Modern today, vintage tomorrow
 

I find most modern cards gimmicky and overvalued, but I think there's some good investment opportunities out there on all-time greats that modern collectors don't appreciate. Even though cards are discounted because players are retired, I have a hard time believing that cards like this Ripken that are relatively cheap today won't go up in value in the coming decades (plus many of them just look great).

Does anyone else collect modern thinking someday they will appeal to vintage collectors?

No. I'll buy a couple packs from time to time just to see what they look like. But I have no further interest in modern day cards any longer. With all the chase this, SSSSSSSSSSSPPPP that, parallel here, 1/1 that aren't really 1/1's and the list goes on.

There is no collector focus on set collecting anymore. Now it is just base cards that are wrapped around chase cards. Base cards are basically forgotten to the new collector.

I will probably buy the last true Topps Baseball set. But only for the nostalgia of it and only if it is not foolishly overpriced too.

I'll just continue on all things Y2K and previous. For me, that works.

JMHO - Butch Turner

Don't see much of a future investment wise. Too many made. Ripken signs so much his auto will never be rare. Even serial numbered ones like you show don't have a lot printed , but overall with the amount of sets that come out every year there is just too much.

Production & Options
 

The main issue with today's cards is they are all wildly overproduced. The thing that makes vintage so appealing is the supply is capped and will always be what it is. Modern living players will continue to have cards produced, sign said cards, and contribute to the dozens upon dozens of cards available per player every year.

There will always be value in Modern, especially with the best of the best. but there is also abundantly more supply from guys who played in the 80s or after.

Sure, some signature Rookies of modern day superstars will have value and hold or go up in time, but the average card of Cal Ripken has light years more supply than 50s/60s cards of guys like Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Koufax, Clemente etc.

It will never be a nothing, but the guys like Cal and Griffey and many other players just have sheerly monumental more cards available than the 70s and before. Add to that, that people didn't hold onto their cards back in the 50s/60s or care about their condition remotely the same as 80s/90s kids, and its apples to oranges. There is a reason that these modern cards are valued the way they are, its a saturation thing. There are literally hundreds of awesome cards of Cal readily available and Cal signs 30 times a year.

Overproduced ??? 1 of 1's 1 of 10, 1 of 100 etc. How about the T206's, now that was overproduced ! Even after WW1 and WW2 and the paper drives and moms throwing out cards etc. , their are still plenty of them for sale after 100 years. Any estimates of how many were printed ???

Yes extremely overproduced. Yes a 1/1 is kinda rare if you only look at that single gimmicky card. Thing is there are tens/hundreds/thousands of 1/1s of that player so they really aren't rare overall.

I like them but only buy if extremely cheap. The last one I bought was a Ted Williams with a bat piece for under $10.

modern/old
 

I feel these modern day cards of HOF players of years ago ..although ( supposedly limited) ...just dont think there is large enough demand to push investment/prices

Even with the immortals - Mays, Mantle,Ted,...I dont see it

Although I will say its really cool to own a Killebrew signed card with a splinter of a bat, Aaron uniform piece, etc..

Every collector has a like and for everything made there is a buyer.

For me I am happy in my lane in the vintage collection world and I am happy to stay there

Cards like this have been around for quite a while now. It seems like they all still sell. All of the old Score Mantle cards sell; the Upper Deck Ted Williams, Reggie and Nolan Ryan cards sell; the Pinnacle Joe D cards sell.

Not a new thing and I think the past makes it clear that people will collect newer cards of their favorite players because it's their favorite player on the card.

Is there a site that tracks 1/1s? There is one for almost everything else. I would be curious to know how many Wade Boggs have been made. They make way more cards of him now than when he was playing. I would imagine that is true of most top of the food chain players.

Tomorrow is today. When I set up at shows, I find that younger collectors think of 1980s-1990s cards as vintage. Last show I did, two guys were looking for "old school" players from the 1980s-1990s. I get a similar reaction at least a few times a show now.

So much of it is perspective. I think of anything made after 1980 as modern and anything made after 1989 as shiny crap, but that doesn't hold for someone who hasn't been collecting for 50 years. I found a gorgeous 86 Donruss Canseco at a small card show yesterday for two bucks, in a seller's vintage box. I vividly recall when that card was the absolute bomb, during that 40-40 season. I never had one at the time--too expensive on a law student budget. I had to pick it up.

The 1 of 1, 1 of 10, 1 of 100, etc. typically happens to be all of the same player. So, yeah overproduced. And then the image variations that have spawned yet another tangent thread of a card.

Then, let's not forget about all the colors of the rainbow. A perceived rarity of a card, that already has been overproduced by the previous stack of numbered cards of a player.

And I forgot, refractors, atomic refractors, nuclear refractors. et. al.

It is really funny to watch how no one wants to go back to the junk card days of the 80's and 90's but the card companies sure have done just that. They just package them differently now.

JMHO

Butch Turner

I collect modern and vintage, whatever I perceive that has value and of course hall of famers.
For those of you saying the "modern shiny stuff" will have no upside , I invite you to check out the 90"s basketball inserts, particularly Jordan, Kobe, Shaq et al..