Watching Fanatics buy out long standing Topps and reading about the insane amount of money revving the memorabilia market it is difficult not to feel that the hobby is entering into a new 4th phase.

Phase I 1950's to late 1980's Just a bunch of collectors who had card trashing mothers.
Phase II the 90's bubble and rise of licensing costs
Phase III 2000 to 2022? low production and the battle for rarity
Phase IV (The future) Consolidation! Big bucks buy big licenses. One Ring to Rule them all. Difficult not to see non-sports eventually being swallowed up in the whole thing.

Having been a veteran of the first 3 phases I think I am going to sit this one out.

Interesting. . . although I actually am more hopeful.

I think the consolidation phase has already passed, and I'm hoping we'll see production start to ramp up as more money pours in to the hobby and people go looking for new stuff to open.

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Originally posted by webjon:

I think the consolidation phase has already passed,

I do agree somewhat, I just have a feeling it is going to get even more so.

Personally I think it will bring in all of the bad parts of phase II and III. Massively over produced rarity.

Pretty good timeline, but I would count the 1980's in sports cards separately because it wasn't so much a bubble then as true value for the right stars. The vintage stuff took off and new stars like Mattingly, Ripken, Jordan, Boggs etc., ending with the 1989 UD Griffey Jr. really pushed the market. The 80's had mass overproduction, but the demand existed. The 90's ushered in even worse overproduction and by the end collector demand fell and prices for everything but the best dropped off a cliff.

I also think that you could take non-sport cards and push ahead about 10 years in those phases. The non-sport card market always lingered behind sports cards to me, even while eventually following in its exact footsteps.

I have no intention of leaving the hobby and I'm unconcerned about any new wave. My collecting habits had already changed before whatever comes with Fanatics or any other card maker. The hobby changed for me when non-sport premium boxes broke the $100 barrier and again when the best certified autograph cards hit 4 figures out of the gate. And of course, the pandemic created havoc that both hurt and helped different collectors. It slowed me down to a crawl. So I'm used to it now and I'm not following anything that doesn't make sense to me.

Talking more about production and distribution and not so much card value. For most of the 80's collectors got their cards the same way they did in the 70's. Non sports pretty much followed close behind sports in the timeline for production technology, design, security and development.

I would call the 90's the decade of experimentation and how to make bricks from glossy trading cards.

Although not specifically stated I am assuming the Topps purchase included all their current non sport titles as well as the Topps Vault. That's a big step into this side of the hobby. If Fanatics gets focused on it I wonder if they will try to head hunt the bigger licenses from other manufacturers?

The Topps deal included all of the entertainment IP -- the only thing it didn't include was the candy.

I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

I am hoping that the new phase of cards entices manufacturers to try new licenses -- things that are comic related seem pretty obvious -- I'd love to see a set based on the show The Boys.

I'd also love to see more manufacturers go back to celebrity based sets like Panini's Country Music and Century Collection, Topps American Pie, etc.

Pop Century is always one of my favorite releases (although the design . . . ugh). It is interesting this year that it seems there are no base autographs -- all the autographs are some sort of a parallel. That doesn't really matter to me -- I just bought the ones I wanted based on the celeb. In fact if there was a base version on a non-shiny card I would have preferred that version. My point is that the manufactured rarity seems to be a HUGE deal to Marvel parallels, but for other genres people don't seem to care nearly as much.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

Star Trek, Bond, DC.

I do feel that Topps wasted the opportunity to use their vault and history more than they did. The 75th Anniversary release was great and it seems to be holding its value over time.

The Boys has been another missed card opportunity. Pop Century is an unimaginative circus show. If the celebrity pool ever got stale the product would dry up. You have sneak up on the card just to get a decent photo of it. I wont touch certain colors (silver) or that cracked ice garbage. The cards are ugly enough don't make it worse. All of the variants and their silly numbers and I just want to find one that looks somewhat nice.

With that said they did put out a really nice James Caan wardrobe card this year. Looks nothing like the rest of the set.

I do feel that Fanatics will be very much engrossed in the upcoming baseball season. They will keep doing Star Wars and GPK, but I can't see where they have a need to look to branch out into other non-sport titles and licenses that they didn't pick up from TOPPS when their main association, and really the most money, is still with pro sports cards. They can always expand non-sport later if they desire.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

Star Trek, Bond, DC.

I'm not sure how much tread is left on the Trek/Bond tires, but it is possible.

DC is such an enigma. Outside of the CZX releases it doesn't seem to have done well at all. There aren't any DC comic related sets that I am aware of that have any of the collector appeal of the Marvel stuff.

It is possible that someone could inject life into DC. Certainly there is an appetite for comic related content.

quote:

I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

Not Non-Sport, but Hockey. The only sport they don't have the license for.

Which could make Upper Deck a target for take over as well.

And if you connect those dots, Marvel would come with the hockey cards in a UD deal.

UD is privately held, so it might be a tougher deal to make, but Fanatics does not lack the funds to make it happen.

Only question then would be if the Feds allow it to happen or it hits anti-trust. I would argue that Fanatics has already entered that, not by buying Topps, but by locking in MLB, NFL, and NBA licenses.

Ed

I don't see any (good) change coming unless they sort out the ever-growing disparity between box prices and content value. The non-sport market is slowly dying and will continue to die while the cost of collecting anything besides the autographs of background extras carries on rising.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

Harry Potter.

Also, it'd be nice if they take the more old-school approach that not every license purchased has to have unreasonable longevity. I miss the days of there being sets for shorter-lived series and movies. Back when there were different things to look for rather than the same five or six licenses being burnt to the ground over time.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
Also, it'd be nice if they take the more old-school approach that not every license purchased has to have unreasonable longevity. I miss the days of there being sets for shorter-lived series and movies. Back when there were different things to look for rather than the same five or six licenses being burnt to the ground over time.

I agree, it seems like streaming services are providing a great platform for this. Almost instant judge of popularity, decide it appeals to collectors and jump on a one time production run. If first set rocks it then jump on a series II.

I realize there are other logistics involved but the risk factor of the catwoman effect does seem to be a bit more mitigated these days.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
I don't see any (good) change coming unless they sort out the ever-growing disparity between box prices and content value. The non-sport market is slowly dying and will continue to die while the cost of collecting anything besides the autographs of background extras carries on rising.

I think this is significantly dependent on what segment of the hobby you are chasing. For Marvel and the new CXZ the most popular sets have been the most expensive boxes -- and it's not even close.

GPK and Star Wars also seem to be doing very well at their current prices.

The biggest issue I see is that there aren't many new titles coming out. It has become very risky to try a new license.

I don't think we'll see box prices drop. I keep seeing companies try to improve the value of the contents of a box by reducing the number base cards/sets per box, trying premium packs, or boxes with tons of chase and hits at a higher price, but all the changes the manufactures tried seem to be met with backlash.

The people who talk about box price tend want at least one base set per box, and they also want to be able to buy base sets for little or nothing. Unfortunately that isn't sustainable.

There don't seem to be any easy answers. The options tend to be a low volume release at high dollar, or a high volume release at low dollar, but there currently don't seem to be enough buyers to drive many high volume releases.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I'm not sure what license would be attractive to Topps / Fanatics that they don't already have -- the only thing I can think of is Marvel.

Harry Potter.

I think Harry Potter would be a great license for any company for sure -- I was only considering licenses that were already being held by a manufacturer.

Sports related, sorry.

I have been watching a lot of the LPGA on tv for the last year but there does not seem to be a card set for it or ever has been.......or am i looking in the wrong places?

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Sports related, sorry.

I have been watching a lot of the LPGA on tv for the last year but there does not seem to be a card set for it or ever has been.......or am i looking in the wrong places?

I don't know if there has been a specific LPGA set, but I think some of the LPGA players have been featured in various years of Goodwin Champions.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Sports related, sorry.

I have been watching a lot of the LPGA on tv for the last year but there does not seem to be a card set for it or ever has been.......or am i looking in the wrong places?

Exclusively LPGA, I don't think so, although I'm not up on current sports cards. Golf cards were never really big, but Pro Set had them in the 90's and Upper Deck tried some nice SP cards in early 2000's. I know that you can find a few women in SP golf. Annika Sorenstam was the biggest LPGA autograph at the time, and you can find a few cards for her.

Golf, tennis, bowling, somebody tried card sets every few years, but they never seemed to make enough for an annual product. And the women's tours for those sports were rarely represented beyond maybe a handful of stars. I think you can find more female athletes on cards now, but still not as an exclusive product unless you count Women's Pro Basketball, but that was hardly successful either in comparison to the NBA.

ok i just found a set of golf cards in a box ( the things i have in a box know no end ).

This one is 2003 upper deck Renditions. It has 12 LPGA cards in it called Portfolio Rookies.

I still think the LPGA should put out a factory set of all their players.

There have been a number of golf releases over the years that featured LPGA players but never a set specifically made up of LPGA players only .

I think Renditions 2003 was one of the first to feature LPGA players . If we ever do get to meet up in Birmingham again I can bring some of the LPGA auto's and game used I have . Unfortunately most of the cards are sticker autos but that early Renditions set was on card , LPGA ones I have are Christie Kerr , Judy Rankin , Karin Koch , Karrie Webb , and Se Ri Pak .

Sounds good, we must sort that out soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Triple-Frog:
There have been a number of golf releases over the years that featured LPGA players but never a set specifically made up of LPGA players only .

I think Renditions 2003 was one of the first to feature LPGA players . If we ever do get to meet up in Birmingham again I can bring some of the LPGA auto's and game used I have . Unfortunately most of the cards are sticker autos but that early Renditions set was on card , LPGA ones I have are Christie Kerr , Judy Rankin , Karin Koch , Karrie Webb , and Se Ri Pak .

I think we should try and have a UK meeting of some sort in the near future