Last week I started taking a look at the state our hobby finds itself in as we see one of the major card companies declare bankruptcy. On that matter, it seems like the rumors of a potential Upper Deck buyout of Pinnacle were premature as we've since learned that Toy Biz (soon to be the official parent company of Fleer/Skybox has decided to make an offer to buy the distressed company. If these rumors pan out we'll soon have one company (Toy Biz) that owns the trade names and licenses of Fleer, Skybox, Pinnacle, Score, Donruss, and Leaf!
At first I figured this would have to be a bad thing for the hobby, but then I sat down and thought about it. Overproduction has been killing this hobby for quite a few years now. What if Toy Biz takes over the names and licenses and then decides to produce just the best of what each of the former companies had to offer? Sure they'll want to make as much money as possible, but if they have some smart number-crunchers working for them they should see that it was overproduction that led to Pinnacle's problems in the first place. I guess we'll just wait and see.
The Beanie Revolution
I met a guy the other day who had tickets to the Yankee game where David Wells threw his perfect game. Unfortunately he didn't get to go to the park that day and he was left with four perfect, full tickets to a historic game. He asked me what I thought they were worth and I realized it was a tough question. The game was a total sellout. It was almost unheard of that a ticket wasn't used. Why? Because it was Beanie Baby day at Yankee stadium. If you were 14 or under you would get a Valentino beanie and special Yankees beanie card when you entered. People were going so nuts for the Beanie Babies that they were buying extra tickets just so they could send their 12 year olds through the turnstiles a few more times. So what should the unused tickets be worth? Well, they're getting $400 or more for Valentino and his card from that afternoon so you'd better be able to get more for the tickets.
I don't think Ty was thinking they would take over the sportscard market when they made the first little bean bag teddy bears. Little did they know that in just a few years we would be seeing sportscard shops carrying beanies, some stores changing over to mostly beanies, and our National convention dominated by beanie collectors. At first I thought this might be a good thing as dealers who were struggling through some lean times might help themselves with the hot new toy. Recently I've gone full circle as I hear about how poorly dealers did at the National (unless they carried beanies) and I observed similar trends at the East Coast National two weeks ago in New York. It's sad that cards have slipped this low, but I'll bet that years from now when only the die-hard collectors remember beanies, we'll still be looking for 85 Topps Mark McGwire rookies.
Pricing Problems
A young boy and his friends go in their local cardshop and they each pick out 4 or 5 packs of their favorite brand. After plunking down their twenty dollar bills (and maybe getting a little change) they head out to the sidewalk to open. Five minutes later they're all heading back into the shop to ask the dealer what they're cards are worth. Not exactly the way I remember things when I was buying packs of '73 Topps Baseball from the local drug store. Ok, pack prices are up and cards do have value so I guess I understand, but here comes the problem. The dealer opens his trusty Beckett price guide and all the kids are happy because they spent less than $20 and have over $50 worth of cards. I think we have a problem.
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This beautiful new SPx Finite Dan Marino might be a tough one for Beckett to accurately price. |
The price guides need to come back down to earth. Both Beckett and Tuff Stuff have cards priced so high that they've given dealers a way to take advantage of new collectors ("If that's the Beckett price then it must be worth it"). The rest of us open a pack and find a nice insert that "books" for $100 and we know we might be able to sell it for $40-$50. Are we selling our cards for too little? Not at all. If that's as much as collectors are willing to pay then that's the right price and it's up to Beckett to pay better attention. You would think that a price guide that hosts the biggest buy/sell area on the web and also conducts their own auctions would do a better job of determining their prices.
Going Once, Going Twice, Ebay!
Did you know that anyone with $10 can be an auctioneer? You don't have to go to school to learn how to talk fast and point, you simply have to setup an account on Ebay. If you want to know what you're cards are really worth then check some completed auctions on Ebay. While Beckett lists an Ultra Peyton Manning rookie card at $50.00, you'll see that most of them sell in the $30 range on Ebay. Just another example of the dangers of relying on the price guides for accurate pricing.
It's a 10!
There is a way to get full Beckett high price and even more for your cards. Send them to a card grading service. For a fee (big enough to keep you sending in just your best cards) companies like PSA will look your card over with a fine tooth comb (or a magnifying glass) put it into a tamperproof plastic slab with a serial number and grade. Take a McGwire rookie which has a high Beckett of $135 this month and if it comes back with a PSA-10 you might be able to sell it for ten times that price! Is card grading the future of this hobby? Time will tell, but as long as high level collectors and investors are willing to spend big bucks for graded cards, grading services will continue to prosper.
Where will our hobby be in ten years? Who knows. It's tough to guess where it will be in one year, but I'm confident that while things will always be changing, our hobby won't be fading away anytime soon.
CHAT