Next Hot Players

[Wannabeoldschool]

Looking to see what everyone thoughts are on who they believe will be the next hot player or set. As I'm getting back into the hobby, I'm looking for investment opportunities early with undervalued cards.

Thanks for sharing!!

[swarmee]

Well, for this age of sets:
Topps 1952, 1954, 1956, 1972, and 1975 are always popular.
High numbered cards from many sets are popular.

When you say you're looking to invest, are you talking about high grade hall of famers? Normally the biggest gains are made in Hall of Fame rookie cards in high grade. Commons normally tread water, unless they're in high grade and being chased by registry set collectors, or are high-numbered or Short Prints.

Oddballs are sometimes fun: Post, Jello, DanDee, Hires, Berk Ross can be worthwhile if you learn all the little variations.

[Johnny630]

I'm holding cash waiting for the market to tank. I believe our hobby will go lower before it goes up. That being said I'd say the 53 Topps Mays in the highest grade possible would be a safe bet along with any mantle 59 and earlier in the highest grade. I'd shoot for the 52 Bowman and 53 Topps Mantle.

[pokerplyr80]

With the emphasis on rookie cards in the market and rising prices there may be opportunities in second and third year cards. I believe these are under valued and appreciated. 69 Ryan, 64 Rose, 56 Clemente, and many others. I'm a big Mantle fan personally, and think his cards are always good investments, as well as enjoyable to collect and own.

[Wannabeoldschool]

Has the hobby lost value in the past and if so when?

[SAllen2556]

Has the hobby lost value in the past and if so when?

I can think of 2 instances right off the top: the strike in 1994, and the little crash we had in 2008. 1994-95 was especially brutal.

And I think if you were to take 95% of the cards in "collector" condition as far back as 1991, I don't think you'd see the sort of return to justify baseball cards as an investment. I could show you old price guides and hobby magazines from then to prove it. It's only been the absolute hobby superstars (Ruth, Cobb, Rose, Mantle, and a few others) that if you had purchased back then in lower condition you'd at least be doing ok.

It's the high-end graded cards of practically anyone that have gone nuts since graded cards came to be. PSA 9, PSA 10's - The happiest collectors who are in the hobby for the investment (I am not by the way but I find the topic fascinating) are the people who purchased these ultra high-end graded cards. The invention of graded cards, especially from PSA, will always be seen as the watershed moment in the hobby, as far as prices go. If I could go back to 1996 and purchase three or four PSA 10's, or even 9's, I could retire this afternoon!

The debate, even as far back as the 80's, has always been how much higher can these high-end cards actually go? Are their enough collectors entering the hobby to maintain these prices? Will all the corruption in the hobby finally take its toll on prices? Hasn't happened yet. And if people were asking these questions 20 or 30 years ago, wouldn't the logical answer in 2016 be no? High-end graded cards of superstars have been a great investment; they are currently a great investment, and they probably always will be a great investment.

[1952boyntoncollector]

I can think of 2 instances right off the top: the strike in 1994, and the little crash we had in 2008. 1994-95 was especially brutal.

And I think if you were to take 95% of the cards in "collector" condition as far back as 1991, I don't think you'd see the sort of return to justify baseball cards as an investment. I could show you old price guides and hobby magazines from then to prove it. It's only been the absolute hobby superstars (Ruth, Cobb, Rose, Mantle, and a few others) that if you had purchased back then in lower condition you'd at least be doing ok.

It's the high-end graded cards of practically anyone that have gone nuts since graded cards came to be. PSA 9, PSA 10's - The happiest collectors who are in the hobby for the investment (I am not by the way but I find the topic fascinating) are the people who purchased these ultra high-end graded cards. The invention of graded cards, especially from PSA, will always be seen as the watershed moment in the hobby, as far as prices go. If I could go back to 1996 and purchase three or four PSA 10's, or even 9's, I could retire this afternoon!

The debate, even as far back as the 80's, has always been how much higher can these high-end cards actually go? Are their enough collectors entering the hobby to maintain these prices? Will all the corruption in the hobby finally take its toll on prices? Hasn't happened yet. And if people were asking these questions 20 or 30 years ago, wouldn't the logical answer in 2016 be no? High-end graded cards of superstars have been a great investment; they are currently a great investment, and they probably always will be a great investment.


i always thought it would be scary to pay 10k for a card in psa 10 when a card that is beat up is literally worth a dollar or less like some 1980s topps cards.

I tend to like cards that even if you rip them in half and tape them together they are worth hundreds of dollars. You can do that to a 1951 mantle for a 1914 jackson cracker jack for example. Knowing a card can be ripped up and still be worth money in comforting to me

[bnorth]

Has the hobby lost value in the past and if so when?

Besides the 2 times Scott pointed out it was damn hard to sell anything for about a year after the 9-11-01 tragety.

Looking to see what everyone thoughts are on who they believe will be the next hot player or set. As I'm getting back into the hobby, I'm looking for investment opportunities early with undervalued cards.

Thanks for sharing!!

Hot players/sets are just someone or group hyping them and a bunch of sheeple following. It has been that way for at least the 30 years I have been collecting. I have even seen it on this forum. Here is the secret(LOL) formula, it does not work everytime but with a little help most of the time. Buy a bunch of perfectly centered cards or pick something that was not done so recently then go on a bunch of forums and hype the heck out of that type of card. It really helps if you have a couple people in on it to help post how cool those cards are the forums. Sell when prices climb to your selling point. Crazily this even works with cards that are not rare and easily found.

When buying stay far far away from anything being hyped as cool because as soon as the sheeple stop buying prices will fall.

[Wannabeoldschool]

What kind of corruption occurs in the hobby? Also, what other type of illegal activity is there to be aware of?

[swarmee]

The main ones you'll have to deal with are:
1) Cards that are altered (trimmed or recolored to a better looking condition). If you have an altered card and you send it in for grading, they will grade it Authentic, which counts at PSA for a 0.5/10, even worse than poor. So even a beautiful looking card which has been sliced to look mint will sell for about what a Fair card would.
2) Shill bidding: where a seller, consignor, or buddy bids up the price against you to make you pay more. Similar is when a bidder scores a card for you at a new price and then asks to cancel because "my son made the bid"/"I was hacked". Four people so far are in jail from Mastro auctionhouses because of the years of shill/insider bidding they used to raise prices.
3) Sellers that think an auction ended too low, and cancel the transaction (mostly an eBay thing).
4) Buyer's premiums; pay attention to the fine print when you bid at auctionhouses. Sometimes your $100 bid will mean $140 after you add the BP and shipping costs.
5) Chargebacks: PayPal allows for like 180 days for return of goods for "Items Not As Described or Delivered", much longer than the eBay auction lasts. So I have seen some buyers written about who wait three months after the auction (and it gets deleted off the eBay servers) and then request a refund through PayPal claiming they never got it. So save your PO receipts. If you can prove the card was delivered, you will win the case.
6) Sellers who send out empty boxes to your address and then claim it was delivered and you or the post office stole it.
7) Sellers who send empty boxes to your ZIP CODE but not your house who claim it was delivered because the post office only tracks to Zip code, not your specific address.
8) And then just your run of the mill guys who will "appraise" a collection for nothing, offer 90% of that to take if off your hands, knowing full well that there are gems in there worth 10x the total offer.
9) PSA/SGC cases that are fake or cracked and the card within is replaced/counterfeit. Learn all the different flips that SGC and PSA has used, use bar code reading software to confirm the card is real. Check the serial number on their websites. Look for signs of tampering, like unusually white case edges (frosting) or "popped tabs", where the security gaps that PSA has in their holders are cloudy.

[tschock]

5) Chargebacks: PayPal allows for like 180 days for return of goods for "Items Not As Described or Delivered", much longer than the eBay auction lasts. So I have seen some buyers written about who wait three months after the auction (and it gets deleted off the eBay servers) and then request a refund through PayPal claiming they never got it. So save your PO receipts. If you can prove the card was delivered, you will win the case.

Does ebay feedback help avoid this situation? For example, I sell an item and a couple weeks later the buyer leaves positive feedback "great item just as described" (or something). Since the item is listed in the feedback, and the feedback goes past 6 months, would that help as proof?

It's probably a moot point anyway, since those that leave positive feedback for the item probably aren't going to be the ones doing the scamming anyway.

[swarmee]

It could; depends on who you get on the phone at eBay.