What is the long-term value of Game-Used cards?

[michael3322]

Hi everyone. I know a number of collectors focusing on Game Used bat/patch/jersey cards for current and HOF players.

Topps/UD/Razor have been pumping out these and cut autos for several years now, and I am wondering what you think about the long-term value of these cards. For example, a bat card of Ty Cobb varies significantly in price depending on how it is numbered, even though the bat shaving might be identical in shape/size.

For example...a few years ago it was hard to get a Ty Cobb game-used bat card. Now, just a quick survey of recent eBay auctions reveals that they are plentiful and that their prices are as low as $30 and maybe even less. And yet the same slice of bat card can also sell for 10x more.

Here are just a few very recently SOLD items on eBay...

TY COBB 2010 TOPPS TRIBUTE BLUE GAME BAT #60/75
Sold for $30.66

2010 Topps Tribute Ty Cobb BLACK REF BAT #/50
Sold for $34.01

2009 TOPPS T-206 TY COBB POLAR BEAR GAME USED BAT
Sold for $100

2010 TOPPS STERLING TY COBB 6X BAT CARD #1/1
Sold for $255

TY COBB 2004 DONRUSS CLASSICS AUTHENTIC GAME BAT 08/10
Sold for $325

Ty Cobb Autos also reflect this range...(same thing here: these are recent items sold on eBay):

2007 SP LEGENDARY CUTS TY COBB CUT AUTO AUTOGRAPH #1/2
Sold for $2370

+1/1+Ty Cobb+Signed+Top​ps T206 AUTO+PSA/DNA+20​09+
Sold for $1200

TY COBB auto check PSA/DNA 9 Tigers HOF
Sold for $1146

What do you think about the value of the Game Used cards in the long run? As more and more come into the supply are the older ones worth less? With Sterling, since there are 6x pieces, does that mean that 1x pieces are less desirable? I'd love your thoughts.

Thanks,
Michael

[ctownboy]

To me, the long term value of these type of things is the same as the short term value -ZERO!! That is because I will NEVER spend my money on them.

First, I can not stand the thought that a REAL bat, jersey or whatever was destroyed to make thise type of crap. There were only so many REAL bats or jerseys in existance to begin with and time has taken care of losing or destroying some of those pieces. So, a limited pool of authentic pieces was already reduced and then these clowns come along and DESTROY another piece on purpose.

I have an idea, why don't we try this with an original work by Da Vinci or Shakespeare?

How about we jsut cut up the Magna Carta, the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?

Those old things shouldn't just be stored in some rich guys vault or in a museum only for a certian select few to be able to own or view. No, they should be available for MORE people.

Well, that is NOT happening to those type of historic items and it shouldn't be happening to baseball pieces either. The people who thought of this should be arrested and jailed for destroying property and the companies should be sued and put out of business.

Also, how can ANYONE know if these are actual pieces of the item they are purported to be? Who is to say a person at the company didn't just go out and find a 100 year old piece of Ash lumber and then take it to a lumber yard and have them plain it down and then shave pieces off of it?

No, I think these are wrong on a number of levels and that the value is ZERO!!

David

[fkw]

Many advanced collectors hate these, including me.

Most collectors who collect new stuff advance into vintage later on, and rarely does a collector of vintage go the other way and collect new stuff again. New stuff is dominated by younger collectors. I read all those boards to learn and dont ever have the urge to buy a new cards.

I dont like mixing vintage cuts with modern bright gaudy cardboard. and they ruined so many nice letters and personal checks full of baseball history cutting them to fit into a new card.

I really hate the vintage game used garbage too... ruining many museum quality bats and uniforms to make a $.

On a related note... Pseudo rare 1/1 which are intentionally made rare wont hold value. They are a limited edition like a beanie baby, collector plate, or Franklin Mint item. Not a true rare item which became rare over time.

A truly rare item has to become rare unintentionally, usually by low production numbers, with most being used and abused and then trashed. ie cards, stamps, comic books, steiff bears, vintage Halloween stuff, beer cans, movie posters, vintage Pez, even hotwheels or tootsietoys.

Everything now days is a limited edition and hoarded in unopened unused condition, no way they hold value IMO

PS Bit OT but I have tootsietoys too

[lancemountain]

I can understand the feelings of "ruining" a Cobb bat for a card, but to be fair.....


Topps can make thousands upon thousands or more cards with a Cobb bat embedded. So yes, a Cobb gamer was destroyed...but instead of being in one person's collection, it is in thousands of baseball fan's cards. It only takes a sliver of the bat for many thousands of collectors to have a piece.

Just mho

[teetwoohsix]

I think we will all be long gone before any of todays modern cards start holding "real value"........100 years from now maybe?

I agree with David and Frank about cutting up bats and letters and all that- just WRONG. All the way around.

But I am not against modern cards using "older card type designs",,,,sort of paying homage to the true classics. Just don't destroy precious artifacts so everyone can get "a crumb".

Clayton

[michael3322]

These are all excellent points guys. Thanks for weighing in.

I'd love to hear someone who collects these cards comment to so that the rest of us can better understand why they are putting their money into these cards. After all, if no one was buying these cards, then they wouldn't be increasing as a percentage of cards sold these days. People ARE buying them and collecting them.

[Bilko G]

Someone correct me if im wrong but i believe all these 2010 Topps bat cards of these legends are NOT actual game used bats from for instance Ty Cobb. They are dated to his era and are only "game model" bats. I was looking on ebay to read what the COA says from one of these 2010 Topps cards, but guess what? Not one auction posts a picture of the back of the card stating what the actual relic is. That is why these are selling so "cheap". There are older REAL game used cards that sell for much more, but these 2010 Topps cards are not actual Cobb game used pieces i believe.

[Bilko G]

Oh and to answer your other question, i don't collect these as in constantly adding them to my collection or actively looking to add more, but i do own several game used jersey cards of Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Lou Gehrig and other vintage legends. I bought these cards many years ago back in about 2004 or so. I bought these cards and wanted them for my collection because it is the closest i will ever get to owning a game used item of theirs. I am not filthy rich where i can drop $50K buying an entire game worn jersey, but these cards allow to me to own a piece of a game used item for a fraction of the price. Even if it is a small 1 inch swatch on a card i can still look at the item and know it was worn by Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle in an era before i was born and it gets me as "close" as i can get to that time in history and to those particular players.

I do agree that i wouldn't want to see, say the last of a particular item get cut up or something that is on display in the HOF. But i will say that i am thankful to the card companies for giving the "average Joe' like me a chance to own a piece of history like this that i might never get to see in person, hold and own. I personally think that it is a lot better for say several hundred collectors to be able to own a piece of a Mantle uniform instead of one really rich guy, whose wife makes him "display" his Mantle jersey in his basement and it never sees the light of day again.

[bbcard1]

They have certainly moderated.

But I buy a few. I think they are kind of cool.

As for an investment, I am not counting on any ballcard I own...even the Ruths and Cobbs to act as an investment vehicle.

I honestly don't think the world is poorer for having one less pair of Ruth pants that becomes cards. I honestly wouldn't want a pair of Babe Ruth pants...but I am quite happy having a babe ruth uniform card.

[esd10]

In ten years they will be worth nothing and the autos will be found as fakes. Its so sad they cut up historic items just to sell packs of cards and what i always wondered what happens to the D on cobbs uniform? and the yankee's emblem from babe ruth jersey? they dont put them on the cards and if they do i have never seen one.I hate the idea of cutting up uniforms of deceased players its not like today where they get 1 or 2 jerseys per game.

[Exhibitman]

Forgetting for the moment the issue of whether GU cards should be made:

The GU items will always have some casual appeal, especially those made from items from contemporary players who are likely to make autograph appearances later on. The certified autographed will always have appeal to autograph collectors. Yes, there are bad ones--surprise, surprise, bad autographs. But the vast majority of the signed stuff is good. Players' autographs will always have appeal and a market, and signatures certified by a major MFG as real will always have buyers.

That said, the long term value prospects are crappy IMO. Very few of the cards have had great price gains year over year. They seem to peak the year of issue then plateau or even start to decline as the issue loses its cachet. Take the 1997 Topps Jeter autographed card as an example. Great looking card, nice signature, sure-fire HOFer and Yankee. I pulled one from a pack in 1997. The card price hasn't budged since then--I saw two for sale this a.m. on Ebay for BINS of $125 and $195. As I recall, they were selling for about $150 during the late 1990s. And the manufacturers keep adding more to the supply of GU and auto'd cards. All you need do is look at the bins and bins of them at the National offered on the cheap to know they are not a good investment.

[bbcard1]

Originally Posted by esd10

In ten years they will be worth nothing and the autos will be found as fakes. Its so sad they cut up historic items just to sell packs of cards and what i always wondered what happens to the D on cobbs uniform? and the yankee's emblem from babe ruth jersey? they dont put them on the cards and if they do i have never seen one.I hate the idea of cutting up uniforms of deceased players its not like today where they get 1 or 2 jerseys per game.

I am pretty sure many of the numbers and patches have been removed from vintage jerseys...every now and then I have gotten one where you could tell something had been removed.

[bbcard1]

Follow up question....do you think that today's players will make card show and autograph appearances with the frequency of old time players? They have made millions upon millions of dollars and Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter will NEVER have to make an auto appearance if they don't want to. Will he allure of say a Austin Kerns in ten years be the same of that as a George Altman was ten years ago?

[53Browns]

Yeah, bad idea slicing that stuff up! Nice Tootsie Toy Frank!

[NeuhartCards]

I tend to agree with the thinking...However, look at it this way:

Our hobby is on the edge of extinction as it sits now. I just opened a card shop, and I see very few children coming in the front door. If the thought of pulling a g/u Mantle or Pujols card gets them into the hobby, I am all for it.

The bigger problem I see is the fact that, like everything, the manufacturers over-do it. Instead of putting one or so per box, or making it a big pull, there are thousands of g/u cards and they are losing their appeal.

Our hobby will never return to the days of yesteryear...as much as we would like it to. It is our job to bring in the younger collectors...at what cost, I don't know.

My long .02.

[Republicaninmass]

close your eyes what do you see....

They are kinda neat, other than a novelty not quite sure

[Exhibitman]

Some points on a lazy Thursday afternoon:

--Whether or not modern GU/Auto cards are appealing depends in part on whether you like and follow the current game and want to collect something from it. If so, you obviously cannot collect vintage cards of modern players. For me, I try to pick up autographed modern cards of players I enjoy watching, like Jeter or Ichiro, and if I see a GU card that I find appealing I might pick it up too if it is cheap. When I had a chance to go behind the scenes at Dodgers Stadium some years ago I picked up a bunch of modern GU cards for my nephew and I to get autographed by some of the players we liked.

--Orioles1954, you are right and wrong. Some posters are not especially tactful in their responses and some posts do 'diss' modern cards for reasons that have little relationship to the question the original poster raised. However, you may also consider that there is a difference between criticizing a collector for collecting and criticizing the item being collected. Many people here loathe the practice of cutting up jerseys and bats to make cards with little chips of jerseys and bats on them. Their expressions of their disgust for the practice is not personal; don't take it that way. Also, the thread was opinions on the long-term value of GU cards, and there I think the posters discounting the potential future appreciation of those cards based on performance over the last decade or so have good points.

As is often remarked on this site, collect what you want. Just don't take others' negative opinions of what you collect to heart. Life it too short to worry about what other people think. Besides, we all spend countless hours playing with baseball cards. We're all dipsh**s.

[ls7plus]

I agree completely with David--what the card companies have done with truly historic items (assuming they could ever be truly established as having that status now) falls into the tragic category. As to value, they are best categorized as a fad, with no lasting monetary value at all. If you take the time to actually study items that have become quite valuable in our collecting field, as well as others (with coin collecting especially having followed many of the same trends and patterns, but having had the benefit of having been around in an organized fashion for 120 years longer), you will find that they all have as common attributes rarity and signifance. Any gold coin bearing a date of pre-1834, for example, is rare and significant, because the vast majority of them were melted down for bullion value, since at the time, the bullion value exceeded the coin's face value. Most U.S. coins from the 1790's are enormously significant, as they are the first coins issued by the United States as an entity, and are not only rare in many cases, but enormously significant (they might be seen as this country's "rookie" coins). Any authentic Babe Ruth card from the 19-teens, twenties or thirties is significant and in many cases legitimately rare (with the obvious exception of the 'thirties Goudey issues). The game-used materials cards will never have these attributes.

[fkw]

Some are coming down on posts in this thread for knocking modern collectors. I wasnt doing that at all.
Some of them are very knowledgeable in their chosen field! I actually spend more time on FCB than here, they have more threads and really know their current players and future prospects... and Im clueless on some of the modern card topics so like to read some stuff I dont know already for a change

IMO its much tougher being an "Expert" on modern stuff, than an "Expert" on vintage stuff, for the simple fact that there is 100X++ more modern stuff out there to remember.

FWIW, I was just giving my opinion on the topic title.... "What is the long term future value of Game-Used cards?"
No one knows for sure, but many of us have followed trends in this hobby for many years and would make a good guess at the answer.

[JasonD08]

I think they will become worthless almost as in the days of the shiny new inserts of the early 1990s. I do however, see autographs on true vintage cards increasing significantly. Just do an ebay search and try to find some of those from the 50s and 60s. Those are on the flip side very undervalued. You can easily find 30-50 game used cards for one vintage card autographed in most cases.

[teetwoohsix]

Originally Posted by Bilko G

Someone correct me if im wrong but i believe all these 2010 Topps bat cards of these legends are NOT actual game used bats from for instance Ty Cobb. They are dated to his era and are only "game model" bats. I was looking on ebay to read what the COA says from one of these 2010 Topps cards, but guess what? Not one auction posts a picture of the back of the card stating what the actual relic is. That is why these are selling so "cheap". There are older REAL game used cards that sell for much more, but these 2010 Topps cards are not actual Cobb game used pieces i believe.

I think this is the case. Another thing Topps is doing now (maybe they have been for awhile, I don't know) are these "commemorative patches". On the back of the card it clearly states "The embroidered patch featured on the front of this card was created exclusively for 2010 Topps Baseball Series 2".

I don't think there was an issue here of dissing modern collectors, I think it was an issue of how people felt about cutting up pieces of baseball history and manufactured scarcity........

[cdn_collector]

Without getting into the debate of right or wrong with GU cards, I think the long-term value of these cards is pretty low.

As at least one poster noted above, if you're going to make money in these cards it's by pulling them from packs and flipping them while they're still hot. This is based on very little experience in that arena [I own exactly 1 GU card that I bought this year after waiting 5-6 years for it to be available for under $10], and as always, I'm sure there are exceptions.


Regards,

Richard.

[Rich Klein]

But I've been on both sides of the aisle on this --- and each side has tons of merit

I've posted on this before and will do either later tonight or over the weekend

Rich