What do you think the current state of the hobby is?

I'm fairly focused in what I pay attention to so my observations are only in a couple of areas:

Most of the Marvel related cards on COMC/ePack have dropped in price in a major way. Some are approaching pre-pandemic pricing. There are A LOT of marvel cards that don't appear much on COMC so I have no idea how they are fairing, and some cards are way higher than they used to be -- i.e. Tom Holland autographs are way more expensive than they were pre-pandemic, but outside of that most of the MCU autographs are maybe even back to pre-pandemic level. I looked at Marvel sketches on COMC lately and was surprised to see a number of them that were priced decently.

Pop Century autographs never seemed to get the 'covid' bump. They seem to be about the same.

Harry Potter autographs . . . To be honest I haven't looked at them much again lately -- I'm going to check 'em out again soon. It does seem the bigger character autographs are still high based on the handful of posts I see on Blowout, although that may be changing.

Picked up some Red Sonja 50th sketches -- they are looking great this year -- these are 'normal' price, I think.

Non-mainstream sketch sets like Island Dreams and EGS seem really pretty weak. There are some exceptions, but in general these don't seem to be doing well. Good for me as I've picked up some cards at really good prices, but. . . I'm bummed about EGS -- I really liked what they were doing, but seems like rough going on these sets now.

Getting a good hit is very difficult for the average collector. Most of my cards are Star Wars . On occasion, I'll get something else. Blaster boxes used to turn up hits for a while, but that does not seem to be the case lately.

I picked up my first blaster in a while this weekend. My friend Trey and I each got a blaster of Loki. It was fun but for 24.99 not as much fun as it used to be. I have been focusing on finishing up some sets and stopped paying attention to newer products. The only "new" set this year was that I got into Doctor Who season 1 to 4 (of the new run) by Rittenhouse. All the insert sets I got for super cheap. Been working on the autographs (there are 103) and have 63. There are 9 I would like to get and then the rest are people who have other signatures In one of the 3 autograph formats for this set- Boarder, Full Bleed or Inscription. I cannot speak for anyone else but when I hit the small shows in my area which are usually toy related, I almost never see non sports cards like I used to. There was a guy who used to bring unopen boxes at unreasonable prices but he has stopped bringing those. Lots of sales of Pokemon cards it seems.

To me, in flux and unhealthy.

I say in flux, because major card makers are changing or selling out and we don't know what their plans for non-sport cards is yet.

I say unhealthy, because market prices make little sense and there is no logic to rely on. Many non-sport cards, especially the autograph cards are way higher than they should be, but then there are others that are seriously undervalued. I no longer know what a fair price is for anything, so I can't judge if I'm being smart or stupid with my buying or punting.

I've gone back to eBay for individual cards, even though I hate eBay and am a hypocrite for it. Box buying is such a dead-end proposition, but I still miss the thrill of the pull, and that takes away some of the fun for me.

This can be the 2023 end of the year comment thread, I can't think of any questions to pose that we haven't covered already.

To me, the market is in flux. Higher box prices I can understand when it comes to the companies having to pay higher prices to make the products. Inflation hasn't helped at all.

But I really don't want to keep seeing the same franchises. Marvel, Star Trek, Star Wars, GOT..... It gets monotonous to say the least. Having Cryptozoic step away/down really has hurt. Their CZX products are OK, but thick card stock, high box prices and limited releases hurt.

What the hobby needs is an infusion of fresh product. I like what Rittenhouse has done with a little infusion of Twins Peaks, NCIS, House of Dragons and Cheers. That's what we need to see more of, not the same old releases, same old signers, etc.

Even if these are one and done sets, it's something the hobby needs. Also, new inserts to chase. Be innovative too. Introduce something new to chase if you are releasing multiples of the same franchise. One thing, at least IMO is, parallels really don't work in non-sports like they do in sports. Out of all the cases I have opened over the last 30 years, I have zero parallel sets in my PC. I would prefer one or two more insert sets to chase, than parallels that copy the base card. Having 14 parallels in Marvel Allure was just dumb. Again, just my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by Chilly55:
But I really don't want to keep seeing the same franchises. . . .
What the hobby needs is an infusion of fresh product.

I hope the Cheers set is successful. It would be nice if it inspired more sets of semi-recent classic shows -- Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Arrested Development, Veep, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, 30 Rock, Night Court. But don't do them like they did Big Bang Theory, where 90% of the cards are just of the core cast. Throw in guest stars, for visual variety. That's how you recognize an episode from the scene -- by who is in it. If you see Melora Walters on a Seinfeld card, you know it's "shrinkage." If you see Jessica Alba on an "Office" card, you think of Jack Black and Chloris Leachman making out.

ePack has changed as well.

During the speculation wave nearly all Marvel product sold out on ePack (the only release that didn't sell out was Defenders), during that time new releases would fly off the site.

In the last year or maybe six months there has been a near total reversal. Sets have stopped selling out quickly, or even at all. Additionally ePack releases are now significantly behind physical releases.

Clerks III, Marvel Allure and the newest Goodwin have been on the street for quite a while now, but none have been release on ePack -- there are many of other releases in the same situation.

Both Upper Deck and Leaf have been mentioned in recent rumors as targets for a buyout by Fanatics.

Now Leaf has been acquired by someone new, Orange Mountain Capital. No one seems to know if that is an actual business or a place holder company. I can find no information about what they do or hold, if anything, and they were formed as a company right before the Leaf sale. The details of this acquisition is very much unknown right now.

Upper Deck has been rumored to be on shaky ground for a while, so is Fanatics looking at them? Would ePacks continue if someone else takes over? Also unknown.

Panini is getting squeezed out by Fanatics. Cryptozoic is doing toys, not cards. Topps is Fanatics and Rittenhouse Archives is the only big one left that I hear nothing about. The rest are smaller independent card makers, who are just as likely to be doing Kickstarter projects as they are traditional releases.

And let's not forget about PSA, which rumors will say is also looking to produce cards for itself.

In a year's time who knows where any of them come down? All rumors folks, but pieces are moving.

The state of my hobby is REDUCTION!
Anybody want these?
STAR WARS, Embossed and Samurai sealed packs.
KISS & Hildebrandt open.
NASCARs sealed.

TAKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My e-mail is in my profile, just send me your address (USA only please) and the cards are yours!

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

In the promo card world, I see good prices for some cards and rather-very reasonable prices for ones that were once hard to get. You might come across a card once valued in the $40-60 range offered for $50 card, but if you search for that card in particular, you might find another one offered for around $15 and yet they both sit for weeks. In the old days, they would have both been snapped up before most people saw them because collectors would want them to have the extra to trade (or because they didn't mind having two), but these days, it seems like each of us is just looking for what we don't have.

Yeah, most indicators say our hobby in general is getting smaller and yet auction prices for pre-80's sets and various high-graded singles are rocketing skyward. Who paid over $6000 for a PSA 10 #59 from the first Star Wars Topps set? Was it a celebrity?

You could still get the whole set (NM - maybe some EX or MT cards in there) for about $15 in the late 90's.

Grading companies are still causing more problems than solutions.

Seems to be much confusion as to what "rare" and "value" mean.

Collectors run to premium cost e-pack after still remaining physical product has reduced in price by half. Not to mention the shift to e-pack generally produces a drop on the secondary market prices.

Large manufacturers continue to pull a smoke and mirrors act when it comes to revealing actual production numbers. E-Pack concepts seem to imply paying for cards that will never be produced. Would love to see how all that works out at the end of a finance report.

Fanatics (zerocool) still does not have a grasp on attractive or cool card design. They need some work on image selection as well.

Title redundancy is the reason I left sports cards. I get it, ya gotta stick with your money maker but sooner more than later, I always get to a sealed product boycott point. At least when a company like RA does it you know you wont get short changed in quality and insert ratios.

Hobby is still in a state where hyper hype rules the new product releases while most of it will be worth much less 6 months from now.

Stickers still suck and still diminish the quality of many celebrity autographs.

I do seem to be seeing more attempts at selling collections on social media groups. Some of the asking prices are absurd.

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

A social media group doesn't sound like a place to put out a collection for sale. I would go to an auction house especially if I had a pile of great stuff (pre-80's complete sets, test sets/near sets, rare more modern cards/sets). I think it's probably not as good a time to sell a collection in one shot as it was a couple of years ago. You would be better off letting it go in small lots (set-by-set, card-by-card) if you want something closer to the current retail value though that is a slow boat to your money.