I simply do not understand Modern - Doncic vs Mantle
 

I am bored, sitting ay home, and waiting for football to start. So, to pass the time I am looking at every auction house I can think of. I saw a post here that PWCC extended its monthly premier auction last minute, and so I decided to look at what's in that (still open) auction. Really, there is nothing for me at all, as I counted a total of 3 pre-war cards in the whole auction (including a Magie error); its probably 80%+ new and shiny football and basketball with maybe as much soccer as baseball. Anyway....

Here is what I just do not understand: There is a 2018 National Treasure, Rookie Patch Auto, 7/99, of Luka Doncic, graded BVG 9.5, that is currently sitting at $280,000 before Buyer's premium. There is a also a 1952 Mantle, PSA 7, currently sitting at $240,000 before Buyer's Premium.

Luka Doncic has played in the NBA 3-4 years and has won absolutely nothing. Mickey Mantle is a first-ballot HOFer, who played almost 20 years with the Yankees, appeared in 12 World Series and won 7. He is an icon of his era. This Doncic card comes in at least one other exact same variation, except its numbered to 20; I am sure that same pic is on many other Doncic cards. The 1952 Mantle is likely one of the top 3 most iconic sports cards of all time. Not to mention, there are only 75 non-qualified PSA 7 Mantles, with only 56 non-qualified graded higher (close to the 110 of the Doncic RPAs)

How/why is a 2018 card of Luka Doncic worth over $50k more (with BP) than a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7???!!!

I get I am a fossil, and I collect cards of dead guys that many young people dont care about, in a sport becoming less popular with each generation. But I am not talking about an E92 Eddie Collins or even a T204 Walter Johnson. I am talking about a PSA 7, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle. I simply do not understand and cant help thinking/knowing that the winner of this Doncic (and many similar cards) will take a bath unless he/she flips it ASAP (and I pity the person holding the card when the bottom drops out)

Don't try to think like a millennial social media apps cryptocurrency nouveau riche tshirt wearing guy with 50 pairs of sneakers, you'll never get it.

I don't understand it either, other than to say it will probably all end badly for people paying that kind of money for contrived scarcity. I dabble in modern for sports teams and players I like, but at a reasonable level.

Just a pee-pee measuring contest among the new generation of investor-collectors. Besides, it's PWCC. A lot of collectors won't even deal with them and I am guessing that many of them are into vintage and don't trust anything PWCC sells as not having been doctored.

Most of us are in the same fossilize boat as you and most of us are in the similar vintage collecting universe.

We appreciate the history of the game and the cards we collect.

Millennial’s and new money put money in the people and subjects they know and do not necessarily know or appreciate the past.

So their purchases will be modern and of those that are known/famous to them

Sticking with the older stuff here--Much better than stocking up on Joe Burrow & Crappiolo, Josh Allen, Stafford Rc's...while the Mahomoes & Brady been on a tear.

I think you answered your own question. That, and we're in a bubble right now that has led to all kinds of crazy valuations, not just in cards. Maybe there is an end to it looming; the meme stocks from 2020-21 have been getting hammered these past few months. Or maybe not; I've given up trying to time the market.

Because someone might pay more for it...someday. greater fool theory in action

Do you think it's going to be like the junk wax of the 90's? Everyone was so sure the price was always going to go up but they got left holding the bag.

Just a few weeks ago I was discussing this very subject with another board member.

This Ruth sold at auction in December for far less than what many Lebron James rookie cards are selling for at the moment.

Just let that sink in for a bit! :eek:

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If the Chiefs Bills game is really good tonight like last nights Packers 49’ers this Auction Might Get Extended till Monday, why not, it’s ok to do.

It's really pretty simple - demand. Modern basketball has a worldwide audience to a level that vintage baseball doesn't.

I get that, and I could almost understand it if it was a 1986 fleer Jordan psa 10 or THE top Lebron or Kobe card. But this is Luka f-ing Doncic. This guy has done nothing. He has won nothing. He has had barely more than a cup of coffee in the NBA. In fact, the Doncic card I mention in my first post is currently at about what 1986 Fleer Jordan PSA 10s have been selling for, on average, over the past year (according to VCP). So ignore the comparison to mantle (or Ruth)- why is a Luca Doncic for selling the same as a Jordan?!

Its just pure speculation and day trading. Jordan can't really do anything now to make his cards more desirable and popular. If Doncic wins an MVP or a title, people can flip the cards and make a profit.

If people looked at actual reality, they'd realize that Doncic has basically no chance to be considered better than Jordan. So his card price ceiling should realistically be whatever an '86 Fleer Jordan PSA 10 is worth. You can argue that if he has cards with a lower POP, like an NT RPA numbered to 99 or lower, I can see a PSA 10 selling for more than an '86 Fleer MJ PSA 10. But that is a small handful of very specific cards, and that assumes Doncic goes on to have a career that puts him in the discussion for best ever. Which is kind of crazy, given that Lebron is currently still playing, is a far superior player to Doncic, and already has a massive trophy case/list of career accomplishments, and some people dont even put him on Jordan's level.

Pure daytrading and speculation. When all of the sneakerheads leave the hobby migrate to NFTs or whatever comes after NFTs, I think we'll see the hobby return to something a little bit more sane. Lots of people are gonna lose a lot of money in the process

I also don't understand Doncic cards. At least LeBron and Serena are clearly at the top, or near the top of the historical greats list. Watching him play, to me, he is somewhere below James Harden in skill level. He's the second best player on a championship team, i.e., like KD and Harden.

On basketball-reference, they have a stat called "similarity scores" through 3 seasons. Here are the names they compare him with...

Mo Cheeks
Calvin Murphy
John Logan
Glen Combs
Allen Iverson
James Harden
Otis Birdsong
Eddie Jones
Louie Dampier
Bob Davies

I'm puzzled by this as well. Doncic is one of the most overrated, overhyped players in the game right now.

BTW- I “almost” could understand if it was Jordan, but even that I really don’t even understand how that is more (even close) to a 52 mantle psa 7, considering there are a zillion 1986 fleer Jordan’s, most in high to super-high grades. And there is zero reason a Jordan in any condition- even one that smells like his farts- should trade for than one of the 100+/- babe Ruth rookies, in any condition

You're not alone. Nearly all the members of this board, even the twenty-somethings, are fossils.

I, for one, am proud (and glad) to be a fossil. While the "millennial social media apps cryptocurrency nouveau riche tshirt wearing guy with 50 pairs of sneakers" types have been buying modern the past two years, I have been acquiring Mantles and T206 HOFers. Had the newcomers targeted vintage instead of modern, my collection might have remained fairly static during 2020-21.

So, let them pay exorbitant prices for the Golden Ticket Rainbow Shimmer Ultrafractor of what's-his-name. Meanwhile, I'll be paying (slightly) less ridiculous prices for "pictures of long dead sporting men."

Credit to Peter Spaeth and Steven Finley for the quotes above

The thing with Jordan is that he is the greatest, bar none, basketball player of all time, there's no denying it. There is no one on the horizon to take his legendary place. And basketball is much bigger than baseball around the world. So to me, his rookie cards will forever maintain their value, regardless of how many are out there.

Supply is only half the equation.

Johnny, I think today is going to be wild with 2 Championships on the line and for for those of us with skin in the game, the REA closing tonight. I can see myself stumbling between tv and office to check bids. Should be wild. I think even though it one of their sub prime auctions the bidding is going to be nuts.
And when we talk about dead fossils, let's not forget a very much alive former player dear to our collecting hearts: Willie Mays.

Agree ! Willie Mays is one of my favorites to collect.

I’m looking for a 53 Topps PSA 8 I’ve seen the 7’s on eBay and HA don’t care for them.

Nothing wrong with owning a "few" pairs of sneakers.:D

I have called modern cards a game of hot potato for a long time.

Wonder how much that Yasiel Puig superfractor is worth now?

Wait..but .it was a 1/1... with 164 different variations

Haha he's talking about you Octavio!

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He's 22. He's done - a lot - more in the NBA than Jordan had at a similar age. It took Jordan 7 seasons to win a title but he was still incredibly popular before that.

I get it - his cards are probably overpriced but the demand is clearly there.

Why is anything worth what it is, especially cardboard that is easily faked, even encapsulated with a bar code? I damn sure wouldn't base my portfolio on cards unless I planned to cash out before all this stuff crashes.

Do not get it either
 

In the context of today’s stock market tech valuations, NFT’s, crypto, I understand how Donik and the like sell for astronomical valuations. Ruth will always be valuable and most of these modern created rarities will collapse. To the modern collectors these cards are worth it, but having seen numerous bubbles in my 67 years this sure looks like one. Print a rookie card, paste a piece of a uniform and an autograph and suddenly it is a million dollar card? I am sure there are people out there who can justify it as the new way of collecting. To me it spells B-U-B-B-L-E.

Do not get it either
 

In the context of today’s stock market tech valuations, NFT’s, crypto, I understand how Donic and the like sell for astronomical valuations. Ruth will always be valuable and most of these modern created rarities will collapse. To the modern collectors these cards are worth it, but having seen numerous bubbles in my 67 years this sure looks like one. Print a rookie card, paste a piece of a uniform and an autograph and suddenly it is a million dollar card? I am sure there are people out there who can justify it as the new way of collecting. To me it spells B-U-B-B-L-E.

Exactly, next year how many new 1/1 Luca Donic auto/GU cards will they turn out? And the year after that, and the year after that, and so on.

Depends. Signed by him or Lulu?

They are not making any more Doncic rookie cards, Bob.

Buying cards of active players is definitely speculative and I guess Luka cards could have a "bubble" if his career doesn't pan out. But overall the basketball card market is pretty solid, the game is popular and the fanbase is global and growing.



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Aaahhh, didn't realize they were talking only about a rookie card. Still makes no sense for that kind of price though.

+1

Nice! The Rainbow Shimmer is my favorite variation too.
The extra sparkle means more $$.

;)

Long-term value versus short-term value

Naw. Much better to spend exorbitant amounts on 100-year-old cards of what's-his-name because his name is spelled wrong.

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Basketball has been an absolutely brutal market for much of the year. Prices are down 50% or more since they peaked in 2020. Yet the cards that have held their gains the best are the older superstars: Russell, Chamberlain, Alcindor, etc. I think the same will be true of other sports' cards.

One thing that hasn't been discussed are the altered and counterfeit modern cards (and holders). I think we already have experienced a wave of modern card alteration that the TPGs of choice (PSA, Beckett) for modern just do not do a good job of detecting, and we are at the start of the great wave of modern card counterfeiting. Some of the reprints of old-tech modern RCs (like 86 Fleer Jordan) are really, really good and are hard to detect unless you know exactly what to look for.

There's also the question of whether any of these buyers are in it for more than a short term gain or bragging rights among people who are dabbling in the hobby and will readily move on to vintage game cartridges or whatever is the next thing to catch their fancy. Does anyone really think that a Luka Doncic card will inspire the same "from my cold, dead hand" collector mentality as a Ruth or Gehrig RC?

The biggest issue I have with modern is that LeBron James, Tom Brady and Mike Trout are unicorns--Wally Joyner, Kevin Maas and Gregg Jefferies are the norm--but the modern RCs are priced within a matter of weeks as if every prospect is a James or Brady level talent. They are also abundant in top grades, as we see with the Jordan RC, and very volatile; just ask the schmucks who paid over $700K for that card and watched prices drop by 50% in a few months. Buying and selling modern seems like a game of speculative hot potato and I believe that whoever is left with the card at the end is gonna get burned. Vintage has definitely taken some major price leaps forward in the last several months but relative to modern seems a better deal. A Foxx RC sells for a fraction of a Doncic RC? W.T.F.

Height of insanity.

https://goldin.co/item/2020-bowman-c...asson-dom5w961

https://yanksgoyard.com/2022/01/23/y...ight-comments/

Yep. I would bet there are quite a few disappointed Zion Williamson (aka Greg Oden 2.0) "investors" out there atm...

Like what?

I just went and had a look at the stats, and he's not really even close.
Jordan led the league in points two of his first three years.
Led in ppg his third year.

And one of those years was nowhere near complete. Injuries? Maybe, I forget.

Doncic hasn't even cleared 3000 points in any of his three years.

Steals, Jordan was around 200/year
Doncic hasn't even reached 100/ year


That's not exactly the sort of dominance that makes a 300K gamble more than a very long shot

Modern cards are a whole lot more volatile because the players' stories are not written yet. Looking at individual cards the gains are higher and the losses too. I think for modern you need to look at a basket of cards and see how the value in total has moved over time. Otherwise it's hard to get a true picture.

For example, 10 years ago I bought two rookie cards for $75 each, one Amare Stoudemire and one Yao Ming. Amare is now worth $25 while Yao just sold for $900. These are two extremes but overall I would guess that basketball card values have increased about 5 times in the last 10 years. A little bit better than baseball maybe, but not much.

But I am more confident in the basketball card market than baseball. Basketball has a global fanbase, with total fans 2-4 times baseball. The average basketball fan is much younger than baseball, and basketball popularity has been increasing over the last several years as baseball popularity has declined.

I think the whole sports card market could go through a correction as part of an overall economic pullback, but I really don't see basketball on the leading edge of it.

I hope this doesn't come out sounding wrong, but is there perhaps a bit of the Great White Hope thing underlying some of his popularity?

https://theshadowleague.com/luka-don...n-waiting-for/

Anyone who's collected for decades is keenly aware of the history of fleetingly hot prospect and rookie cards. Pete Incavilia, Eric Davis, Daryl Strawberry, Joe Charmineau, Ki-Jana Carter.

I hope these folks know their history.

Absolutely it helps his popularity. Along with Jokic two of the NBA's top players are now European.

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Haven't Jokic and Doncic always been European?

But these guys at least were in the major leagues. People are paying $150,000 for a Jasson Dominguez card, who is on the bottom rung of professional baseball. Yikes.

Hah. Actually there are 3, Giannis Antetokounmpo was born and raised in Greece. The point is the diversity is good for the game, it gives fans more to relate to.

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Oh yeah, I agree. I'd probably mention Joel Embiid in that conversation too. (Not European but Int'l - raised in Cameroon)

Agree. It also can lead to an increase in demand (and as a result price) for these players as they may have entire countries or areas of the world now wanting their cards. It wasn't too long ago that it was pretty much only Americans interested so much in basketball cards.

Anyone want to take guess at what a Yao Ming 1/1 rookie card would go for today if he had just entered the NBA in the last couple of years instead of back in 2002?

Money on the level of what Zion's cards were being offered for.

It can be pretty crazy to see stuff like this happening - agreed. However, we all know that certain professional athletes have always been very popular although they're not the best or even close to being the best. For example, the most iconic vintage football card in the hobby is the 1965 Topps Joe Namath rookie. The last PSA 9 sold for quarter of a million and this was all the way back in 2018! Today, it could be worth over a million or even two million! Now, is this guy the greatest QB ever? Nope. Top ten? Nope. Top twenty? Nope! See what I mean?

Let's get back to Doncic. If this guy wins only one championship (like Namath), then this card is going to be a winner. Only 99 examples exist out there and the basketball card market is way bigger than football.

Oh my God! Did I just defend modern cards? What the hell is happening to me? :eek::eek:

Age. I said age. Go look again.

Namath's title is possibly the most famous one in the history of American sports (and the most famous upset). It may have single-handedly propelled the NFL to eventually reach the behemoth status it has today in the country. It has the lore of the his swagger and guarantee. Probably the most remembered football game ever played.

Doncic would have to win many rings to even come close to his legacy comparing to that. And in the long run, I think his cards will need those kind of results to keep up with today's values.

As I have posted many times, the Namath card is the perfect storm, it's irrelevant that he may not be in the very first rank of the pantheon of quarterbacks. The Namath RC has little relevance to Luka Doncic.

I was thinking with Chinese money we could be talking closer to these Doncic rookie type numbers maybe.

That is pretty good. Tulips anyone?

It's very relevant, Peter.

Namath was an average (or slightly above average) QB. He had maybe three good seasons as a player and won his only ring against a team whose star QB was injured. And yes, that QB was Johnny Unitas! A healthy Unitas would have picked the Jets apart. And finally, after the AFL/NFL merger, I believe the Jets never made the playoffs again with Namath as their QB. But people still love him and will pay big money for his 65' Topps rookie card.

So, with Doncic, it's the same thing. When his career is over, like Namath, he might not rank in the top ten, or even in the top twenty, and he might only get a ring or two, but as long as he has this enormous fanbase, then I expect this rookie card of his to keep growing in value.

Demand for cards, particularly today, seems to be based more on star power than actual production. Or maybe 60/40 star power to production. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Guys like Vlad Jr and Soto are very very good players but they also have star power. You don’t want to be the bathroom when they come up. Go to a baseball game anywhere in the country and you see young kids wearing their jerseys. Go to a Yankee game and still see Reggie jerseys. They have pizazz and flair. Not so much for many other very good players.

Babe Ruth of course had both to spare. Hence his exhaulted position in the hobby. My guy Lou was a little lacking in pizazz.

Namath's card has joined a small pantheon of iconic FB cards. The player's rank relative to the rest of the HOF is not really relevant. National Chicle Nagurski, 1955 Topps AA Thorpe, 1958 Topps Brown, 1965 Topps Namath. None other than Brown reflect the GOAT at his position, really, but all are so iconic for collectors that they are at the top of the heap regardless. Unitas was a far better QB than Namath but his RC pales in comparison. Even newbie collectors know these sorts of cards. I had a meeting with a newbie collector/client (Millennial who started during the pandemic) and he absolutely freaked out at holding a 1952 Topps Mantle in hand. Took a photo and sent it to his fellow newbie collector Millennial friends. That doesn't happen with many cards. Is Mantle the GOAT? Nope. Ruth has that sewed up. But the 1952 Topps Mantle is iconic, so it revs up collectors like few other postwar cards can. I could have handed him a much rarer Ruth card and it would not have had the impact.

Ok but you picked 3 football players that might be in the top 10 all time, and then Joe Namath. It is easy to see which one of those is different from the others.

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Soto and Guerrero are already among the top handful of players in the game, as is Doncic. And they are all young so they likely will become even better. I don't think think the excitement about them is misplaced.

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As a life long Jets fan ill point out that they made the playoffs the very next season in 69. Gotta get credit for every playoff appearance since it doesnt happen often lol

There are certain players whose popularity is always going to be well above their talent level for a variety of reasons. Mantle is the most obvious one. Namath too, although I think he was better than Samosa characterized him. Roger Maris comes to mind. (all New York so far, hmmmm.) Bill Bradley (hmmmm). I would say Kobe, actually.

I think Doncic is about the 15th best player in the league.

Here's how he ranks on media sites that list their top current players

CBS #5
NBC #9
ESPN #6
The Ringer #10
SI- my laptop almost crashed trying to see the list

Leonard is out so far this year, so you can bump Doncic down one spot on each list when he returns.

I'm not bashing Doncic, he's a nice player.

I don't follow football but I know those cards. That is my point. The Namath is one of the handful of attention-grabbing cards even among casual collectors. Thes players' relative rankings are irrelevant: the hobby values them without regard to relative ranking. The Johnny U 1957 RC is not one of the iconic cards, even though he is way better than Namath.

How did he become 15th if the lowest he is on any of the media sites is #10?

The players' relative rankings are irrelevant? You don't really mean that. Virtually all "iconic" cards feature an all-time great player. Surely that is more than coincidence.

Obviously there is more to an "iconic" card than the status of the player. The set itself plays a part, and there is often a special story surrounding the player, card or set. Not all great players' cards get to be iconic, but the circumstance where the iconic card is of a player not in the pantheon of all-time sports greats is rare.

Nagurski did not make the NFL official all time 100 greatest team. Just sayin. Dutch Clark did though.

Hi, David, I think players like Trae Young and Zach Lavine are better than Doncic, and the people who compiled the media lists had a different opinion from me.

Namath is known outside the hobby. He is a cultural icon known by the person on the street. If Jay Leno still did Jaywalking, would anyone know Luca Doncic? I would guess almost everyone I know in "real life" has never heard of Doncic, but would recognize the names of Namath, Mantle, Mays, and even Maris. Kobe? yes. Doncic? who?

So you don't know ANYONE that's a sports fan? Weird.

My family and friends outside the card hobby would know LeBron James and Tom Brady, and maybe Arod, but not Juan Soto and Luca Doncic. They also don't collect baseball cards.

Age is mostly a non- issue unless it's something like a rookie getting into the league at 30 or something like that.

He has played well, but long term I think there's downside that's being missed.

He didn't get any college experience, which maybe hurts him as a player, maybe not.
On the other hand, it may be the best for him financially. He misses about 20 games a year, so it looks like he may not be the most durable guy. Rushing into the NBA at a young age will make him more, but if he's not really ready physically and becomes perpetually injured his career won't be as long as it could have been.

I doubt the early start will give him 18+ seasons instead of 15. But who knows.

I just don't see a card of him being anything more than a big gamble at 300K

https://t206society.com/wp-content/u...ront-21217.jpg
https://cdn.sportscollectorsdaily.co...rror-PSA-2.jpg
https://prewarcardsdotcom.files.word...pg?w=180&h=322
https://images.collectors.com/smrweb...dstromPSA3.jpg

Your facts still do not hold water. Jordan won an NCAA championship and Pan Am Games gold medal at the age of 19 AND an Olympic Gold medal at the age of 21. The Olympic medal alone easily overshadows what Doncic has done.

Luka Doncic isn't just some chump or random top 10 player. You guys keep saying "he's done nothing". That's ridiculous. The guy won the Euroleague MVP at the age of 19! The youngest winner ever. That's no small feat. The Euroleague is legit. It's the 2nd highest level of basketball there is. What he's done already stats-wise at the age of 22 is unprecedented. He already has the most triple doubles of anyone ever by the age of 22 (and he still has more 22 year old games to play). More than Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Lebron James, Jason Kidd, and Russell Westbrook. And while he's not the current favorite, it is noteworthy that Vegas betting lines opened the season with Luka as the favorite to win the MVP this season. He's not just good, he's great, and he has the potential to be a future multiple MVP winner. There's a reason his contemporaries praise his game as much as they do. The guy is the most impressive young player in the league by a long shot. And lol at whoever said Trae Young was better. You obviously don't know basketball. Defense matters, and Trae Young isn't just a poor defender, he is the worst ranked defensive player in NBA history going back as far as we have sufficient data to be able to evaluate defensive performance (which is something like the past 30 years). He is literally dead last. The worst defender over that timespan.

Whether his talents justify his market prices though is a different question. I agree that I would rather have a nice 52 Mantle than a similarly priced Luka card, but to compare a national treasures RPA card to a vintage base card is like comparing a signed game used Mickey Mantle jersey to a Mickey Mantle card. They're not even in the same ballpark. If there were the equivalent of an NT RPA Mantle card numbers to 99, I'm pretty sure that thing would FAR exceed any other Mantle card value wise. If you want to compare the flagship Mantle "RC" to the flagship Luka RC, then it's not the RPA, it's the Silver Prizm, and a PSA 10 of that goes for around $3k, not $300k. The National Treasures RPA cards are almost an entirely different form of collectible altogether. It's a high end product that is more akin to collecting memorabilia than it is cards, even though it technically is still a card. It's a limited edition product with a very low print run that caters to a very limited group of high end collectors. It's just a very different market.

C'mon. Please read what I actually wrote and respond to that. Here it is again:

I've even highlighted the key portion for you.

He's never missed 20 games even once. 10 his first year, 14 his second, 6 his third. He's got a chance at missing 20 this year. Unsure how many of the games missed are because of injury and how many were "load management" that so many teams like doing these days.