The craziest price jump I've seen is with the X-Force Deadpool promo from a 6-card set (Impel, 1991). For years, this has been a bargain bin kind of card that you can still find sealed in its comic book - something you could get for a buck or find in some promo lots. Of course, sellers are calling it the "Deadpool rookie card" now. Last month, it was going for $75-115 but it has jumped this month to $140-225. Last month, a graded gem mint one took a Best Offer somewhere south of $5000.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1991M...c:g:BlAAAOSwKThgJc68


Jess

In my latest copy of Card Collectors News issued by a UK card dealer, an image of the Supremes taken from the Mistee Softee set of 12 cards Lord Neilson's Star Cards issued in 1967 (which they retail at £18 per set which they rate as FCC) was used as a tribute to Mary Wilson who as we know recently died.

Another version of this same card albeit graded at 9 sold for $151.50 after 17 bids see link below:-



What a crazy world as I suspect the cost of getting it graded would have been more than £18.

regards

John

quote:

Originally posted by JOHN LEVITT:
In my latest copy of Card Collectors News issued by a UK card dealer,
regards

John

Interesting, never heard of it

quote:

Originally posted by hammer:

quote:

Originally posted by JOHN LEVITT:
In my latest copy of Card Collectors News issued by a UK card dealer,
regards

John

Interesting, never heard of it

I've never heard of it either.
Is it put out by Anthony Lee?

sounds like the marketing for this publication is sadly lacking.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
sounds like the marketing for this publication is sadly lacking.

Did an internet search and it's by the London Cigarette Card Company as part of their collectors club.

Ahh that would explain it.

You will also find them on page 39 of the current NSU.

regards

John

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:
This thread is boggling my mind. Is it just disposable income making these cards skyrocket?

Initially I thought it was due to the hype from sports card people -- which does seem to influence some of the cards -- like anything from a sports card set like Ginter or anything Marvel related -- but I don't think sports card hype can explain a lot of these -- Elvira autographs at $143 or Scooby Doo voice actors at $150, LOTR Autos over $400, etc.

Other than enjoying nonsports cards more than sports, the other driving factor as a 90's bubble burn out was that I wanted a collection that would at the very least retain some value. To me sports was a never ending cycle of redundancy when it comes to any card product or type. They get players signing in college and they don't stop until they are in some legends set for the old folks.

Except for a handful of key titles, Nonsports collectors can't get comfortable in the idea that this set or celebrity autograph will come around again. Fortunately for many years we had lengthy after market options.

Personally, I think people are finally waking up to just how rare and short printed our little hobby has been for the past 15 or 20 years.

And let's not forget that Disney TV seems to be doing a good job and keeping MARVEL and STAR WARS from sucking.

Which is where there has always been activity in the card world but the pace has certainly picked up.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Personally, I think people are finally waking up to just how rare and short printed our little hobby has been for the past 15 or 20 years.

I wish that were true in a good way, but I'm a born pessimist to start with. If it's true, I think it's in a bad way.

I don't see this new wave of interest in non-sport cards as collector growth, but more like the Vikings coming to sack the village. I left sports card collecting, also by the end of the 90's, to get away from overpriced cards and foolish ideas that just took all the fun out of buying cards and autographs for me.

The smaller pond of non-sport entertainment cards and celebrity autographs was a sensible, if natural alternative for a compulsive collector. The non-sport hobby has improved, the cards are better than ever, but the world has also changed. I feel that we are getting more new blood looking to make money than new blood looking for cards. This is market growth, but not collector growth.

It actually hurts established collectors who are tempted to sell their collections because the timing looks right and they can't see themselves going forward anymore with the best products beyond their reach. Once the collections start to breakup, the supply increases, the demand goes down, the prices drop and the bubble bursts for the next twenty years or so.

Sound familiar? It should, that's the story of the sports card market after the boom of the mid 80's to late 90's. It looked like a growing market until it hit a tipping point when most of the long time collectors cut back or worse, sold off all their stuff and moved on.

Just my opinion and I'm not trying to sound like a broken record. I've just seen this before and it's hard to see any better results coming from it.

I see sellers unloading their copies of X-Force #1, the issue with the Deadpool card which was not in every sealed copy. It was one of the six cards you could get but you can see it through the plastic. These had been going unsold in bargain bins for years. I'm happy the comic book dealers can make some money with it now.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle,

I'm thinking of putting mine up for sale. It has the Deadpool and the Shirt card in it. I think I tried to give it away here once but there were no takers.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Personally, I think people are finally waking up to just how rare and short printed our little hobby has been for the past 15 or 20 years.

I wish that were true in a good way, but I'm a born pessimist to start with. If it's true, I think it's in a bad way.

I don't see this new wave of interest in non-sport cards as collector growth, but more like the Vikings coming to sack the village.

I never made any distinction as to it being good or bad for the hobby or assumed any results. The question was what is making the price of non sports card skyrocket?

As mentioned many times, collectors (or whatever you want to call them) are looking for areas to energize or exploit. My point is simply that the nonsports products of the last 15 or 20 years have high potential. The amount of product available is a fraction of what was rolling in the 90's.

The majority of my collection was purchased under mostly fair prices so I feel no need to jump out. If I am priced out of the hobby for awhile, I am perfectly fine with that. If the prices hold then I have a really valuable collection. Win/Win for me. Yay!

Hey Raven,

I'm less pessimistic than you but also less of an optimist than Mykdude. This boom in sales and values won't last so those sending out their cards to be graded now could be trying to sell on the downslope of the high by the time they get them back. Most of this crazy buying and selling is by people who aren't collecting. I could sell my set of Marvel Universe I promo cards and sheets and make a profit even if I don't try to get whatever top dollar is right now but then I wouldn't have them in my collection. I could be smart and sell them now and then wait for all this frenzy to blow over and buy back what I sold but how long will it take before prices drift down to near what I would pay? How long will it take for most sellers to stop still trying to get crazy prices? It could be a few years.

You're right, it may be a good time to sell your collection, assuming you have a lot of what's selling now and a minimum of what isn't. If a few too many of us decide to unload now, it would add to the supply at a time when supply is high and those selling would no longer be buying in the future and they're getting out sooner than they thought they would. The hobby suffers slightly from a few less customers to support the dealers of not just the cards but also the publications and the supplies. Yes, some people go back to an old hobby but most do not.

There are a lot of rare cards out there but flippers don't care about how many there were in a box nor case. They don't delve into the history. They just want "stars" and "rookies" which to them are whatever "old" Wolverine and Deadpool cards they can find fast. Only the grade says what's rare.

Some of these new people buying and selling now might be getting a good look at non-sports cards and are starting to like them. Some fraction of those might end up collecting some of it for fun, just as you did.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Personally, I think people are finally waking up to just how rare and short printed our little hobby has been for the past 15 or 20 years.

I wish that were true in a good way, but I'm a born pessimist to start with. If it's true, I think it's in a bad way.

I don't see this new wave of interest in non-sport cards as collector growth, but more like the Vikings coming to sack the village. I left sports card collecting, also by the end of the 90's, to get away from overpriced cards and foolish ideas that just took all the fun out of buying cards and autographs for me.

The smaller pond of non-sport entertainment cards and celebrity autographs was a sensible, if natural alternative for a compulsive collector. The non-sport hobby has improved, the cards are better than ever, but the world has also changed. I feel that we are getting more new blood looking to make money than new blood looking for cards. This is market growth, but not collector growth.

It actually hurts established collectors who are tempted to sell their collections because the timing looks right and they can't see themselves going forward anymore with the best products beyond their reach. Once the collections start to breakup, the supply increases, the demand goes down, the prices drop and the bubble bursts for the next twenty years or so.

Sound familiar? It should, that's the story of the sports card market after the boom of the mid 80's to late 90's. It looked like a growing market until it hit a tipping point when most of the long time collectors cut back or worse, sold off all their stuff and moved on.

Just my opinion and I'm not trying to sound like a broken record. I've just seen this before and it's hard to see any better results coming from it.

I've been researching additional autographs since I started this thread to get a handle on what is happening with values. . .

One thing I noticed is that some of the cards I've tried to look up just aren't getting listed anymore. There aren't any currently for sale, and there aren't any in recent sale threads -- and I'm not talking about super rare cards.

One example is Kane Hodder's Americana autograph. These were a couple of bucks when the set was released. I haven't paid much attention since, but I don't see a single copy available for sale, none in eBay's completed auctions. I looked at PWCC and the last sale in PWCC was over a year ago at $100 -- and there are only 2 sales on PWCC in the last 6 years. Of course PWCC is not all inclusive so there are likely other sales, I just don't know of any other free ebay history searches. I have no idea what is happening with this card, but whatever it is happened before the recent boom and seems entirely organic. I have no clue what a Kane Hodder Americana autograph would sell for today.

There are several other stars that only had a few autograph cards listed, and all the cards were sold in the last 2 months leaving none for sale -- for example Justin Bieber and Kurt Russell Americana autographs. The most recent sales were likely caused by the recent boom, now there are none for sale, so it could be interesting to see what happens. These are big stars and all things considered they don't have a lot of autograph cards, so the lack of inventory could put upward pressure on pricing. . . I could see there being a permanent increase in the prices in some of the cards like this as the recent sales prices aren't insane.

As I've been going through Americana sales another thing stuck out to me -- a lot of the autographs in Americana still seem to be pretty reasonably priced, several actually seem to be to be lower than I remember them selling for previously.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Hey Raven,

I'm less pessimistic than you but also less of an optimist than Mykdude.

I'm still trying to figure out how I got labeled the optimist.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Hey Raven,

I'm less pessimistic than you but also less of an optimist than Mykdude.

I'm still trying to figure out how I got labeled the optimist.

Compared to me you look good!

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

One thing I noticed is that some of the cards I've tried to look up just aren't getting listed anymore. There aren't any currently for sale, and there aren't any in recent sale threads -- and I'm not talking about super rare cards.

This is exactly what I am saying. In this phase of non-sport collecting our hobby absorbs a product in about 2 to 5 years. Early in the process we see things for sale at a cheap or fair price. As the item disappears the demand tends to go up. Of course this is not universal but it happens enough to call it a trend.

Also need to keep in mind that outside of the speculators these autograph cards are part of our culture and those demands are always changing. Autograph cards have been around long enough to actually be moving into phases of nostalgia.

A faded Susan Sarandon Topps Bull Durham card sold last month for $782

PSA 9