Look what card collecting has become...

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Posted By: Rob L

Not vintage or baseball related, but this is ridiculous (sp?):

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/sportsbusiness/news/story?id=1821931&partnersite=espn

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

"What a revolting development this is"

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Posted By: jay behrens

I had heard about these $500 packs this past winter. Must be nice to have so much money that you can throw away money like that.

And even more stupid than the person that spends $500 on these packs are the people spending thousands of dollars for the individual cards. You'd think these people would learn there lesson that these insert are worthless the moment the next new set of cards is issued. I doubt the person spending $25k+ for that card is ever going tog et anything close to that when they try to resell it.

Jay

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Posted By: bcornell

"Each five-card pack has one signed, jersey-swatched card, numbered to no more than 100."

Um... so what? Would a full Lebron jersey sell for that far north of $500? The last time I watched an NBA game, that jerk Bill Laimbeer got popped by Larry Bird. The game went downhill after that.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Read this. Up to $30K now....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=56125&item=5101436492&rd=1

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Posted By: t-206collector

...I have ever seen. I can think of 30,000 different more interesting and historically significant sports collectibles than this one. What's to keep Upper Deck, or any card company for that matter, from printing 100 more of these next year, or in a different named set this year? It's not even autographed!

This purchase lacks any perspective. Really, it just becomes an ego thing. Sometimes people will pay ridiculous amounts of money for something just to prove that they can. This will be an interesting conversation piece for a rich moneybags for a couple of weeks, and then it will fade into obscurity.

I once saw someone pay $1,000 for 100 1984 Topps Traded Bret Saberhagen rookie cards at a show. This person will now officially move to second on my list of dumbest purchases I have ever witnessed.

And finally, it's basketball, and not even just basketball, but NBA basketball. If you're going to spend $30,000 on NBA memorabilia (that may be an oximoron), it better have Michael Jordan's name in it and it better be a signed check from Michael Jordan to you for $29,950.

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Posted By: Bill Kasel

It's a private auction. Fool me once shame on you...

Who wouldn't want to pay $50,000+ for not one, but two silhouettes of Jerry West? I'm not familiar with who those other gentlemen are on the card though.

Bill

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Posted By: Aaron M.

This kind of example makes it easier to understand how some collectors fall for the various scams on E-Bay. Apparently there are more than enough dumb as rocks collectors to sustain "legitimate" card collecting as well.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

You have to believe that this is like an auction of the mind, I mean who in the world would buy into this garbage. I like the following quote that was used in the auction description:

"LOOK FOR USA TODAY, ESPN, BECKETT, AND EVERY OTHER MAJOR MEDIA TO COVER THIS CARD."

The only reason I could think that the media would cover this is to unveil the biggest fool in sports memorabilia collecting to the public and all other opportunist that can spot a "mark" a mile off.

Talk about a punch line to a joke...

Could be the seller is trying to get some free advertising. I only hope that the media sees it for what it is - a possible sham. Private Auction - If I were dumb enough to bid on something like this I would hope to be smart enough to do it "privately."

At least it gives this board something to laugh about....

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Posted By: warshawlaw

and does this tick-turd really expect us to believe that he sells thousands of dollars of cards a week on ebay?

Someone should send this story to the IRS, because I am sure that his tax returns would not jibe with this story...

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Posted By: hankron

That's funny Adam. Someone should email the seller to say the auction result and sales claims will be foreward to the IRS.

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Posted By: Jon Canfield

Ok, Maybe it's just my mentality, but when I see something like this - it makes me think that people are just bidding it up with no intention of paying what-so-ever. You see this happen when a famous person passess away and eBay becomes flooded with signatures and such. I remember going on eBay right after President Reagan passed away a couple weeks back and saw a signed 8*10 for $14,000. Come on now - is someone really paying that? My second thought is since this auction is private, maybe the seller, himself, is bidding it up to promotoe the card. He can eBay, say the high bidder was a non-payer; get all his eBay fees credited, and still get the press on having his card reach $60,000+. Who knows? Just my thoughts...

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Posted By: steve k

This reminds me of those Gem Mint 10 Pro-Graded Tiger Woods rookie cards that Kenny Goldin was selling on the Home Shopping Network a number of years ago for $20,000. Last time I looked, one of these sold on ebay for $55. If ten years from now this basketball card is worth much more than $55, I'll be surprised.

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Posted By: Michael Poland

This card won't be getting paid for, this happens all the time with these new fancy 1/1 cards. On another note, this makes me think. I didn't realize that private auctions were avoided and looked down on. I sold a T206 Ty Cobb (red background) PSA 7 last year and I had it as a private auction only in the sense of protecting the buyer identity and keeping them anonymous since it was a fairly high dollar item. The thing is, this card didn't sell for anywhere near what I thought. Looking back, I wonder if it would have reached what I anticipated had I not listed it as a private auction.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

during the rookie card boom, I set up at a show next to an obnoxious dealer in modern rookies. The braggart spent every spare minute of the show telling me how many thousands he'd made by selling 100 to 1000 card bricks of rookies. Just the week before, he bragged, he'd done $19,000 in cash on Ken Griffey Jr. rookies. Finally, he asked me what I did for a living. "I'm a lawyer", I said. "What kind of law do you practice?" he asked. "I work for the IRS in the fraud division; we'll be in touch." Never seen a white man turn five shades whiter in two seconds...

Anyone who brags about how much they make on cards is lying. Kind of like anyone who God blesses you over a card deal...

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Posted By: hankron

Michael it is common advice to avoid private eBay auctions for cards. Folks selling fakes or cards with issues commonly have their auction private so the bidders can't be alerted. Also it is often used to hide shill bidding. Many bidders totally skip private auctions.

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Posted By: runscott

For $60,000 you could get 50-60 individual scored pages torn from Harry Wright scorebooks...or 50-60 pieces of a Babe Ruth uniform?

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Posted By: prewarsports

I didn't notice before, but he makes a point that this card is so fancy that even the "1/1" is in cursive on the card front. I guess since Upper Deck has found a way to write numbers in cursive (which was grammatically impossible before this card came around) this really IS something special!

Rhys

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Posted By: Rob L

I also noticed the description of the cursive writing. My 4 year old daughter is in Montessori right now and she has already learned to write in cursive. I'm thinking that maybe I can have her write "1/1" and sell it to anyone who is looking to make that exclusive sale on eBay. Any takers?

BTW, this friggin' auction is just under $61K right now. Maybe the bidding will slow down since the Lakers got their *sses beat. We'll see.....

Rob L

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

not about the incredible auction--but that the NBA logo is Jerry West's sillouette. Didn't know that.

Just think of the cards you've always wanted that you could buy with 68K...

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Posted By: jay behrens

Given the fact that it is a private auction and there are 107 bids on it, I am sure that there is a fair amount of shill bidding and also people dropping in bids that will never be honored. With any luck, eBay will look inot this auction.

Jay

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Posted By: hop373

Speaking of the logos, did you know the MLB Logo sillouette belongs to Harmon Killebrew?

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Posted By: Mark

That Lebron/Kobe card was nothing. This is the bestest, most solidest investment ever at under $300,000.00, with just a day to run.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=44861&item=5108908701&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

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Posted By: steve k

Madness.

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Posted By: Julie

so that I can avoid BUYING anything from them!

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Posted By: Paul

Reserve not met?????!!!!!!! If someone offered me $280K for that piece o' s***, I'd take the money and run so fast that I'd start a time warp.

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Posted By: kennycole

I noticed that this was a private auction. I wonder why. As a seller, wouldn't you be proud to hark this wonderful piece of American Memorabilia? As a bidder who had $280K to waste on this POS, wouldn't you want your name out there as a player? Oh, forgot. Seller and bidder may be one and the same. Suppose I'll have to pass on this one.

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Posted By: hankron

From what I understand, the $300K bid (BIN) was not legimate.

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Posted By: Ray

definitely fishy. the last three bids were all within 20 seconds of each other, each one being the highest bid. No one I know would bid, see that they were the highest bidder, and then bid again, see they are the highest bidder, and then bid even more! And looking at the previous bids... many of them seem to follow this pattern. Multiple bids in bursts of seconds/minutes like that just aren't natural when there's over a day left. I see 2 possible explanations:

1. Bidder = seller
2. The seller has people with other accounts bidding higher whenever they see someone takes over the high bid, to make it seem like a bidding war. This accounts for the bids being so clumped together.

Never understood the concept of "1 of 1". It's not like this will be the only card ever made with game used crap of jordan and lebron on it.

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Posted By: Jason Smith

This is just the ultimate conclusion to what drove me away from collecting sports cards in the first place (until recently). In the early 80s when I was about 10 the cards started to get popular so that in the late 80s of course they overproduced the cards which led to the backlash and the controlled market and hologramming and foiling of everything in the 90s. The logical conclusion to that would be that they would eventually just make one card of something, like this, one of one. What they should do is cut the one card up into 15 pieces and then you have to collect the one card over a course of packs. Wait, that's a lot like what Donruss did with those stupid puzzle pieces in the 80s...
Jason

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Posted By: jay behrens

Even better yet, pay $300k for the card, then cut it up into tiny pieces and make a new insert of that card. Then everyone has a chance to claim they own a piece of a $300k card.

Honestly, how long do you think it will be before someone does this to a Wagner?

Jay

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

There is a trimmed T206 Wagner (authenticated by PSA) for sale in the new Mastro auction.

What a perfect card for the card companies to buy and cut up into tiny pieces ... since it has already been trimmed ... but it has also been authenticated.

Let's see if you are right.

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Posted By: Gary B.

$280,000? Let's put this in perspective:

Recently a psa 1 t206 Wagner was auctioned off, and a psa 8 sporting life Ruth rookie card was auctioned off. For $280,000 you could have had both cards with $85,000 or so to spare to purchase, hmmm, a psa 9 1952 Mantle, or a fully loaded jaguar xk, 1,000 shares of ibm, gee, lots of things.

But seriously, none of those things will go up in value like a 1 of 1 card containing a GENUINE UNIFORM SWATCH from Lebron James and Michael Jordan - I mean, who are we kidding, right?

Michael Jordan is a legend, and while Lebron James is new on the scene, there's no way that kid can have anything but one of the finest basketball careers ever, right? I hear he has superhuman powers that will prevent him from ever getting injured, or dying, or even ever having an average year or getting involved in a horrible scandal, retiring early for any reason or anything else that would make his card depreciate in value - this is obviously a GUARANTEED investment of the highest order! This kid has so much potential it's insane, and I just KNOW that like all young superstars with infinite potential, he has nowhere to go but up. Why, maybe one day his card will be as worth as much as my GEM MINT rookies of Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden!

Smart investments like this don't come along every day, and if I had the cash, I'd bid $400,000 to make sure I got it!

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Posted By: David Vargha

God bless the USA. Thank goodness for fools who help keep the economy going!

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Marc S.

Low feedback, private auction - most of those bids are shills. Yes - this card is a travesty - but it's true market value is probably 10% of what the bidding is at. With a reserve anyway - it doesn't matter. But don't be fooled to think that people are spending $280k on this card - they're not. You can still buy a lot of candy cards for $28k - wish I had that sort of budget for the Mastro auction.

~ms

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Posted By: Pcelli60

This is a type of collecting that I am not familar with.

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Posted By: Dan

Ack, holy batsh*t robin, is that a moron with a checkbook or have my batty senses left me? What is wrong with these people? Oh the fun that I could have at Mastro with a spare $140k plus. Wow! But I am sure that this Labron/Jordan card will keep it's value... NOT!!!!!!!!!!! Labron will probably brake his ankle or something and the card will surely keep it's value...won't it?

And, I have to agree with one of the other posters on this strand... it is just basketball, who cares?

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Posted By: Ben

I dont know s*&%T about his cards or any basketball cards for that matter, but Lebron is gonna be a great one. You can put that one in the books.

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Posted By: Dan

Ben, I do not disagree that he will be a good ballplayer as he has already shown.

The problem is, he is last years rookie and there will always be a new crop of rookies to replace him and what's his face the other guy from last year? Look at Shaq rookie cards, they are worth EXACTLY, if not less, than the year they came out in 92/93. Once the hype was over, the cards fell despite Shaq being one of the most dominant forces in the NBA in years. This even happened with Jordan rookies over the years and hype at different times in his career. It seems that this has become a basic fundemental rule with these modern cards it seems. That is why it is so much more worthwhile to collect vintage, despite just loving to collect as many as I can get my hands on, they also go up in value as an added benefit. No one can say that with anything made in the last 20 plus years (well maybe some, but not many).

The smart dealer of modern stuff, sells all the HOT players stuff off at or near the peak of the media hype session, therefore maximizing their best bang for the buck. They just simply catch all the fish in the net with their checkbooks out. Then the hype ends, the dealer is happy, the buyer is stuck and that is that. But then, another player comes along and the cycle starts all over again. It makes me ill just thinking of it all.

Responses welcomed, am I way off the mark here or not? Please critique.

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Posted By: Ben

Shaq's rookies and Lebron's rookies are so overproduced that it comes as no surprise to me that their values fluctuate downwards after people move on to the next year's set. I am in complete agreement with you that vintage is the best bet if you plan to hang onto it for more than the standard 2 month buzz that it takes to get bored of new modern sets.

But that doesnt have anything to do with my Lebron as a player- he's freakishly talented.

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

what a David Blaine Levitation Rookie Card would fetch from these people??????????!!!!!!!!!!!

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Posted By: Gary B.

As I said facetiously in my post, rookie cards of brand new players or even anyone still playing is NOT a smart long-term investment, unless the player is already a guaranteed hall-of-famer, and even that you have to be careful with. As I sited, look at Dwight Gooden and Fernando Valenzuela - at one point their rookie cards were worth a fortune, and now practically nothing. Ichiro Suzuki cards skyrocketed at the height of his hype, and then plummeted. A SMART dealer will realize this and dump their cards at the right time, but it's like playing the stock market - can you REALLY know when a card has reached it's apex and will only then go down from there?

Mark McGwire, a guaranteed hall of famer had his rookie card go into the ozone, only then to plummet, especially after he retired suddenly. A Barry Bonds rookie card would be a sound long-term investment I think, but ONLY when he hasn't just done something spectacular - his cards spiked ridiculously after hitting 73 homers, and after passing Mays, and I'm sure they will again once he gets 700, beats Ruth, etc. Once he retires though, will interest in his rookie card suddenly drop? Very likely, at least to some degree.

As you stated, the vintage cards are by far the best as guaranteed investments. These cards weren't printed in anything close to the volume of more recent cards, and weren't always kept in such good condition with people thinking they'd be worth a fortune one day as people try to do with cards of today. One might even go farther and say a dead player is safer than a still living one, because who knows what scandal a still living player could get involved in that would cause his popularity to fall? That's a remote possibility, but it has happened.

I'm not saying this is likely by any means, but what if Lebron James got in a Kobe-like scandal and got convicted - what would this $280K card be worth then? Vintage cards have VERY little risk compared to this insanity...

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Posted By: jay behrens

When I was heavily into the business in the 80s I would tell people asking me what to invest in that they should buy what they love. Buy their favorite team, player, sport, etc. That way, when the market bottoms out, you still have something that gives you good memories. But if they were insistant on other advice, I'd tell them that the first thing you need to ask yourself when looking at a card to invest in is, will someone ask me "Do you own this card?" or "How many do you own?" If they are going to be asking you how many do you own, this means everyone owns mutiples and there is no place for the surplus to go in the market. I also told them to check dealers tables. If you are seeing multiples of a card on their tables, this card is also not a great investment, no matter how old it is.

Jay