[VoodooChild]

From what I've learned about dabbling in modern collecting over the past 10 years is that the serially numbered, autographed, bowman chrome (the ones that have the "1st Bowman Chrome" icon on them) are the most sought after cards generally. I do consider those pre-rookie but they are "on-card" autographs which is also a plus with most collectors. I pretty much learned to stay away from those. There are very few unknown prospects anymore. The top tier 1st Bowman Chrome, serially #'d, autograph prospect cards can run from a few hundred to a couple thousand at first release. Even the second and third tier guys will run in the hundreds.

I now focus on Topps Series 1, Series 2, or Update gold parallel cards with the "RC" logo on them. The gold parallels are serially #'d to the year of the release. So this year they are #'d to /2019 but they don't have any weird refractor/x-fractor look to them. I normally pick most guys up for under $10 but some of the hot rookies could run about $50. Here's the most recent one I picked up from the 2019 Update series: