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DJI simply LOATHE modern cards to be honest with you. I miss the good old days (even as far back as the late eighties) when Ken Griffey Jr. had three rookie cards and then he was added in Traded sets (that's okay), but today, a player like Albert Pujols will have 60-70 different cards for the current year alone counting all the variations.
His normal rookie card will be the least expensive because of all the 'Inserts' and nothing today holds it's value it seems. I have a subscription to 'Beckett' and I'm astounded at the down arrows of 'anything new' next week and I like the fact that two pages represent 1909-1970 and the other 40 are from 1990-2004.
It used to be fun. Go into a store, purchase a box and pay $18 and have fun with it. I enjoy the fact that there are certain levels of box pricing depending on who is issuing the cards. It also started in 1989 when Upper Deck came out and then Topps had to one up them with Stadium Club and then Fleer had the 'Flair' and then 'Zenith' and then Pinnacle and then Bowman's Best and so on.
Basically today the person purchasing the box doesn't care about the regular cards but looks for the gimmicks, the high dollar cards...the Game-Used-Piece-Of-Clothing with a Signature that is Limited To One and where the book says it's worth $2000 (only to be worth $1000 next week). While there are collectors out there who still fancy the products, the truth of the matter is that there are those who simply gamble for those big dollar cards amd they have a better chance at a casino.
DJ