is giving it a second chance cause they heard their Jordans and Kobes from the 90's sky rocketed in 2020
Answer and summary to this whole conversation is collect hockey! Stable, not over produced and bare minimum flippers. Hockey has, and will always have the definition of collectors
Ehhh… what you say is partially correct, but the Bedard hype and crash of his card values indicates there is quite a bit of speculation and flipping in hockey too.
I agree and disagree, but I mostly disagree, because hockey is 100% regional, limited to Canada and the northern states, even here in Florida, when I attend card shows and visit LCS in Miami and Tampa, there is some hockey, but the shops and tables with the most customers are the shops and tables at card shows with football, basketball, baseball and Pokemon. With that said, I just started participating in online breaks on September 4, 2024 and I have hits some great pulls in baseball and football, but my best pull of my life actually came from the 2022-23 Upper deck The Cup Hobby, where I participated in an online break and pulled a RPA of Juraj Slafkovsky, a card that is selling raw for $3,000 to $4,000, but again, here in Florida, people want it, but can't afford it. Even the card shops from Panama City Beach, Tallahassee, Jacksonville to Orlando love the card, just don't have the market for hockey. Of course I am afraid to send it to PSA, because of their up charges!
@@SportsCardInvestorThe Bedard price fluctuations is due to the flippers jumping in. Just ask any non-hockey collector and they want a Gretzky rookie and will jump when a hyped #1 pick like Bedard comes into the league. That’s why most other hockey cards are stable because the flippers aren’t jumping to push the prices up. That’s also why hockey cards are the only sport where a base card ‘Young Guns’ is the most sought after rookie card for each player. Upper Deck doesn’t have to produce endless parallels to entice collectors because those flippers are buying Baseball, Football and Basketball cards. Hockey cards are what the hobby would look like for Baseball, Football and Basketball if flippers didn’t infiltrate it.
I Just Think They should go back to Real Companies like Stadium Club, Hoops, Fleer, Upper Deck, Topps, Skybox and Go back To Actually Putting Real Action Photos from the Sideline with the Surrounding View, Put the Audience in the BackGround like the 90's Cards. 99% of all Card Hobby Collectors were only cause of the 90's Cards and how they Looked So Good. No one buys cards today. Go back to Good Looking Cards with Real Photos and Go back to 20 Cards per pack for about 5 dollars Then Millions of People will get into the Sport like it was in the early 90's. Without the Early 90's and the Way it was done in the Early 90's there would be 2 people in the World that buy or care about cards. 90's Had it Right.
I stopped buying football and basketball. The reason being the boxes are more expensive than baseball. Also if you buy them you can get dud boxes. In baseball at least you get something that is collectible.
Had a campfire last summer that needed reinvigorated. Over the next couple hours, I threw 40,000 commons on it from the late 80's, early 90's. It will happen again with cards from the 2020's
The "State of the Hobby" for us "collectors," is the same today, as it was in the 80's, 90's, and 00's, why? Because we are in it for the sole purpose of, wait for it..."COLLECTING!"
Well said!
Collectors have never worried about the state of the hobby, because we collect what we love! If I collect Allen Iverson cards, my goal is to collect Allen Iverson cards, not buy and flip Allen Iverson cards! Individuals, like these two, are buying cards just to flip, then when they overpay for a card or cards and end up taking a loss, all of a sudden there's an issue with the state of the hobby? No, the hobby is just fine, thriving and kicking, at least for those of us, who are "only" collecting what we love!
"Collect What YOU Love," applies to sports cards, trading cards, comics, vintage lighters, vintage 52-card decks, stamps, post cards, Matchbox, Hot Wheels or whatever. If you collect what you love,, then there is absolutely zero issue with the State of the Hobby!
PERIOD!
100% FACTS!
I'm a Redskins(Commanders), Magic, and Braves fan. I also like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Coco Gauff, Serena Williams and Ali cards. if i come across a card of theirs, that I don't have in my collection, and i can afford it, i buy it nd i never have any regrets. The only possible letdown for me has nothing to do with the hobby, but whether or not a players does something stupid or illegal, like beat his wife or kids, drink and drive, or commit murder, luckily for me, none of the athletes i collect have don either of those.
@@truthminusthebs2896 You are spot on! My only regret with the hobby is the cost of boxes and packs! I do love finding rare cards of players I collect and to be honest, if I pull a high dollar of a player I don't collect, even if it's a 1 of 1, I am looking to sell or trade it for the player(s) I collect!
card collecting these days feels like the sneaker game back in 2005-2006. The hype drives the market, but ultimately we were all suckers to the cash grab from Nike every Saturday. There are still die hard collectors, and always will be, but people are beginning to understand that it’s one big hustle from companies like topps, that goes completely unregulated or audited.
That's what is keeping me from potentially collecting sports cards again.
The sneaker game… who was collecting sneakers? lol 😂
Yes thats true sneakers but Nike has practically made it impossible for us to even get shoes of any site or sneskers app unless you have botss so its completely rigged up market since 2014 pretty much
We are 100% in a new junk wax era. Only difference is the insane price on products! Boxes to singles the multipliers are off the charts. Proving once again, big business doesn’t care about its consumers/collectors
I agree and on top of that the last two years NO top tier athletes have really signed any of the licensed sports cards with the respective Brands being Topps & Panini.
So you want there to only be one box made. Your thinking is dumb.
Over 20 billion dollars came into the card industry this year more than 2000-2020 all combined. The hobby of sports cards is better than ever.
My biggest concern regarding Fanatics and Topps is the sudden increase of hobby. Topps Chrome flagship used to be affordable, even for kids. I get that Skenes MLB Debut Patch is a chase, but for boxes to be 3-4x what they were just a year ago is unsettling. If that's any indication of what Topps/Fanatics will do with box prices moving forward, I think you're pricing out a significant portion of collectors. Once the "flippers" find a new hobby, you could see a major decline.
I'm a flipper, but it's like getting the deposit on cans. I'm not selling cards to make a profit. I sell cards to get some money back to recycle into my collection. i usually only profit from if I pull an unexpected hit
I'm still collecting Will Grier here at 2025 for long term investment
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
😝
Hhhhhahahahahhaahahha,
Don’t you think people can only buy so many $199 boxes and get a $30 return in cards before they just stop?
If the - take this with a grain of salt - ‘ROI’ was more in line with the price of product, you’d probably cultivate a true collector base.
boxes are way over priced the last 20 years. Also there are very Few All Time Greats In Sports now. Maybe just 4-5 in Football and 4-5 in the NBA. Everyone also learned baseball is trash same with hockey.
Gamblers will keep flushing their money down the drain.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
I did the 23-24 Wemby run and then quit for the exact reasons you cite above. Panini overprints and overcharges and ruined the renaissance.
Ohtani is still an amazing player in spite of what you think of baseball
Football is a sport that doesnt have the history element of baseball.
I think a lot of it has to do with the numbers aspect of baseball and how important records are and remain. Baseball fans remember triple crowns, 755, 61, 70... Cal Ripken, rickey henderson. As a kid i knew all the greats.
With footbalk, thats not nealy the case.
Prices are completely out of control
When it comes down to topps. No rush. I can find it on sale at any time. Topps will guarantee to over print
I just like collecting cards so im not worried about the prices or rarity its just a fun hobby
Not at today's prices. Opening a box is like making a rent payment
@ yea but I still find ways to collect
@Connorrrrr11 yeah the thrill of the rip is dead for me now. Just wait for the individual cards and then buy them in the off season.
FACTS
Damn I wish I was erich enough to not care about prices of the cards I want to collect, good for you.
Love this!! Ryan’s awesome any card I’ve ever had graded he submitted for me been watching him for years watching his come up is my motivation and he’s a true inspiration and to not listen to his knowledge about cards is shooting yourself lol Thanks for sharing
It has been here, but all the influencers ignored it because they did not want to get on the bad side of Fanatics.
If people dont think we are in the next junk wax era, then they really need to take a good look at the hobby. When there are tens of thousand of rookie cards for one single player, its just out of control. Take Wemby for example, there are at least a thousand different rookie cards(from base, inserts, paraelles, autos, etc...) that exists for wemby, and just the base prizm is one of highest pop count cards in PSA 10. Back in the days we had 1-3 different base rookie cards for a specific player(Topps, Fleer, Donruss....etc). This is actually WORSE then the junk wax era, and not to mention the cost of these boxes nowadays is just outrageous.
You're junk. You're also a narcissist to think there should only be one Wemby and of course you think you would have that one Wemby. Let me tell you something Wemby is soft and not that guy......... You know nothing about sports cards.
If you like Wemby so much then buy 25,000 of them and sit on them. You would then control the market on him. Good luck. He's just another manute bol. Very soft
You never even thought about that though right..... You probably still live in Your mom's basement. Stop calling it junk and the prices will skyrocket. The junk era was 2004-2019. When everyone forgot about cards and got a job.
You got priced out of the market.
We are in a silent depression now. 50 million people on EBT now and we are officially in junk wax Slab, parallels, Auto era. At least the 90s junk wax era had the rare inserts to fall back on. Collect what you like and watch ultra modern fall further down
wtf are you talking about? 🤣
@ how your going to loose your shirt in ultra modern
I said these 1 year ago I lived through the first one and things started becoming all to familiar!!!
Over 25k copies of Wemby Prizm Rookies graded with PSA. 63 different parallels in Prizm. SMH
I agree it's crazy how many versions are out, but is 25k graded seriously all that insane? (I truly don't know so am actually asking the question). In 2023 we broke 8 BILLION people worldwide. There is absolutely NO WAY every single sports card collector worldwide attends The National Sports Card Convention, and yet Google implies approximately 100,000 people attend The National, so is it really hard to believe that there aren't / won't be over 25,000 people worldwide who would want to own a graded Wemby card if he keeps doing well?
The problem, especially in modern cards, is that big companies and breakers have always tried to communicate to people that "in that box you can find a 100,000 dollar card, in that other box a 200,000 dollar card". In doing so they turned the hobby into a game of chance. In Italy the biggest sticker collectors bought because they appreciated the product and did not have a medium or long term resale objective. However, in the modern world it is like this, the final collector does not exist and the cards pass from seller to seller. Vintage, for now, resists these discussions. But in Italy there are many young people who are approaching vintage not to collect, but to earn. The communication from big companies must change, the hobby boxes must cost much less and the breakers must disappear. Only in this way will collectors increase.
The sports card bubble popped in 2021 with the downfall of zion. 2024 is the first year where I consistently see prices that make sense.
As bad as it sounds, a market crash is only temporary. Economies ebb and flow. The difference is being savvy on when to buy and sell. I’ve been collecting for nearly 50 years. The down times allow me the budget to buy cards I wouldn’t have ever afforded. Love this hobby.
Idk why people dont address the percentage of people that are actually collecting in today's market, which is slim to none in 2025 unless its tcg as a good percentage of tcg buyers are still actual collectors. This isnt a hobby anymore , its a stock market with cardboard and will never go back to being just a hobby because vaste vaste percentage of those buying singles or sealed wax are breaker businesses, flippers, investors or reseller business owners with 5 to 10% being collectors total. Huge problem is high print runs and 80% of the sets being produced all being trash that no one wants. Everyone only wants the big sets Prizm that is king, Donruss /Optic and the rare inserts from certain sets like absolute and or the big singles from those sets , panini and fanatics did a horrible job deluting the market producing to much trash product . Good news is card collectibles are now more popular than ever , which is a double edge sword as on one hand its great because i get more customers , on the other hand it sucks because its harder to find / get the products i want and due to product delution harder to hit good cards from ripping sealed wax due to high print runs , botched launch dates and due to shady back door dealings and breaker privilege getting all the monster boxes that otherwise would have been accessible to me in years past like back in the day ,befor the market manipulation started taking place. Trust within the industry is also at an all time low, yet the masses dont care because cards are now mainstream and no one will take a stand to do anything about it. Really cant wait till everyone takes the word hobby out of their vocabulary. Playing with legos or puzzles is a hobby , widdling wood is a hobby , cards and collectibles is an industry and all business now. Its no longer about the card or player/ fans buying cards ........its about the money and how much can be made off whatever card no matter the player or artwork. Im optimistic for 2025 being a good year for sales.
when I started collecting in 1995, there were sooo many options. We had Upperdeck, Pinnacle, Topps. Topps chrome, Stadium club, Fleer etc etc etc. A guy culd afford to collect to actually complete a set, and there weren't so many damn parralells.
We are definitely gearing towards another junk wax era. Too many 1/1's, too many cards of each player available. Too many sets. Getting memorabilias, autos is becoming too easy and common. The real collectors will remain but those who gets into the hobby to make a profit and flip will eventually be driven away. I can even see a renewed interest in the old stuff from the 80's and 90's because it is accessible, there's the nostalgia element and the chase of getting a gem mint of Barry Bonds rookie is more fun than spending hundreds of dollars for a gold Paul Skenes who's value will only go down with time. Today's market is tailor made for people flippin'.
We need more local card shops. Places where collectors can meet. Would love to see Card Collector 2 and Cards HQ team up with Panini and Fanatics to open shops and provide inventory.
I agree with you 100%. I’m in a small town in MS and the collectors/shops are few and far between these days. Wish I had people to go trade with. This is why whatnot and live auction is so profitable, people love the act of trading and interacting with others interested in the hobby and they’re willing to pay a premium to get that excitement/nostalgic experience, albeit digitally.
A shop is a huge risk, even if you get the store front you aren't garunteed to get the inventory.
We're definitely in a new junk was era.
As a collector/dealer for almost 40 years, I say we will see how well sportscards do as soon as the overall economy has a couple of bad years. People will start selling everything if the economy tanks. True collectors will stay in, but the flippers will jump ship right away. Another point, two things have held football back; 1) baseball and basketball (and soccer) are much more globally collected than football. This won't change anytime soon. 2) Football cards haven't retained value as much as the other sports, this might change with more collectors entering the market, but it might not. A lot of young collectors haven't been burnt by the QB chase yet, when they do, they might leave the hobby. I hope I'm wrong about everything and sportscards go to the moon!
Great points, except I find your "young collectors haven't been burnt by the QB chase yet" offensive as that implies I'm dumber than most! *cough* Trevor Lawrence, Anthony Richardson..
People like Sports Card Investor and CardCollector2, won't be around the hobby in, let's say five to ten years, because when the profit evaporates, so will they!
10x the Hobby is the phrase I could do without in 2025. Fanatics wants to 10x their investment and that’s all they care about.
I am in the crowd of collectors that flip to fund the PC. You get to celebrate the win (big or small) with a new addition to player/players that you have the closest connection with.
I just watched video on the 50/50 cards.. That's a ridiculous cash grab. How many Ohtani's are gonna be rare? That's almost like 08 housing bust foreshadowing. My opinion.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
Did we cover a 2025 outlook…???? I don’t think so mostly what happened in 2024 and when TOPPS gets license rights in 2026 😮😢😮great topics but no outlook
I'm having a moment the date was April 1992 the product was a sealed Upper Deck 1991 baseball box of cards; I still have the box it has gone up 10 dollars since 1992, that was my only purchase as a metal's stacker since 1984 and all is good. Lance.
It’s funny to hear them try and spin everything positively since this is their livelihood 😂😂😂
Little bit of bias in all of this…
Nothing Negative About Sports Cards. Get the Right Looking Cards, The Right Eras and the Correct Players.
That's what "NARCISSISTS" do!
"Are we in a junk wax era?" the answer is 'yes'. but not nearly as bad as the 80s/90s. I know, because I have a friend that used to work at Panini. Tons of cards were printed. "Prizm Wemby is equivalent to the Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Upper Deck." regardless, there will be collectors still collecting.
I feel like part of the problem bsck then was its just like a base set and that iss it until the early 90s then you see more color and rare inserts case hit etc.
I believe we are definitely in a junk wax era!
Too many parallels within products and products in general to think it can keep expanding like its been without a drop off unless they keep finding ways to create a chase
I remain shocked at the volume of cards that are being graded since it is a losing game when you go to resell them. Unless you have a rare hit, grading new cards is for fools. These things always take longer for the masses to realize.
The funny thing is if you get a case hit you're probably going to loose A LOT of money if you send it into PSA these days. Every time I've hit a "case hit" shortly after release I'm pretty sure if I would have sold it raw immediately I'd have made far more money than if I were to have had it graded and had to wait 3 months. By the time it's graded the mass printing is known and the prices are already tanking it seems. Nearly 100% sure if it came back a PSA 9 or lower it would have been worse grading. Blows my mind how so many open new packs and send nearly everything in for grading.
@@StargoeInc People must be loosing a lot
If wemby becomes a superstar like lebron or koby his short prints will be very valuable in the future.
I think it is absolutely insane to speculate in the football market. There are no end users. They are all just looking to hold as short as possible and move on. People in the baseball market plan on holding for awhile
I don't believe the demand is so high! I think that people weighing packs and tricking people will ultimately drive the hobby down!
I think people forget the only reason Topps is doing the MVP buy backs was because they forgot to put them SP in the product which is sad.
The over production just isn’t sustainable. People can only store so many cards in their house and majority won’t take the time to list and sell them so buying naturally slows down.
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
Shout out to MKE and the Brewers.
Brewers fan for life hopefully Ryan!!!
It's all about the vibes with these guys
Card shops are the biggest flippers in the market. There is a lane for everyone that wants to be a part of this hobby/business.
I have Ohtani and Judge Topps Chrome cards, but they are worth more than the $20 "STORE CREDIT" offered by three shops, here in Florida, who participate in the Topps Buy Back Program so why would I send it back?
Plus, I was under the impression that Topps directs card shops to give people cash, not store credit, am I wrong?
Also, when is the last day of the Buy back program for Ohtani and Judge?
Imo whatnot is biggest, they continue to make more fun gambling games , often pass cards to people that are less desirable from the chaser cards they were originally after.....gamble 700 to win a 4.5k card , most cases get other cards you didnt intend to keep that value around 20to2k , those cards get dumped back into system for cheap or at comp , these cards come from shops and go back to shops for cheaper
Whatnot sellers are biggest winners by making gambling online and getting minors to gamble!!! Fukin genious
@@sourcingsailor4987 depends on the shop I believe it’s a cash or store credit option. Plus it ends sometime in March
@@sourcingsailor4987also what are they to be over $20? Because base is $20, non number parallels are $40, number from /100 and up (as in to the highest numbering) is $100 and /99 and down (probably to 1/1 but to the lowest numbering) $200.
As long as you stick to licensed products and /10 and under with a PSA 10 on the best of the best in any league. You can’t go wrong collecting for the most part. All the rest of the stuff isn’t really worth collecting outside the personal liking or for the hobby, more so an investor type collector:
Coolest thing has been MVP Buy Back. First year it was announced by Topps after we knew the MVPs. This year it was a no-brainer who to go after. I’m super excited for a year when AL and NL MVPs are truly up in the air at the time Topps chrome drops.
8 minutes in and 4 commercials deep...
GEOFF SAID 2024 WAS "STABLE" AND "OVERALL HEALTHY". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Dude come on... You really think $1000 for a box or $500 for a box of Topps Chrome baseball that used to be $40 is "HEALTHY!?!?!". Oh yeah its really stable Geoff. Those box prices, breakers with CT SCANNERS, terrible rip off repacks, Breakers STEALING cards and switching cards out, oh and my favorite! Geoff and others PROMOTING Arenaclub slabpacks! Which are 10000% gambling and NOT worth it at all. Yet you promote it to kids on your channel. Think about that Geoff. YOU promote gambling to kids on your channel just b/c you wanted more money from a slimy company.
The current state of the hobby are creating children flippers instead of children collectors. Also, There needs to be utility for these ever increasing base set junk checklist. Perhaps send in a complete base set and get a special rookie pack in a unique parallel
Unfortunately every kid does not have rich parents. A positive of all the children flippers is they're learning how to be well informed consumers, learning negotiating and are actually getting out of the house instead of playing shooting video games all day.
Do you guys remember Geoff's video where they were breaking down POKEMON Cards, discussing where are all these graded POKEMON Cards going?@17:01 Collectors, people collect them and unlike sports cards they dont see them entirely as investments, they collect them first. Someone pull up that old video....
The only thing over printed is victor wembanyama even his pull rate is so common.
Nothing wrong with the printing it's the pricing
Overprinting?! Ha! USERY PRICING for crap not worth half of the garbage given. Fanatics is the HOBBY Anti-Christ.
There's no way that there are that many people collecting Wemby. I'm sure there's alot, but not enough to justify those numbers
Yea, I'm with ya. Probably 90% of current Wemby collectors are collecting him for the money, not because they are a true fan of the kid, as most of them couldn't pink him out of a line-up in 2017.
Did you know he had the MOST amount of cards graded? Of course people are "collecting" him.
The amount of Wemby cards printed is mind blowing….prizm, prizm deca, prizm monopoly , Topps.., mercury, etc…supply / demand will always win…Wemby needs 30-50X true fans vs MJ
84 donruss baseball,beauty of a set and short print,bonus mattingly!this is just my opinion,i dont personaly buy newer cards just because what this video about.
Too many sets, too many parallels, every color under the rainbow. How valuable is a gold, when they also have 15 other colors in the same set x65 different sets? The NFL/NFLPA should license the team logos/players to two or three companies and then some kind of limitation on the amount of sets each company can produce. Imagine for example, if Panini, Topps and Wild Card had the licenses and each company can only produce 10-15 different sets per sport per year. This would allow them to produce some lower end, mid tier and some high end sets.
The cards got cheesy and gimmicky. Instead of just having Really Good Photos That show How that Athlete Is better in Real Game Action.
People aren’t collecting the stars of 30 years ago unless they are 🐐
Its kind of hard to compare the times since we have way more collectors in total now in 2025 compared to the early 80s and 90s. But i think he is on to something alot of the values for boxes and cards in general are so messed up because so much volume is bought up by the large and small breakers in the hobby because the prices follow supply and demand its basic economics
People have to know the odds of getting good players. Which most people probably don't know now. By law it has to say on the side of the box what the chances are
If it is a junk wax era again I wish the packs would drop where collectors could buy packs again cheap instead of having to pay high prices for raw cards in the base cards.
No such thing as "junk wax" That is just a made up term by 2 or 3 people that suck at collecting Good Cards.
@@JimBrave-ri1oc Dumbest comment I have read.
@@JimBrave-ri1oc If you don't believe in something called junk wax, I have millions of cards I'd love to sell you at 3 for 1 penny!
LOL over printing ??? What about the lack of quality. You all are paying for trash.
exactly The cards look like trash the last 20 years. All the same and no character. Weird shiney cheesy backgrounds, Never a good action Photo. Inserts look just like the base cards. cheesy and gimmicky Just looks like foil trash.
Lebron was treated similarly to Wemby when he entered the league. All kinds of rookie cards and subsets.
It's about money now. How can we flip and make a quick buck.
That is not how it has ever worked unless there is a player that is young and only I would know is about to average 200 yards per game and 2 TDs over the season
Ryan stating NBA viewership is down 48% is either disingenuous or stupid. That's from viewership 15 years ago in one sample. Guess, what, viewership is down in every single sport from that time period as there are far more options vying for attention spans today.
IMO I wonder when the FTC steps in to investigate Fanatics monopolistic and questionable business practices!?!? 🤷♂️😂
I go in and out with it sometimes I love this hobby other times I absolutely hate it
The 2 best love it
Still haven't received my whatnot purchase from early December smh
From this company?
The hobby is only “dying” to people that are strictly concerned with making profit on every single card that they get their hands on. I collect, sell, buy and trade and still like the hobby just as much as I did 20 years ago. Yes some products are over priced but every market has products that are overpriced. If you think the hobby is a scam or things are too expensive then I would say just find a new hobby. 🤷🏻♂️
@ I’m not buying $500 a box that’s for people that have money to burn. I can still go to Walmart and buy a Topps flagship blaster box for $24.99, pre pandemic in summer of 2019 blasters were $19.99 for a blaster box at Walmart. Just like they make 1 million dollar vehicles for rich people they also make 25k vehicles for the average person. Same thing applies to cards. Remember opening cards is supposed to be fun not stressful. If you are worried about only getting 1 auto out of a $500 box then you shouldn’t be buying that $500 box.
Perfect answer.
Overprinting? No that come later when we take back the NBA/NFL license. 😈 🌛
CardCollector2?!
Is anybody else wondering, Who and where is CardCollector or CardCollector 1?
Just saying!
Was getting Josh Allen .cheap ..cheap .bought another .graded and raw lot..about 20 or so
Hand-collated sets from 2020-present, will sell for $10 in 20 years. Worthless. Doesn't matter if a good rookie is in there. They made WAY too many of these. But the demand was there, so can't blame them really.
I recognize that a person can be a hobbyist and an investor at more or less the same time, but sports cards are truly a hobby to just a small percentage of people buying cards now. Terms like "ROI" and "the market" do not coexist with the true hobbyist. Unfortunately the current state is bad for both the investor and the hobbyist; very few cards will hold any long term value (looking at you SSP and color variations) for the investor and the cards are too expensive for the hobbyist. Won't be long before this comes crashing down.
It all has to do with the athlete. Brady's, Emmitts Pippens, Robinsons, Birds and Jordans will continue to go up in value. There skill and athleticism is on TH-cam.
It's extremely good for investing cause over 2 billion new people got into the hobby with money. They will forever check up on the market now even 20 or 40 years from now. More money is good
2 of my people in the hobby.
For true collectors, the hobby is and will remain fine. For them, it's about collecting/owning cards of their favorite sets, players, and teams. The monetary value of the cards is not of primary importance to them.
For the pure investor, it's obviously a different story.
With the enormous and growing amount of 'special' cards flooding the market each year, it's hard to imagine demand for them will increase going forward, meaning prices should decline. Whether a company like Fanatics that will be looking to increase margins year over year will be savvy enough to find/create the proper balance on the market remains questionable. The pure investor in this hobby should be very cautious going forward.
True collectors are all about the Photo, the Look and the Stats Which have been gimmicky "shiny" trash the last 20 years. The Photo Should Depict how that Athlete is Better than Others. They photographers are GARAGE the last 25 years.
These guys tell you what you want to hear. I used to like them both. Now I just think they’re money hungry to a fault.
I AGREE!
Maybe but I can’t find any wnba…who would’ve thought.
Get ready for 157 different 1/1's per player 🤣
157 doesn't sound that bad for the hobby. At least that means 157 true collectors have a chance at one, opposed to just one billionaire who can afford (1) 1 of 1.
Skenes will be the Todd VanPoppel of this era
How? He is already better than he ever was.
I Still Think Brien Taylor has Potential @syracusealumnus79
Or Nolan Ryan
I still have the Van Poppel I pulled in 91 (or whatever year that was). Did it break .25 cents yet ?
It's all that greediness 😅. It can ruin any type of collecting if you let it. They come through any hobby or collecting, making things crazy and unstable for a while, but then they move on to the next quick cash scheme. "Early" into the game is the exact type of vocabulary that they use, lol. If you collect as a hobby, you are good to go. Sure, some cards may be out of reach, but just stay the course, and it will change. It always does.
Jeff your a fool if you think there is growth. The prices are insane 600-800 for a box to get a 40 dollar card the average person can not afford that. Also Panini with 100+ parallels have over saturated the market.
What players are you looking for. You do know that since 2004. A pack of 5 cards is 8 dollars and all cards are 10 day contract players that didn't make the team. That's panini for you..... Everyone left the hobby in 2004. Everyone just now is giving it a second chance cause they heard their Jordans and Kobes from the 90's sky rocketed in 2020
You are on a Junk high dollar box Sheeeet era!
Answer and summary to this whole conversation is collect hockey! Stable, not over produced and bare minimum flippers. Hockey has, and will always have the definition of collectors
Ehhh… what you say is partially correct, but the Bedard hype and crash of his card values indicates there is quite a bit of speculation and flipping in hockey too.
I agree and disagree, but I mostly disagree, because hockey is 100% regional, limited to Canada and the northern states, even here in Florida, when I attend card shows and visit LCS in Miami and Tampa, there is some hockey, but the shops and tables with the most customers are the shops and tables at card shows with football, basketball, baseball and Pokemon.
With that said, I just started participating in online breaks on September 4, 2024 and I have hits some great pulls in baseball and football, but my best pull of my life actually came from the 2022-23 Upper deck The Cup Hobby, where I participated in an online break and pulled a RPA of Juraj Slafkovsky, a card that is selling raw for $3,000 to $4,000, but again, here in Florida, people want it, but can't afford it. Even the card shops from Panama City Beach, Tallahassee, Jacksonville to Orlando love the card, just don't have the market for hockey.
Of course I am afraid to send it to PSA, because of their up charges!
@@SportsCardInvestorThe Bedard price fluctuations is due to the flippers jumping in. Just ask any non-hockey collector and they want a Gretzky rookie and will jump when a hyped #1 pick like Bedard comes into the league. That’s why most other hockey cards are stable because the flippers aren’t jumping to push the prices up. That’s also why hockey cards are the only sport where a base card ‘Young Guns’ is the most sought after rookie card for each player. Upper Deck doesn’t have to produce endless parallels to entice collectors because those flippers are buying Baseball, Football and Basketball cards. Hockey cards are what the hobby would look like for Baseball, Football and Basketball if flippers didn’t infiltrate it.
I bought a couple blasters of upper deck Artifact hockey it was by far the worst product I’ve ever opened!!!!!!
@jakepeters1404 maybe the "blasters" part should've been a hint
Junk slab era, baby
Topps Disney / Star Wars / Marvel
📈📈📈📈📈
Wemby and ohtani saved topps 🤣👌🤪
Doubt it!
We are 100% in the junk wax area. They’re just much prettier Cards now. Just saying.
thank god for cc2
Not a fan
Ryan cards to the moon 🌙
Need a video on ufc cards!
we are in the junk 1/1 era
Omg theres nothing rare anymore
Pretty Vintage and nothing else
What is about NHL Cards? No Word about Hockey. Is Hockey dead for Collecters?
I Just Think They should go back to Real Companies like Stadium Club, Hoops, Fleer, Upper Deck, Topps, Skybox and Go back To Actually Putting Real Action Photos from the Sideline with the Surrounding View, Put the Audience in the BackGround like the 90's Cards. 99% of all Card Hobby Collectors were only cause of the 90's Cards and how they Looked So Good. No one buys cards today. Go back to Good Looking Cards with Real Photos and Go back to 20 Cards per pack for about 5 dollars Then Millions of People will get into the Sport like it was in the early 90's. Without the Early 90's and the Way it was done in the Early 90's there would be 2 people in the World that buy or care about cards. 90's Had it Right.
I stopped buying football and basketball. The reason being the boxes are more expensive than baseball. Also if you buy them you can get dud boxes. In baseball at least you get something that is collectible.
@@BigEdandThePups imo baseball cards feel and look more well made
@ you buy a box of absolute football. If you don’t get a kaboom you wasted your money. It’s just not fun to med
So make the cards kids and low income can afford the least valuable. Got it.
Get the parents in the hobby again ,kids will come
Because American football is your biggest sport and 90% of the whole collecting hobby is driven by gambling. Red reels.
The ability to fake this crap now and in the future will kill any chances of making money. Buy gold people 😂
Also I feel like all this is not true
It’s a Junk 1/1 era….