Yes yes i know it's stickers not cards but here's the thing.

When a sticker collection is released the stickers come in little packets of say 5 stickers. They are for various subjects, star wars, sports, marvel etc etc. Now with each release these is a book with places for you to put your stickers in.
The whole point of this is that you collect the stickers and you stick them in the sticker book provided, very nice, gives you something to look through and enjoy.

Now, you decide to sell your sticker book and people start saying that it is not worth much because you have stuck the stickers in the book. It is only worth money if you have the book and a set of unused stickers.

What does anyone think of this, would you agree, is the unstuck sticker akin to the slabbed card?

wolfie, the whole sticker thing is something that just reminds me of childhood and I personally couldn't really care about such a product.

Having said that, I think the same idea of mint in box are always prevalent in everything collectible. If you are looking to sell, buyers will only want the bare book and the and the packets of detached stickers.

If you are a collector keeping the book, glue away. I would not compare it to slabbed cards, but I would compare it to nobody wants your used book.

I think it's partly a matter of rarity, some books and cards being harder to find than others. I've never seen the book that goes with a couple of sets. For others, a lot of people still have the book with some, most or all of the stickers in the book but how many resisted the urge to stick the stickers in the book and kept them as they got them? Collectors would therefore prefer a "clean" common book and unpeeled stickers but would go after a rare book that had stickers in it.

I have a book of older dinosaur cards from England - a gift from a friend who sent me a stack of dinosaur-related cards as a gift when he learned I collected cards. It's interesting on its own so I haven't thought about selling it.

By now I would think that the adhesive wouldn't work well anymore on older cards that were not stuck into the books. It might also be possible to cleanly separate old cards from their books if you really want to. Somewhere on this forum is a link to an article about a chemist who has separated cards from album pages and cleaned gum stains off of old cards without damaging the card.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Somewhere on this forum is a link to an article about a chemist who has separated cards from album pages and cleaned gum stains off of old cards without damaging the card.

Jess

I think the question is more about collectible stickers that are meant to be put in the books, rather than cards that people just decide to glue somewhere, like a scrapbook. For cards not meant to be glued, I think it would very hard to get them cleaned enough not to have to make big discounts, even on the rare ones.

That doesn't mean that a complete sticker set in the book isn't a nice display item, but it limits the demand of the number of people who want it and that reduces the price over the more desirable unopened item.

Sometimes the nicer or more complete the display, the fewer the people who are interested in it when you look to sell. Same reason why the parts can often be worth more than the whole sometimes. There is a hobby logic to it, but it might not make much sense just on the face of it or in comparison to similar things. Sense doesn't matter.

I don't know how collectible those sticker books would be in the future anyway if we're talking about recent releases. They make so many. Yeah, I was thinking about an older Red Rose or Brooke Bond set I have (looked for it last night...it's somewhere around here) that has a special book to stick them into. I have at least one perforated sheet of stickers and the booklet from a 1990's British car magazine as well. I didn't want to stick them because they have text on the back. That's probably not that collectible either but it's interesting to me.

Jess

You have to pretty much put sticker and sticker books in the same category as stamp collecting. Basically it falls to a simple equation

Stickers stuck in sticker books = many

Stickers not stuck in sticker books = few

If everyone decides to stop sticking stickers in sticker books for future value the value drops until some hype dweeb slabs a sticker for a 10.

By the way, I still think a sticker is a kind of card. Stickers are cards with a peel-off front. I might start calling them peel-off-front cards.

I like peel-off-front cards.

Jess

So I'm not really up on stamp collecting, but when that hobby was getting popular I used to see counters with stamps for sale in some department stores and they weren't stuck on anything. And of course the best coins in demand are the uncirculated ones. The toys never get played with either.

Honestly nothing made in any of the hobby markets over the past 30 years or more is supposed to be used. It's the line created that separates the artificially manufactured collectible from the true collectible that used to naturally evolve with age and the eroding of supply. Only vintage collectibles are allowed to show some wear and tear.

Peel off front cards, huh? I don't know if that one will catch on, but you could always try patenting it.

Well, twice as many people are saying it now than there were an hour ago. It's the hottest trend in collectibles right now.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
So I'm not really up on stamp collecting, but when that hobby was getting popular I used to see counters with stamps for sale in some department stores and they weren't stuck on anything. And of course the best coins in demand are the uncirculated ones. The toys never get played with either.

Honestly nothing made in any of the hobby markets over the past 30 years or more is supposed to be used. It's the line created that separates the artificially manufactured collectible from the true collectible that used to naturally evolve with age and the eroding of supply. Only vintage collectibles are allowed to show some wear and tear.

Peel off front cards, huh? I don't know if that one will catch on, but you could always try patenting it.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

If everyone decides to stop sticking stickers in sticker books for future value the value drops until some hype dweeb slabs a sticker for a 10.

This is already happening. A slabbed sticker with a 10 went for £4000 recently and yet the entire book with all the stickers stuck in it would only be about £50.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

If everyone decides to stop sticking stickers in sticker books for future value the value drops until some hype dweeb slabs a sticker for a 10.

This is already happening. A slabbed sticker with a 10 went for £4000 recently and yet the entire book with all the stickers stuck in it would only be about £50.

Wow! How could I have known that? It's like I'm psycho..er...psychic!

Seriously, I did not know they were slabbing stickers these days. So what are unslabbed unstuck stickers going for?

I've been collecting gift, hotel and phone cards for about 10 years maybe I should get them graded.

I think it all depends on what your own preference is. If I were collecting, I'd stick em into the book. That's what they're meant for. Mind you, this is if it's a new product- current production.

If I was buying older product, yeah I'd be inclined not to stick em. Especially if pricing makes it foolish to do so.

Honestly, I think some of these products are much more creative than related card sets. What's the real reason these things are produced in the first place? To have fun collecting and filling up a book with pictures. So many card sets these days focus on high end cards that the base cards (filler, if you will) are given little creative effort. For the budget minded collector, it's a major factor in the selection process.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I've been collecting gift, hotel and phone cards for about 10 years maybe I should get them graded.

Off topic, but are they still making collectible phone cards? I have a few from way back before cell phones exploded, including ones signed by Boris and Julie Bell. I haven't heard them mentioned on Card Talk to any great extent and don't know if they are still being done or if there is just an old market for old phone cards. Unscratched of course.

Are we talking about the stickers that come out of vending machines? Because I have a few sets that I bought just because the artwork was so cool. Like the the Kiss set or the Greatful Dead set. I also have Phone cards that had their own pages and binders with Superheroes on them.

I have just a few phone cards. It was a growing hobby-within-a-hobby for a couple of years in the 2000's, but today, I think there are about as many phone card collectors as there are of those who collect cards showing magicians. By that I mean a discerning few cultivating a specialized taste, of course.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I've been collecting gift, hotel and phone cards for about 10 years maybe I should get them graded.

Off topic, but are they still making collectible phone cards? I have a few from way back before cell phones exploded, including ones signed by Boris and Julie Bell. I haven't heard them mentioned on Card Talk to any great extent and don't know if they are still being done or if there is just an old market for old phone cards. Unscratched of course.

I do know they have pre-paid cards for phones that aren't on a monthly service, not sure if they make them collectable or not. Much of what I have is from the 90's or early 2k's.

As you go through my collection it shows the legal changes over the years and looking at cards from companies long gone now. Some of the phone cards from Japan are pretty cool looking. I probably have about 300 - 400 phone and gift card mixed. Also a few day pass cards to amusement parks and themed hotel key cards.

Recently figured out that the 12 pocket business card pages work great for keeping them in a notebook.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
I have just a few phone cards. It was a growing hobby-within-a-hobby for a couple of years in the 2000's, but today, I think there are about as many phone card collectors as there are of those who collect cards showing magicians. By that I mean a discerning few cultivating a specialized taste, of course.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I've been collecting gift, hotel and phone cards for about 10 years maybe I should get them graded.

Off topic, but are they still making collectible phone cards? I have a few from way back before cell phones exploded, including ones signed by Boris and Julie Bell. I haven't heard them mentioned on Card Talk to any great extent and don't know if they are still being done or if there is just an old market for old phone cards. Unscratched of course.

quote:

Originally posted by Ace of Heart

Are we talking about the stickers that come out of vending machines?

No, these are sticker packs usually done by Merlin or Panini. They are massive all over Europe.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I do know they have pre-paid cards for phones that aren't on a monthly service, not sure if they make them collectable or not. Much of what I have is from the 90's or early 2k's.

As you go through my collection it shows the legal changes over the years and looking at cards from companies long gone now. Some of the phone cards from Japan are pretty cool looking. I probably have about 300 - 400 phone and gift card mixed. Also a few day pass cards to amusement parks and themed hotel key cards.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mykdude:
I've been collecting gift, hotel and phone cards for about 10 years maybe I should get them graded.

That's impressive, maybe you should start a new thread about phone cards and see how many other closet collectors there are here. I bought a few of the signed editions when I saw them and many of those had more limited production. In checking eBay it does seem as though most phone cards for sale were issued around the mid 90s. Being made of harder plastic the condition should be excellent, especially for unused ones. Most are not expensive. Sounds like a nice niche market just waiting to be manipulated.

Getting back to the stickers though, they would have to be some sort of licensed issue to be collectible. The stuff coming out of vending machines might look better or worse, but it won't ever be more than mass produced junk without some sort of recognized approval of something.

For me in order to be 'collectible' -- this is my personal preference, but the stickers would at a minimum need to be numbered, and preferably there would be something (text, description, number, copyright, etc) on the backing of the sticker.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
For me in order to be 'collectible' -- this is my personal preference, but the stickers would at a minimum need to be numbered, and preferably there would be something (text, description, number, copyright, etc) on the backing of the sticker.

Oh yes this is the case with the sets i am talking about. Each sticker is numbered and has full manufacturer details on the back and the numbers in the book correspond to each sticker.