Could I get an opinion from a modern BBK card expert/Trae Young fan?
 

This will take about 3 minutes to read. I've been asked by a lot of people "How do I get into the Trae market??" So I want to post one written piece at my company's site. I'm a vintage guy and know only enough about the modern market to keep it off the shoulder of the road. Am I at least close to correct on this?


<starts with, "Hey, you know cards and stuff? Tell me what to do when it comes to Trae Young!">

Panini is the only company you want to purchase basketball cards from. Three levels.

Optic and Select
Mosaic
Prizm

Panini America is sort of Donruss, if you ever collected baseball back in the day. Think of Panini as Chevrolet and Optic and Select as a brand new Malibu. Very nice, comfortable, sharp looking. Gets you there and is a nice ride.

Mosaic is a step up, to a Chevy Camaro IROC Z28.. Malibu is still nice and new and awesome. The Camaro will go 140, easy.

Prizm is a 2022 Corvette Stingray. Even against other nice and new products, it's just way different and THE one you want.

I don't know your goal, if it's investing don't purchase anything less than a graded PSA 9, which is a great card, and if your budget allows go for a PSA 10.

If it's have fun, collect something you love, get a little more "in" with the Hawks this playoff series, etc you can get plenty of perfectly fine PSA 7s and 8s and even raw cards, for much less out of the wallet. I'd say be careful with raw cards if you aren't experienced buying new product, the parallels and such are easy to lose track of and if a certain card you're considering is not a determined grade, in a holder, that has a bunch of completed sales and auctions etc it can be more of a challenge to properly price everything.


His rookie year Prizm card is #78. If you really bird dog Buy It Now options on eBay you can get it for about $95 but it's likely over $100 now for good, and rising. In an auction you may do a bit better than that, I normally look for the deals in B.I.N. I've experienced it winds up close enough to each other's price, most times, and if it's a timely thing like Trae's performance last night literally caused a bump in his prices, you don't want to be watching others run it up for 4 or 5 days instead of just purchasing it as a B.I.N. That's just my approach, there are plenty of right ways to do it.

A PSA 10 is probably upper $280, $290 etc and trending higher. Might be over $300 now. For comparison the exact same Luka cards are roughly 3X Trae's cards, (about $275-$300 for a PSA 9, $900+ for a PSA 10) so there appears to be blue sky for Trae's cards.

If you want some real fun?? Get a PSA 10 of Trae's 2nd-year base Prizm card. CHEAP, cheap, cheap. cheap, in comparison and gen pop hasn't fully moved on to his 2nd year cards yet. Then start "chasing the rainbow" with the R,W, & B, the pink cracked ice, orange ice, fast break silver, etc, there are about 10 or so and, as for me, I've got a PSA 9 rookie and PSA 10 rookie, then the 2nd year base and I think six of the rainbow cards.

Past results don't guarantee future performance. I think I'm supposed to say that.

Thanks for this. I'm mostly a vintage guy as well, but have hesitantly dipped into this market too. I bought a PSA 10 Prizm Trae RC a few months ago... for $800. You know, the one you said is $300 now? I'm considering grabbing another, as I think he's a great player with a bright future. I just timed my initial purchase very poorly.

The only other Prizms I'm collecting are WNBA cards. They're pretty fun boxes to open, as you get a parallel in basically every pack and run across autos pretty regularly.