Huggins & Scott have the Holy Grail

[barrysloate]

If these guys are busting open cases as a form of gambling, it's pretty unlikely they are going to stay in the hobby and develop into serious collectors. When they get bored looking for chase cards they will move on to something else.

[GrayGhost]

Weren't the same things said in another thread before about the Chrome Superfricker or whatever? Seems to me like a lot of repetition here.

[packs]

Chase cards are designed to move product. Topps is going to sell more Bowman 2010 boxes and packs because people want the Strasburg. The same was true for pre-war sets. The chase cards were intended to be money makers. You were going to buy as many Goudey packs as you could get your hands on looking for that Lajoie, except the difference is you can actually get the Strasburg. The modern chase card game is a lot more honest than the pre-war one.

[HRBAKER]

Or the pre-war "chase" cards could be looked at the opposite way as well. They were short printed to be money savers, thus allowing the company to give away less baseballs, bikes or whatever. In that case I think they served two purposes, move product and prevent redemption.

[Matthew H]

On the modern card blogs they are doing the same thing people are doing here. Posting pickups, bst, etc. If you look on youtube you will see people busting boxes, they get excited when they get good cards they want to add to the pc, when they don't, they will offer them up for trade in the video. Then other collectors comment that they want to trade for the card. I think it's a legitimate hobby

[Bosox Blair]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

If these guys are busting open cases as a form of gambling, it's pretty unlikely they are going to stay in the hobby and develop into serious collectors. When they get bored looking for chase cards they will move on to something else.

Or when the bottom drops out of the value.

This relates to something a couple people have stated in this thread - to the effect that any attention or drawing in of new collectors is a good thing.

Not true if they become disillusioned or feel cheated by the hobby.

In the late 1980s to early 90s, people were diving into the hobby...only to evacuate later and mostly never return. These people felt (rightly so) that the card companies had played them for fools. The promise or implied promise of profits was a lie. For a lot of these people, even the mention of baseball card collecting will cause a shudder and a bitter taste. Many of them don't even differentiate between the 80s/90s junk and the pre-war stuff that has always had good value and interest.

I think the inevitable collapse in value of an item like this which has grabbed the attention of the public is bound to be bad for the hobby.

Just my opinion...

Cheers,
Blair

[HRBAKER]

Blair,
Well stated. I think we all know the long term prognosis for these cards' value. Maybe I will be wrong but I am not willing to play and find out.

Jeff

[Matthew H]

I wouldn't compare this to the 80's 90's stuff.
These cards are legitimately scarce. If there were machine stamped 1/1 rookie card color variations from 80's topps sets, They'd probably be worth money.

[Jantz]

I happened onto Beckett's website a few weeks ago to check the show calender and one of the headlines was about the Bowman Chrome Strasburg 1/1, that had recently sold on Ebay for $16K, being graded by Beckett. I believe it had received an overall grade of 9.5. The board members on Beckett's message boards were ripping Beckett for clearly overgrading the card. After looking at a scan of the graded version myself, I had to agree with the board members. I know grading is subjective, but according to Beckett's grading standards on their website, the card was definitately overgraded. I felt like they gave it a 9.5 just so they could ride the publicity train that this card was generating.

Jantz

[Matthew H]

Jantz, Beckett has a video on youtube explaining how a flawed card can still be gem mint. It's actually kinda funny to watch them hold that card and explain how an off center card can be gem.

[ullmandds]

I'm confused here...does Topps own Bowman? And if so...is topps producing both topps/topps...and bowman...made by topps cards?