2011 Topps Update Trout, to buy or not to buy

[orly57]

Originally Posted by VoodooChild

I agree, but in this case I believe we are talking about Trout's BASE 2011 Topps Update RC and not some shimmer ice superfractor auto card.
I'm not 100% sure, but I bet I paid less than $5 for mine back when it was released and now they are are selling for $1,000. That's why I asked about the production of that card. Are there 5,000, 20,000, 50,000 or more of them out there? Let's imagine that Canseco turned into Hank Aaron and had a HOF career. Would any of his 1986 RC's (non-Tiffany) be selling for $1,000? I don't know the answer. I guess a PSA 10 would....ugh

For sure, Jason. My rant wasn’t about trout. I was addressing your second point about prospecting. I think you did great buying up Trout cards.

[sbfinley]

I can very easily see the card maintaining and even growing it's current price for several reasons.

A. It is the iconic base card of a generation and it's not available in factory sets. This is gigantic and drastically cuts down the number of copies in the marketplace. Don't get me wrong, the card isn't "rare", but base cards not available in factory form are strictly more difficult to come by. In addition, 2011 Update was an afterthought in the hobby at the time and it was the popularity of the rookie and prospect class of 2011 that made the supplemental set popular and led to increasing print runs with update post 2011. Honestly as a whole, Topps Flagship was dying until 2011 - supplanted by Heritage, Ginter, and more importantly Bowman as the faces of the market. 2011 changed that with arguably the best rookie crop in 30+, amazing looking parallels and chase cards, and interesting consumer products (Value Boxes). 7-8 years ago "1st Bowman" and "1st Bowman Chrome" were 'the' RC base to own and now it has reverted back to Flagship - 2011 is the reason why.

B. Recency bias - When iconic cards reach certain thresholds it's takes a lot to drastically reduce their value. A great comparison in value would be Griffey's 89' Upper Deck RC. The card has pretty consistently held it's value when a peak baseline was created of $300 in PSA 10. (I actually just realized it increased to a $450-$600 in PSA 10 which surprised me.) Now compare the ease of finding 89 Upper Deck unopened 30 years after the fact compared with the difficulty of finding unopened 2011 update less than a decade later.

C. The card has reached four figures for graded mint copies, and I honestly don't believe that the majority of baseball fans realize that we are watching someone who will retire as the arguably the best player in the history of the game just now enter his prime. He has played in one postseason series, rarely plays in prime time, and when he is on national television it is usually a 10 P.M. eastern start on MLB network. The average baseball fan likely sees him play live less than a dozen times a season. So what are we missing?

WAR since his 1st full season: 1st-1st-2nd-1st-1st-6th-2nd-2nd
Off War since 1st full season: 1st-1st-1st-1st-1st-2nd-1st-1st
OB+ since 1st full season: 2nd-3rd-3rd-1st-2nd-1st-1st-1st
Adjusted OB+: 1st-2nd-3rd-1st-1st-1st-1st-1st-1st-1st

Someone else stated it before, a world series berth would explode his prices even more.