Is it my imagination or does it seem to be wearing off?

Although I still hate 90% of what Topps has done to the Walking Dead product, it seems like the rarity gimmicks that started with season 4 are having less of an impact on the final sale price of autographs.

Just looked at a list of sold Tom Payne sigs and everything from un-numbered to X/25 is all going between 25 and 50 bucks.


Not that I am complaining, it is kind of nice to see people not falling for this anymore.

For myself, I think its silly for me to buy a numbered certified autograph card at $50, when I could get an unnumbered certified autograph of the same signer in the same product for $15.

However there are reasons why other collectors are more interested in numbered cards and I don't really see it as falling off all that much. Sure, nobody really cares anymore about the difference between a numbered common and an unnumbered common and they are not going to pay much of a premium for the numbered version. But that's more because its a common than any shift in collector attitudes about manufactured rarity.

If its a star card, particularly star autograph cards, there are still enough collectors willing to pony up a premium for those 1/1s, 1/5s, 1/10s, 1/25s and 1/50s. The greater the range the smaller the premium, but I think the numbered card is still perceived to be of higher value than the unnumbered version as a general concept.

The card manufacturers have come to overuse the manufactured rarity effect and have also applied it to more common subjects than they should have. If more collectors are really shying away from short prints and low range numbered cards, I would say that is more the reason than that the numbering concept itself is wearing off.

Just another reason I've quit collecting.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Is it my imagination or does it seem to be wearing off?

Although I still hate 90% of what Topps has done to the Walking Dead product, it seems like the rarity gimmicks that started with season 4 are having less of an impact on the final sale price of autographs.

Just looked at a list of sold Tom Payne sigs and everything from un-numbered to X/25 is all going between 25 and 50 bucks.


Not that I am complaining, it is kind of nice to see people not falling for this anymore.

I think it depends on the set, I am watching some pop century cards and at least the 1/1 gold autographs seem to sell for much more than the others.

In general I think Walking Dead is just pretty saturated. I also find it less interesting to open the new Topps Walking Dead cards because a lot of the cards have already shown up in the Card Trader app.

A few weeks ago, my friend that collects WWE auto cards was telling me that the prices for the autos #/199 (blue) and #/99 (bronze) from 2017 WWE Undisputed usually are pretty close in price. He speculated that the Blue version probably sells in the same range as the lower numbered Silver because the looks better.

That set also has parallels numbered to #/50 (silver), #/25 (green), #/10 (gold), #/5 (black), and 1/1 (red). Then there are also autograph printing plates.


My guess about the prices is that when there are so many parallel versions, the highest numbered parallels would be relatively similar in price to each other (or to that of a non-numbered autographed version) because there is less of feeling "the need" to pay a premium to get a version of the auto card. In this case with the #/99 and #/199 parallels, that's almost 300 auto cards out there. Most wrestlers/characters/actors don't have that many collectors chasing their cards and are only willing to pay so much for a card just to add to their collection.

On the other hand, I can also understand why collectors would pay a premium on the lowered range of numbered parallels of 10 and less. There are still a handful of collectors that want something relatively different and unique (even if it's only the color of the card) to make their collection more unique.

To me, those parallels that in the middle (#/50 and #/25) are somewhat of wild cards as they could go higher or lower on price depending on various factors such as how big of a collector base is for the individual/character and how the card looks.

I just re-read Raven's post after tping this ... I agree with what he said.

quote:

Originally posted by Heroes For Hire:
A

I just re-read Raven's post after tping this ... I agree with what he said.

Also what SHE said

quote:

Originally posted by hammer:

quote:

Originally posted by Heroes For Hire:
A

I just re-read Raven's post after tping this ... I agree with what he said.

Also what SHE said

That's OK, I never correct anybody because I take it as a complement that they can't tell. Just goes to show.

Females are in the minority in the non-sport card hobby, even more so in sports card collecting back where and when I started. It still seems to surprise some people now, although an interest and understanding of trading cards should be regarded as gender neutral by any standard.

But thanks for the shout out, it is what SHE said.