someone explain the new card market?

[packs]

There are really only a few products that carry any value though: Bowman, Topps Heritage, Topps Pro Debut and Topps regular series cards. The Finest and Sterling, Panini, Donruss, etc. don't hold a ton of value. But Trout's Elite Extra cards do sell for a pretty decent price too.

[Dpeck100]

In 1986 the Donruss Jose Canseco hit $100. Unheard of at the time for a pack pulled rookie. Donruss may have had a lower print run than Topps but there was plenty to go around. The card market has evolved during this time frame and with higher values paid for cards so some of it is simply buyers willing to part with larger sums to own cards. That said if you reduce the overall supply by 99.999999% like they have today for the best copies you get exponential increases in price. It isn't really that hard to understand. I agree personally that the speculation element can be a challenge to understand but once again with the supply being reduced so dramatically it doesn't really take that much interest to push prices up. If you follow the stock market you will see a small amount of volume move thinly traded stocks quite easily. This is why you get parabolic moves in modern cards all of the time. People like to speculate and they always have and with the internet making commerce so easy it just adds fuel to the fire. I have no interest but can understand why some do. The example earlier of buying a $3 card and selling it for $275 is like crack. Very easy to get addicted too. I went to high school with a guy that plays the modern game and it does produce winning results for many so I say if you have a high risk tolerance go for it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Baseball players are so hit or miss (literally) even among the elite prospects that I would be very surprised if people can successfully speculate over a long period of time. Sure, you can hit it real big if you pick the right guy early enough, or get lucky on timing (buy a guy before he goes on a tear and his cards double). But over time, I am skeptical. This is by far the most difficult sport to predict success, just look at how many top Baseball America prospects never pan out.

My own thought is that the best recipe for success would be to wait a couple of years to form a reasoned judgment that someone who has been solid but not spectacular has the tools to become a superstar. Although the cards of these players surely have moved up, there is probably still a fair amount of upside, and perhaps less downside given that they have demonstrated they can play at the major league level. For example, a guy like Jose Ramirez. But that said, I am not about to invest a lot of money in Jose any more than I am going to buy up Vlad Jr. or Juan Soto.

[Dpeck100]

It is impossible for every person who speculates on cards from any era to all win. I think your point is well taken and this guy is a baseball fanatic so his chances are immensely better than the person just playing momentum. He does research and really attempts to understand the players fundamentals on the field and lets that drive his speculative activity. Just like stocks you have to sell. So this means you will miss out on some monster gains and you must get comfortable with that. This is a major headwind for the participants chances of success as outliers can make it appear that ones ability to consistently be right is much better than it really is so if you get an outlier on the way down you can be toast. For the most part every hot card is better to be sold into the hype and fast thin markets push a few sales much further than can be sustained in a short window of time and in many cases permanently so most of the time you should take the money. Some of the moves have been simply incredible. Jeremy Lin was an obvious sell! Probably a ton of others could be named.

[Dpeck100]

Peter just for the record I have no valid opinion on the long term for Trout cards or Curry or whomever that is a current player. I just understand the reason the prices are so distorted compared to vintage or more sure fire items and it is simply because of on purpose scarcity to try and lead to this outcome.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

It is impossible for every person who speculates on cards from any era to all win. I think your point is well taken and this guy is a baseball fanatic so his chances are immensely better than the person just playing momentum. He does research and really attempts to understand the players fundamentals on the field and lets that drive his speculative activity. Just like stocks you have to sell. So this means you will miss out on some monster gains and you must get comfortable with that. This is a major headwind for the participants chances of success as outliers can make it appear that ones ability to consistently be right is much better than it really is so if you get an outlier on the way down you can be toast. For the most part every hot card is better to be sold into the hype and fast thin markets push a few sales much further than can be sustained in a short window of time and in many cases permanently so most of the time you should take the money. Some of the moves have been simply incredible. Jeremy Lin was an obvious sell! Probably a ton of others could be named.

Here's a list I just found of 2007-2009 top 10 prospects obviously from people who know a lot, Baseball America. How would you have done betting on these fellas? It looks to me like more bust than boom but don't know.

2007
1.Daisuke Matsuzaka
2.Alex Gordon
3.Delmon Young
4.Phil Hughes
5.Homer Bailey
6.Cameron Maybin
7.Evan Longoria
8.Brandon Wood
9.Justin Upton
10.Andrew Miller

2008
1.Jay Bruce
2.Evan Longoria
3.Joba Chamberlain
4.Clay Buchholz
5.Colby Rasmus
6.Cameron Maybin
7.Clayton Kershaw
8.Franklin Morales
9.Homer Bailey
10.David Price

2009
1.Matt Wieters
2.David Price
3.Colby Rasmus
4.Tommy Hanson
5.Jason Heyward
6.Travis Snider
7.Brett Anderson
8.Cameron Maybin
9.Madison Bumgarner
10.Neftali Feliz

[Dpeck100]

One thing to remember is that plenty flame out but there is massive upside volatility where someone wins and someone loses.


Short term gyrations in tradable assets create opportunity. Plenty of that here.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

One thing to remember is that plenty flame out but there is massive upside volatility where someone wins and someone loses.


Short term gyrations in tradable assets create opportunity. Plenty of that here.

Sure, but there is also a very high risk is my only point. And my guess is that like the stock market, most people who speculate lose.

[Neal]

Originally Posted by packs

There are really only a few products that carry any value though: Bowman, Topps Heritage, Topps Pro Debut and Topps regular series cards. The Finest and Sterling, Panini, Donruss, etc. don't hold a ton of value. But Trout's Elite Extra cards do sell for a pretty decent price too.

The Finest and Bowman Sterling are sought after cards ….. the Finest Auto is a 1500-2k card

[packs]

For Trout they're valuable but any rookie auto is going to sell for him. Harper's Sterling and Platinum cards sell for less than his Draft auto. His Heritage auto outsells them all I think.