Actually it sounds a lot like you became very biased simply because te hobby changed on you. Your facts are a bit warped.
For example it was UD who originally came up with the first deal to make cards for McDonalds in the first place.
And Upper Deck sells more cards to kids with products kids not only can afford but can get good cards put of than any other manufacturer in the history of hockey cards.
Sounds like you just wanted things to stay the same. Actually I miss the old days too. But just because the old days are gone, doesn't mean it's all UD's fault. They have treated this hobby better than any other manufacturer.
If you want to blame someone, blame the collectors for buyin in to gimmicks. No card company can make money if the collectors aren't fueling their market reports.
Sorta both. I want to know what I might be able to get for it just in case.
Edit: When I looked a few years ago I saw one that sold for 1,100 US(It's been the only thing I've found on it), but have no idea what I could actually get for it.
Last edited by AndyPipkin: 08-07-2012 at 04:00 PM.
I looked through my card collection. Didn't realize how many good Young Guns cards I had. Ovechkin, Karlsson, Backstrom, Hedman, Bogosian, Letang, bunch of others.
It stopped being for kids when cards like these were made.
The product that card domes out of definitely isn't for kids. But there are plenty of products out there for kids made by both manufacturers. In fact the manufacturers pride themselves on producing a product or two for every price point. For example, Panini puts out a good value product called Score that is a buck a pack. Any retail chain that sells packs, Target here in LA is one, will sell packs priced for kids. Some of them you can hit great stuff. Earlier this year I bought a blaster box (20 bucks in packs, like 10 packs, sealed in its own box) and pulled a hundred dollar+ card of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins UD Canvas Young Guns.
I looked through my card collection. Didn't realize how many good Young Guns cards I had. Ovechkin, Karlsson, Backstrom, Hedman, Bogosian, Letang, bunch of others.
Young Guns are great. They come out of cheap packs but are highly respected amongst collectors as rookie cards.
Are there any sets out there that harken to more simple times, insofar as having relatively plain or non-garish borders, natural photos that aren't messed around with a lot, have cards for around fifteen players per team, have stat lines on the back that go beyond one year, and have no tin-foil or sparkly things on them?
Or stated in simpler terms, sets like the old Upper Deck ones that first came out? I seem to recall they did something like that for Baseball in the mid-nineties with a series/set called Collectors Choice: just simple cards with simpler designs, more stats, etc...
Would love to be able to buy a set of hockey cards each year that was made for the simple fan and not the hardcore collectors - not that there's anything wrong with hardcore collecting as well, just seems like the hobby has skewed almost entirely in that direction.
Patch, #/50, signed, from the cup and number 08 (or is it 06 ?) Make that card worth a lot on ebay.
If a card is numbered and that number is 1, or the player's number it adds more to the value.
I want to get Beckett to grade cards, but it would cost 100s of dollars....
BGS offers a service where if you send in bulk cards, like more than 10, and ask for the turnaround time to be over 30 days (maybe its 60) they only charge $8 US per card. They'll charge another fee if the card is autographed because they'll grade te auto too.
My recommendation is if your card is /100 or less, don't bother getting it graded. The exception will be any important rookie card...a lot of the /99 RCs are worth grading. Otherwise the best cards for grading are the ones a lot of people like but are very common.
Also be very strict on grading your own cards before you send them in. If you get a below average grade, not only are you out the grading fee, your card becomes worth even less than an ungraded copy. If your card receives an average grade like 9.0 for a new card, it will also be worth less. Only if your card gets a 9.5 or higher is it worth more and potentially the growth value is higher than what you paid for the fee. There's no middle ground.
Actually it sounds a lot like you became very biased simply because te hobby changed on you. Your facts are a bit warped.
For example it was UD who originally came up with the first deal to make cards for McDonalds in the first place.
And Upper Deck sells more cards to kids with products kids not only can afford but can get good cards put of than any other manufacturer in the history of hockey cards.
Sounds like you just wanted things to stay the same. Actually I miss the old days too. But just because the old days are gone, doesn't mean it's all UD's fault. They have treated this hobby better than any other manufacturer.
If you want to blame someone, blame the collectors for buyin in to gimmicks. No card company can make money if the collectors aren't fueling their market reports.
Bias has nothing to do with it. They have quite simply flooded markets, created artificial value and made it impossible for kids to set build. UD Victory is probably worse than 1 ply toilet paper. 2009-10 consisted of 340 cards plus 50 Game Breakers 1:4 odds, 42 Oversize (odds?), 50 Stars of the Game 1:4, Black Parallel 1:720 (RC 1:1440), Gold Parallel 1:36 (RC 1:144).
Care to calculate perfect collation on that?
I'm wondering if you subscribe to the notion "don't blame the drug dealer, blame the drug user"?
Are there any sets out there that harken to more simple times, insofar as having relatively plain or non-garish borders, natural photos that aren't messed around with a lot, have cards for around fifteen players per team, have stat lines on the back that go beyond one year, and have no tin-foil or sparkly things on them?
Or stated in simpler terms, sets like the old Upper Deck ones that first came out? I seem to recall they did something like that for Baseball in the mid-nineties with a series/set called Collectors Choice: just simple cards with simpler designs, more stats, etc...
Would love to be able to buy a set of hockey cards each year that was made for the simple fan and not the hardcore collectors - not that there's anything wrong with hardcore collecting as well, just seems like the hobby has skewed almost entirely in that direction.
Sometimes I want to open some crazy stuff but sometimes I just want to finish a huge set with every freaking player and have the cards be old skool cheap.
I would recommend the following sets: Panini puts out a dollar a pack product that nearly every retail and hobby shop has, called Score...it's a retro brand naturally where it's mostly regular cards on an early 90s design. Upper Deck has O Pee Chee, which obviously is a retro product...huge player list and is like 600 cards. Like old skool 80's O Pee Chee it's a tough set to build and very popular in Canada. The design is like old cards and they're even printed on pulp! And there's the best brand out there, Upper Deck base brand. This year's was so strong that the Young Guns RC of RNH booked for a hundred bucks. Not bad for a product that's usually around $3 a pack. The photos on the cards are awesome and it's a borderless design to highlight the action photography on front. Its released in two series and the regular cards including YGs are all relatively easy to find. Last year's product has already gone up by 33% because people bought it all up and busted the packs already.
All three products above have some game used jersey cards and if you're lucky maybe an autograph or two. They are all fun sets to chase.
No, I just know far more than you do and have no bias for or against, unlike yourself. The numbers of cards trading hands on a daily basis and the sheer numbers of dollars for just new hockey alone is insane.
For example, I collect Drew Doughty and the Kings. If I had the money I could buy quantity of any Marcel Dionne card that I wanted including his rookie. I could spend a week (plus a couple weeks for shipping) and gather 50 copies of his best card, his RC because it was printed in the millions. I could do the same with Yzerman's best RC too except I could easily get 100 copies of that.
There are cards of Drew Doughty that any collector would want but I'd struggle to get even 5 copies in a year even if I offered triple guide price. Even waving the money in someone's face they wouldn't sell to me. That doesn't sound like "worthless" to me. I'm on eBay every other day looking for certain players.
No bias, and i don't think you know much at all. You seem to be among the minority who still sees the point in buying the new shiny toy, but guess what your limited to 5 auto patch card of Doughty will be in five years when there have been 20 of those cards released each season? Pennies on the dollar for what you paid for it. They will be worthless in the long run, the way any random jersey card or autograph card (which used to be worth huge money for random shmoes) used to be. Cards is now a fools game. And sorry, but no, there are not a million copies of Marcel Dionne`s rookie card bro. Maybe if you count the bike spoked ones that may as well be used as fire starter.
Like all other collectables designed to be a collectable, current day cards will have no value in the long term.
low #'d cards of all stars from top tiered sets with unique patches will hold their value.
No they won`t, simply because there are still dozens of limited cards of each player each season. Your card, as nice as it is, is limited to 50, but how many other cards limited to 50 of any given player are made in a year? Multiply that by a 10 + year career, and what do you have? Hundreds of cards that only player collectors and the odd set collector will be after. And there aren't many completist player collectors around anymore, they can't keep up with the volume of these cards that the companies are putting out. No long term value is in these cards. You'd be better off moving that out for some nice vintage cards, those are the only ones that will have value long term.
The product that card domes out of definitely isn't for kids. But there are plenty of products out there for kids made by both manufacturers. In fact the manufacturers pride themselves on producing a product or two for every price point. For example, Panini puts out a good value product called Score that is a buck a pack. Any retail chain that sells packs, Target here in LA is one, will sell packs priced for kids. Some of them you can hit great stuff. Earlier this year I bought a blaster box (20 bucks in packs, like 10 packs, sealed in its own box) and pulled a hundred dollar+ card of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins UD Canvas Young Guns.
They design some sets for kids, but not many kids collect cards these days. That's just fact.
If I buy a box of SP Authentic, am I guaranteed to get something good?
You should pull like 3 or more on card autos. Some of them are good to great, most of them are blah.
If you get a big thrill out of opening autographed cards, no matter if it's Alex Ovechkin or Alec Martinez, go for it. As a general rule I only open this product if I'm buying five or more boxes as when you whiff, you can whiff big. This is one of my favorite products as I've broken over a hundred boxes of it and hit plenty of crazy stuff but it's pricey and many boxes are duds. This years' product is the best in many years though with more autos and goodies on a per box basis than the previous five years.
This is the best set for autographs.
Once in a while I'll see someone open a box and get like 10 autographs in one box...happened to me once. One of the cards was a six-signed card of all Maple Leaf HOFers.
They design some sets for kids, but not many kids collect cards these days. That's just fact.
Retail stores sell thousands of dollars in cards a day. Their main audience is kids and they put the packs right next to the Polemon and Yu Gi Oh. Now for them to stock a few hundred dollars in hockey product across every store they have...that's a lot of cards. Even in LA, far away from Canada, there are a lot of stores. Adults don't go around buying Victory.
No bias, and i don't think you know much at all. You seem to be among the minority who still sees the point in buying the new shiny toy, but guess what your limited to 5 auto patch card of Doughty will be in five years when there have been 20 of those cards released each season? Pennies on the dollar for what you paid for it. They will be worthless in the long run, the way any random jersey card or autograph card (which used to be worth huge money for random shmoes) used to be. Cards is now a fools game. And sorry, but no, there are not a million copies of Marcel Dionne`s rookie card bro. Maybe if you count the bike spoked ones that may as well be used as fire starter.
Like all other collectables designed to be a collectable, current day cards will have no value in the long term.
You find a fact, warp it, then make a conclusion. Once you warp a fact, it's no longer a fact. For example you talk about Doughty patch cards. Guess what, I collect Doughty but my focus is on RCs and maybe high end autos. I believe that patch cards are dubious in nature since no one can verify who's patch it really is. Is the patch Sidney Crosby? Or leftover Noah Welch? and they do make more and more patch cards. That's true. It's a fact. It's the same reason I won't shell big money for stick name plate cards...because every year that player could get other card like that.
But then you also say I collect patches without seeing my collection. And this your argument fails. You're so against card collecting that everything seems bad to you.
Retail stores sell thousands of dollars in cards a day. Their main audience is kids and they put the packs right next to the Polemon and Yu Gi Oh. Now for them to stock a few hundred dollars in hockey product across every store they have...that's a lot of cards. Even in LA, far away from Canada, there are a lot of stores. Adults don't go around buying Victory.
You're quite delusional if you think any retail store sells hundreds of dollars worth of hockey cards a day. Sure, they sell a lot of cards, but I know a lot of adults who buy them, few kids. None of my son's friends collect hockey cards, nobody in his school does. Hockey cards for kids are almost dead.
To be blunt, Wal-Mart would sell crystal meth if they could get away with it. Anything to make a buck on. And they have small card sections, with very little selection, and despite your claim, they don't sell many.
You find a fact, warp it, then make a conclusion. Once you warp a fact, it's no longer a fact. For example you talk about Doughty patch cards. Guess what, I collect Doughty but my focus is on RCs and maybe high end autos. I believe that patch cards are dubious in nature since no one can verify who's patch it really is. Is the patch Sidney Crosby? Or leftover Noah Welch? and they do make more and more patch cards. That's true. It's a fact. It's the same reason I won't shell big money for stick name plate cards...because every year that player could get other card like that.
But then you also say I collect patches without seeing my collection. And this your argument fails. You're so against card collecting that everything seems bad to you.
Patches are what's hot, so yes, I assumed. Nothing in my argument fails at all, even if they aren't your patches, whoever has them will never see what they put into it back. As per your high end rookies, at one point, Fedorov was a high end rookie. Now you'd be lucky to sell one for a dollar. Why does an autograph on a rookie card make it worth more long term? Its worth more initially mostly because there are few autos out there of the rookies. But after years of autos in every set, the autos of these guys will be worthless as well. Just because they gimmick it up doesn't change that for the most part, these cards will end up valueless.
And I'm actually not against cards. I do collect, but I am not under the delusion that the industry is healthy, or that current cards will end up worth even what they are today, let alone being worth more, decades from now. The one pure fact of collecting in general is that if it is made to be a collectable, it won't end up being worth a damn thing because everyone will keep it in pristine condition. The real collectable pieces are things that nobody designed to be a collectable. Like vintage cards. They weren't made to be a collectable, they were made as something to put in the gum package or tobacco tin to make someone buy their brand over the brand that didn't have them. That's all.
