What unopened case do I buy?
 

Vintage collector my whole life. Thinking about investing(gambling) on some unopened newer stuff.
Here is the question...if you had $5,000-$10,000 to buy unopened material right now, what sport/brand would you buy?

Thanks,
Gary.

Honestly, Gary, if I had that kind of money to invest, it wouldn't be in new stuff....I know you said you've been a vintage collector your whole life, so maybe your collection includes all the Ruth's, Cobb's, Lajoie', etc., you could want...but I can't see anything modern being worth that level of investment.

I would buy something pre-war, like a nice rookie card or something scarce/low population like a 48/9 Leaf Paige (btw i love mine) or something like a Dimaggio (SF seals pre-rookie or a opeechee) or buy some nice 33 Goudey Ruths. These most certainly hold value. Then maybe a hot 51 Mantle or Mays.

I would find two other guys with the same mindset and take a shot on an 03 exquisite basketball case. Or an 86 Fleer Box.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2003-04-UD-U...wAAOSwv0tVFPmX

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1986-87-Flee...sAAOSwYHxWJqTh

Or you could buy a few boxes of 93 sp baseball and see if you can pull a gem mt jeter.

Otherwise perhaps a case of panini flawless if you want something really new.

I would not consider any of these options an investment, but they would be fun to open and there's always a chance you'll come out ahead.

If you are lucky enough to find one under 10k, an 86' fleer basketball box would definitely offer the best investment hands down. (A case would cost you a very nice house.)

I gave up on the modern years ago, other than I get one auto rookie of all new signings, trades or drafts of the Lions and Tigers. I just grabbed a t206 cobb with my most recent purchase and am fully in the non-modern boat.

That said, if it was guaranteed non-searched, I would drop 10k on an 86' fleer box in a heartbeat.

89 score football is an intriguing option. Price still well below it's high point, marginal scarcity, and tons of rookies with a cool design.

That's why I said you'd have to find a couple other guys to go in on it, or the 03 exquisite case. I would imagine either would be 25-30k. If you find that box for 10k you can double your money quick because I'll give you 20k.:D

Another idea would be a few boxes of 86 topps football, see if you can pull a 10 rice, young, or reggie white rookie.

It's not sexy, but I'd lock in a handful of cases of 2016 Bowman now. If you bust and list within a week of release it's almost impossible to lose money. The negative is you'd have to wait until April for release. Heritage and Ginter are also easy quick sales, but they've already passed this year. There is a 51 Heritage coming out in the next few weeks but I'm hesitant on it because there isn't a precedent.

If you want to gamble, buy any high dollar case and hope to hit the lottery. If you want to invest, load up on Bowman draft next month and hold 18-24 months. If to want to make a quick buck, bust the known commodities (Topps, Heritage, Ginter, Bowman, and Chrome) and sell everything you can in the first 10 days of release while set collectors are rabid and the hits are inflated.

Perhaps no one has noticed, but PSA Gem Mint 10 '85 McGwires are making a serious recovery at the moment--it wasn't that long ago that this was a $300 card, and sales have crept up from the $500 range earlier in the year to solidly above $600, with PWCC selling one recently for $999!!!

The younger generation cares more about the joy McGwire and Sosa brought than the juice they used to get there, and MLB, if you haven't noticed, is definitely downplaying the PED thing when listing all-time, landmark totals being approached by current players. I think even Costas might have gotten the word from above to tone it down. Unopened '85 Topps might therefore do quite well, if you are determined to go modern instead of vintage.

Best of luck on it,

Larry

I noticed too a little bit just of the cult of collecting GEM mint 10...younger people like those labels more......PSA 9s a bit as well....I think the McGwire psa 9s went from about 50 bucks to 150-200 bucks....

I agree with Larry but wonder how much unopened '85 exists and if this will continue long term or not. Perhaps unopened Desert Shield boxes, if you can find any......

Z

if you're doing it to bust and sell, i think you can do OK with just about any newly released product, as mentioned above. anything with numbered parallels will end up selling as well as GU/AU cards.

I too really like Desert Shield for the future, with its very limited print run (in the 6,000 range), with a sizable portion of it actually going overseas as it was intended, and thus incurring significant wear on many examples (some of it was intercepted somewhere along the way, and appeared on dealer tables around and shortly after the time of its issue--I stocked up on Frank Thomas, Bonds, Griffey, Jr., etc., but somehow missed Chipper Jones--darn!). High grade examples should do well, but watch out for counterfeits--there were several such illegitimate creations of the Desert Shield emblem going on regular Topps cards at the time. TPG is better in this instance now than raw.

Best wishes,

Larry

So which one are you going with?