Has the Junk card era ended? If so, when?

[BioCRN]

As someone who doesn't open ultra-modern and wades through tons of auction listings for singles, autos already take a back seat to many parallels.

Many autos will fall below value of a border variation, especially stamped/numbered ones...well except for the border variation versions with the auto...

I know it's a rarity, desire, demand, etc thing...but I still can't wrap my head around someone rather having an odd border color over a certified autographed card of that same player.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by BioCRN

As someone who doesn't open ultra-modern and wades through tons of auction listings for singles, autos already take a back seat to many parallels.

Many autos will fall below value of a border variation, especially stamped/numbered ones...well except for the border variation versions with the auto...

I know it's a rarity, desire, demand, etc thing...but I still can't wrap my head around someone rather having an odd border color over a certified autographed card of that same player.

For me personally, autos just don't do it for me. I tend to get one auto of players I collect and leave it at that. I'm a card collector, not an auto collector. Give me cool cards with different variations to chase any day of the week over another auto. Maybe I just grew up in an era when autos on cards were sacrilege, so I never got into the pack-pulled auto craze. Or maybe I just don't get the allure of autos on cards. But I have always loved the cards themselves, and prefer a cool parallel to an auto. The 90s are my jam, and I have an extremely extensive Barry Larkin collection from that era. Yet I only own one Larkin auto-1997 Signature Series. And I only own that one because it was his first pack pulled auto ever.

In the end, collect what you like. I don't like autos.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

For me personally, autos just don't do it for me. I tend to get one auto of players I collect and leave it at that. I'm a card collector, not an auto collector. Give me cool cards with different variations to chase any day of the week over another auto. Maybe I just grew up in an era when autos on cards were sacrilege, so I never got into the pack-pulled auto craze. Or maybe I just don't get the allure of autos on cards. But I have always loved the cards themselves, and prefer a cool parallel to an auto.

I'm with you. I'm a card guy, not an autograph guy. I'll go after an Autograph card only if it's attractive in its own right and is a unique card. Therefore if there's a non-Autograph variant of the same card, the non-Autograph variant is the only one I want.