UD Griffey what is going on
 

PSA 10s appear to be going close to ..... 4K?????? Meanwhile, 10s of Randy Johnson -- probably a better pitcher than Griffey was a hitter, honestly, arguably top 10 of all time -- sell for 150. Bubble? Market manipulation?

I don’t know. There are about a trillion Griffey‘s out there. But it’s long been considered one of the iconic cards of the hobby.

The ‘89 UD Randy Johnson is not.


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Sure but you can now buy 25 Johnsons for the price of one Griffey.

Is there a large and loyal community of Randy Johnson collectors? At $150, his PSA 10 are priced the same as my Mookie Wilson 1981 PSA 10s. Don't get me wrong, Mookie Wilson is super awesome and is a top 5 all-time Met, but he doesn't have Randy Johnson's counting stats.

Card prices are often not driven by best career stats. Sure Johnson was better than Griffey as far as overall career goes. And Hank Aaron (and many others, take your pick) was better than Mantle as far as careers go. But there are a whole lot more Mantle and Griffey collectors than Aaron and Johnson for reasons other than just statistics. Throw in that the iconic nature of some cards increases demand and price exponentially, and you get a second year Mantle or a junk wax airbrushed Griffey rookie that sell for many times what other comparable cards sell for. It's supply and demand. Every collector wants a Griffey in their collection, if for no other reason than nostalgia over what that card used to be in the hobby. Just like a Mattingly or Canseco rookie. But there is no nostalgia for a Johnson rookie.

The 1989 Upper Deck Griffey is considered an iconic card, almost from the day it first appeared in 1989. For many years, the kids of that era longed for that card to be the cornerstone of their collection.

Great as Randy Johnson was as a pitcher, he's never been considered a cornerstone collector card.

Plus, remember Griffey was an advertisers dream in the 1990's when our current generation of collectors were kids. RJ not so much.

Sometimes, yes, it is that simple.

Rich

For sure, I understand why there is a large gap, 25x just seemed rather astonishing when the second card is the RC of an all time great.

Yeah, it's hard to rationalize. When it comes to base cards, especially junk wax base cards, the supply is virtually endless. It takes incredible demand to overcome the supply. So only the iconic of the iconic can break through. But once they break through, and demand outpaces supply, the sky is the limit, because everybody wants the iconic and will fight each other for them, even when there are 4,000 floating around in a PSA 10 holder.

179,000 graded copies — crazy. Anyone know what the #2 all-time graded card is? McGwire '85 Topps?

I've never been able to understand why/how collectors are willing to pay up for cards in plentiful supply. I just say "No!" when a surfeit of demand acts to push a card up to silly prices.

I would guess 1989 Fleer or Topps Traded Griffey or some Pokemon thing.

Isn't it also a pretty much accepted theory that Upper Deck printed a boatload of extra Griffey Jr. cards?


....or did my tinfoil hat get the better of me just now?


Randy Johnson was a beast. He was his era's Nolan Ryan....but better. Also, no steroid stink on him like Clemens. Just didn't capture peoples imaginations outside of inside baseball people for whatever reason.

You don't even need a tinfoil hat, UD employees/exec outright stated that McWilliam ordered them to do so in Card Sharks.

When I worked in a shop during the late 90s to mid 00s, a guy walked in with an 800ct box of them. I thought this was insane at the time but I have since read several others sharing similar stories of seeing these 800cts at card shows at that time as well.

Thread needs a card:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...244e44cba0.jpg

Fair enough!

Just a note to add to this

"You don't even need a tinfoil hat, UD employees/exec outright stated that McWilliam ordered them to do so in Card Sharks"

Yesterday was Pete Williams' birthday. I'm sure he'd be pleased to see people still remember his work on Card Sharks

Regards
Rich

It was a great book -- one that piqued my interest in getting back into the hobby.

The sheer popularity of the 89 UD Griffey Jr being so great that it outweighs the sheer amount of cards is kinda impressive. Even paying $50+ for raw or $70+ for a PSA 8 seems far too much compared to how many are out there, but the prices keep holding.

It's also a testament to junk wax that a totally rare occurrence of Pedro Martinez only having 1 RC issued by any company (91 Upper Deck Final) can be had raw for a couple bucks and a PSA 10 for around $40.

Top 20 all-time pitcher, no other option but this for his RC...$40 for what is considered a "best of the best" example.

While not as valuable, the market is similar to the '86 Fleer Jordan. There are 50,000+ graded copies of that card, but the demand will never die. Meanwhile, Barkley, Olajuwon, Malone, Stockton, etc. can be had for cheap.

I will pay a million dollars for an 86 Fleer Stockton. :)

Sorry, I had Star cards on the brain:-)

Sold

That's a beauty!

I suppose we can give Fleer a break in '86, but to miss him two years in a row...

The Jeter SP is another Griffey like card even though it was a slightly more premium product for the time. There’s still a million of them.

Those were highly condition sensitive, so there aren't very many PSA 10s out there.

Has Jeter lost a bit of the iconic status he had a couple of years back? I don't know, I don't follow it closely, but I suspected that eventually he might drop a bit due to not being a home run hitter. On the other hand, despite a very long stretch of mediocrity by the metrics, Pujols with his 700 HR I think will endure. And we have seen what happened to Mike Trout, now seemingly destined to be a .230 hitter as he plays out his career. How do you now rank the post 1980 hobby icons? Griffey seems clearly at the top. After that?

I would say Pujols and Ichiro. Barry Bonds' paper seems to move well also.

I was interested in this card this week until it went absolutely insane. The Bonds market appears very strong.

I think the 86 Topps Traded Bo Jackson will be a lasting card too. Not rare but as soon as future collectors find out who Bo Jackson was they’re going to look for it.

That photo is iconic, no doubt. I'm partial to the '86 Donruss Rookies use — getting this card signed at a local show is what reeled me back into the hobby::

Here's mine. I think Bo will be one of those guys who will forever be collected. He has a lot more going for him than Deion. I don't know anyone who wants Deion baseball cards:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7eb7e56c17.jpg

Bonds is not surprising to me. As time goes on less and less people care about the PED usage, and the generation that watched him play as children grow older. 10 year old me, did not even know what steroids were. He did know that Bonds was built like Hercules and clobbered 500 foot moonshots.

And on paper, even with an asterisk attached to his name, He's still has 7 MVP's, a slew of gold gloves and 762 Home Runs. Unless if his records are stricken from the books (Which they won't be) his numbers will continue to live on in infamy.

Let Spike Lee tell you about it...

https://youtube.com/shorts/Im_RYVvWQ...oWgB2exAO0P3OE

This stuffs better than stocks.