where to from here??

A bit of competition would be good in the market, but how awesome is it how far not just collecting but technology has come in 20 years? The demand is there for these constant releases, and if 3 per year flunk, that can easily be absorbed by Poonani. It is just the evolution of the live market place also, so much info at our fingertips, all different types of collectors, I love it in all in every aspect, dealing with people all over the world, backing yourself in to see into the future, all the different avenues you can take and approach the hobby. I am a fan of Basketball full stop but this gives me the opportunity the put my knowledge into action, the only thing that separates most collectors is there Bank Balance imo.

DJW said:

A bit of competition would be good in the market, but how awesome is it how far not just collecting but technology has come in 20 years? The demand is there for these constant releases, and if 3 per year flunk, that can easily be absorbed by Poonani. It is just the evolution of the live market place also, so much info at our fingertips, all different types of collectors, I love it in all in every aspect, dealing with people all over the world, backing yourself in to see into the future, all the different avenues you can take and approach the hobby. I am a fan of Basketball full stop but this gives me the opportunity the put my knowledge into action, the only thing that separates most collectors is there Bank Balance imo.

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Do you think with all this technology at our fingertips it has made the hobby not only more enjoyable but sorta more alive? Thinking back in the day like the 90's we couldn't check past sales history of a certain card on eBay or even check online at BGS or PSA for population of grades cards or like you said be able to buy cards from people all over the world, at the end of the day I think without the technology we have today the hobby would of died out a while back. I especially agree with your point about the bank balance haha.

Jordan_Cards_Fan said:

Do you think with all this technology at our fingertips it has made the hobby not only more enjoyable but sorta more alive? Thinking back in the day like the 90's we couldn't check past sales history of a certain card on eBay or even check online at BGS or PSA for population of grades cards or like you said be able to buy cards from people all over the world, at the end of the day I think without the technology we have today the hobby would of died out a while back. I especially agree with your point about the bank balance haha.

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Still reckon with the BGS grading report serial # they need to be card numbered if they have a stamped serial number on them though to help us all out.

"WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE AYE"

I think the greed of distributors has ruined the hobby. There is no watch-dog authority for the hobby so it's just a free for all.

Panini has a standard MINIMUM mark-up on releases up to 3 months from release for licensed retailers, but NOT a MAXIMUM mark-up.

Think about this example.. Panini sell 17-18 National Treasures for approx $350usd a box and they are able to make a good profit on that product to stay in business.Then DACW/Blowout etc buy hundreds of cases each. They sell them close to $1000usd a box retail. How is that even justifiable?
But because they buy tonnes of the low-end they get more allocation of high-end, and it will never end. money makes money.
Now not everyone can afford those boxes, but relate it to the low-end stuff also.. mark-ups not quite as high, but they are still overpriced as hell.
You wouldn't be so disappointed to bust a box and hit a crap auto if it was purchased for a reasonable price.
It's such a gut punch to the hip pocket buying boxes outright that it forces people to buy into group breaks for the luck of the draw on multiple boxes for less than the price of one.
And when you hit nothing in the break, well that's pretty much what you'd get 9 times out of 10 busting a single box so fk it.

Also, you might get a case hit auto, but its rarely worth the price of the box on the secondary market!!! Insane!!!

Now there's a LOT of things I dislike about Panini.. (but that's not to say that UD or Topps didn't do this previously but) these are just ghastly business practices.
- Panini 'rewards' points and the 'rewards' page.. you mean you couldn't be bothered to put a hit in the box and gave me something I have to create an account, redeem, then choose from all matters of junk on the website and then PAY additionally for postage. absurd.
- Secondly to that is not inserting certain hits into product releases, AND hiding them from the official site checklist, then randomly chucking the whole print runs on the 'Rewards' page!!
- Panini redemptions.. A) some take years and some never get fulfilled at all. b) if they can't fulfil the promise of the card you got, they'll swap it for something of equal value.... AND THAT makes the next person miss out on their card redemption and on and on.
- And: Panini Replay. selling unredeemed redemption cards as new product....

Onto the collecting side of it..
I think TIME is the biggest deterrent to set collecting. It takes a lot of time to do it, and at our (old) ages I think everyone has too many responsibilities to spend the time they probably want to on the hobby.
I feel that set collecting is very rewarding.

I myself have turned off collecting Kemp. It didn't take long after Panini got him signing. they pumped out heaps of sticker stuff and he has been signing horrible autos on them. It's rare to get a nice auto of him on the new stuff. I love my old 90s autos a lot more than the few (6) Panini ones I have.
I have sent Panini and older UD cards to the USA to have signed in person and I love the older UD cards with his auto on them. He also put great autos on those cards as they were done at a convention.
That part of the hobby still interests me.

Josh and I have agreed for a while that a large portion of NBA releases are lacklustre in design and just don't grab people.
I'd rather open a box of 08-09 UD Black or even unlicensed Exquisite than National Treasures or Immaculate. Old UD designs are just still better than Panini. hands down.

OK that's enough crap from me, I'm off to yell at the clouds with Andrew.

just chatting to a friend and realised the following -
Exclusive deals
MLB - Topps
NBA - Panini
NFL - Panini
NHL - Upper Deck

so the lack of variety and competition is not NBA specific

Awesome read!! Good job Andrew... stirring that passion inside us old head collectors!!

I honestly don’t like much of what panini produces.... besides revolution!! Everything else I find boring!! There’s been some awesome auto sets... but majority had been boring to the eyes. But that’s my personal opinion!! But panini doesn’t have competition... so whatever they release is going to sell... that’s the problem... they can’t lose!!

I still try set collecting... but these days it’s patch sets or auto sets!! But i was doing the same back in the upper deck days!! Haha

Pc collecting is hard... the cards produced are in numbers that are beyond a joke... the different parallels and variations... hobby packs, booster packs, retail, target, Kmart... etc!! There’s all different styles!!

Stickers autos I feel are a lot more too these days... even in the likes of national treasures!!??? But then again ud black had sticker autos one year too!!

I feel razzes have killed the industry a bit too... while I love entering them and getting a $100 card for a $10 spot... it does have a negative effect on values of things I believe!! But at the same time it’s very exciting!!

I have found some awesome mates in the hobby over the years tho... and we all look out for each other or slip each other some PayPal if needed or send each other cards depending on PCs!! Also get some decent trades done!! That’s the beauty of it!

But yes... time to bring the fun back... investors have killed it!! Some people have 10+ of mj rcs just as investments!! I understand it... also saw one dude with 10+ graded Lebron exquisite rcs!! And they’re numbered... haha!! Rich dudes are buying big while the rest of us are here scraping each dollar to get a nice card of our favourite player!!

I do understand the investment side of things more now as I have children and it be cool to have something of worth to pass down to them...

This has been an awesome read and being a collector in high school and stopping after friends moved away I was so happy to fall back into the hobby in 2013 after watching Cherry Group Breaks. I restarted my set collecting and even went back and recollected my glory days sets of 92-93, 93-94 UD and the Collectors Choice silver signature set, what I did find was especially with the new products was even base was overpriced. 12-13 Brilliance and 14-15 Hoops were the first of the new sets I chased and I found people wanted $2-3 for a dodgy parallel just because the box it came from was $100, this made chasing the parallel painful when your chasing 300 cards in the parallel set.

What a great read and thread topic.
Some very valuable insights either way. To each their own.
Personally I like that there is a myriad of choices out there. It's sort of, there's something for everyone. Not everyone though. Kids/early teens suffer the most as they don't have the resources to keep up. The hobby is no longer about them at all anymore, it's a shame really. Whenever something is gained here, there's going to be a loss/loser there, unfortunately. It's the fabric of life in many ways.
Things have changed dramatically since those days in high school in the mid 90's, flicking through folders, doing trades with the many schoolmates at lunchtime and so on.
It does seem true that it is a rich mans game now and I'm by no means a rich man.
I myself try to set myself a realistic target, and I try to fulfil them. If I pull a high value card, or the highest value card in a set/parallel set/insert set, I then go and try to complete the set, to complement that top card. I don't do this exclusively but I certainly consider it every-time this happens.
I think you have to be a realist and know what you can achieve. It is hard in many ways (limited releases/parallels/low #s and so on). The satisfaction is that much greater when the challenge is harder. Harder these days unfortunately means more money really, and whoever has the resources in general takes the spoils. Saw an auction end for a Giannis Prizm Auto RC today on eBay. Couldn't believe the final bid was over $2800. Far too rich for me, but obviously there's big players playing what is a big a game nowadays. I can only spectate in these instances and marvel.
There is no right and wrong here. There's just "different". The products available today cater for most, but definitely not the 8th graders on their lunchtime shenanigans with collections built on pocket money from chores completed around the house. They are the biggest casualties here. Such a shame really, as those early days were my fondest and should be as well for the new generation.
"new generation" there's a whole topic of it's own. Not sure that this generation is at all interested in the tactile nature of this hobby.
Personally my uncle got my into stamp collecting when I was about 5 and rest is history really. I loved the physical tactile nature of it, and I dare say that this is the reason i'm here today sharing my own thoughts on this subject.

Billyhoyle said:

Absolutely agree with this - seems like Upper Deck (particularly) and Topps are now looked at through rose coloured glasses (or maybe just newer collectors who don't remember) - whenever I read complaints about Panini, it's always "bring back upper deck they'd be so much better", however I think the majority of the current complaints were issues for many years and not just new to panini.

*redemptions - already an issue, in fact upper deck and topps are worse than panini in dealing with redemptions
*rainbows/parallels - Topps did it in 05/06 Finest - even Camby had a 22 card rainbow!

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Well if you are a panini hater then this means that panini had no innovation! Basically taking off from whatever had been in the market already.

I agree that the hobby for some of us has lost its appeal. I was a set collector. I loved to read the back of the cards. But after a while just had too much stuff. But most was considered worthless, or no one was just interested in buying them.

Of course I still liked buying some but could no longer fathom the rise and rise of a lot of the stuff.

Ersk said:

Well if you are a panini hater then this means that panini had no innovation! Basically taking off from whatever had been in the market already.

I agree that the hobby for some of us has lost its appeal. I was a set collector. I loved to read the back of the cards. But after a while just had too much stuff. But most was considered worthless, or no one was just interested in buying them.

Of course I still liked buying some but could no longer fathom the rise and rise of a lot of the stuff.

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Do you think the number of releases has killed set collectors? Once upon a time you had series 1 and 2 (if you were lucky!) and everyone collected the same and therefore would trade for the same now. Now by the time you are looking to trade for your set needs, most collectors have moved on to the next release.

so here's where we at nearly a year later
- Panini cutting GU making them rarer again
- Cards available in Big W and Kmart and selling out so the market is there and growing

Box/Case prices going through the roof and collectors willingly paying it!

Billyhoyle said:

so here's where we at nearly a year later
- Panini cutting GU making them rarer again
- Cards available in Big W and Kmart and selling out so the market is there and growing

Box/Case prices going through the roof and collectors willingly paying it!

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The reduction in game used material I think is more down to reducing costs and not being able to replenish stock of older jerseys (legends etc) and you see what they have done with NFL ......all legends these days are player worn jerseys (Montana/Marino/Namath etc).

Even some current players only have player worn.......for the last couple of years all Aaron Rodgers patches are player worn. Does this mean the player has worn it or its a "player worn jersey" like the ones they would potentially wear? Who knows?

Why spend $10,000 on a game worn jersey at auction (sometimes with questionable authenticity) for player X when they can put in swatches of a "player worn jersey" for $200 a jersey in total?

I would not be surprised that if in 10 years all card materials will be player worn with the odd set featuring game worn material.

As for cards being available in retail stores.......bring it on!!!! Need more of this!

This is said to bring in more new collectors.. Hopefully it does and the hobby grows.

I'm glad this thread has popped up again. I started getting back into the hobby this time last year and I remember reading this thread trying to get my bearings on where the game was today compared to where it was when I was in my teens from about 1999 until 2003/04. I've definitely dived head first into everything and learnt a lot along the way.

After being a massive UD/Topps fan, I was definitely skeptical of Panini. But I think they've done well and even year to year it's quite evident that they are listening to collectors. There are things they have definitely got wrong like the saturation of player worn jerseys, sticker autos and redemptions but other things like large parallel sets and offering a wider product range (for instance) give people a heap of different options when collecting. It's been said in this thread a couple of times, but they really do offer something for everyone. It's definitely a rich mans game today though, but wasn't it back then too? I used to spend $5 on a packet of cards that weren't much chop back then, but you can routinely go to any K-Mart and pick up $4 packs of Prestige, Donruss or Revolution (which is arguably one of the best cheap products ever made) anytime you want today. Group breaks are the reason for the $1k boxes but that's exactly what we, the collectors, are demanding. Panini, in pretty much every instance, are providing us with what we are asking for, for better or for worse.

I do kinda get annoyed when I see people hating on Panini though, their card designs, what they're doing with this, that and the other. It kind of reminds me when older people bag out modern music like nothing made today is any good. I think we place a massive amount of nostalgia on early 00 and 90's cards because they definitely weren't all great and none of the three companies who produced cards hit the nail on the head with every release. Panini also don't have the good fortune of being able to offer Jordan cards or LeBron auto's which makes it even more difficult for them.

In saying all of that, I've definitely got a few bug bears. The main one being value-for-money when buying boxes. I purchased quite a few boxes early doors and got absolutely no return for them. I reckon the best card I got out of four-five boxes would have been worth $5. I've joined a heap of live breaks and hit one card. I watch live breaks all the time, locally and ones on YouTube from the US. And the likely hood of you getting your moneys worth when opening up a box of cards is so, so, so low. The hobby has always had a gambling element to it but hearing breakers persuade people into joining breaks, saying they can 'feel something good coming up' in the next case, saying 'BOOM' when someone hits a super, super average rookie auto... Have to say it's not the best and always reminds me to be careful with my money. Ironically, watching live breaks has fed the urge to buy boxes myself though as I can kind of live out the desire by watching other people break, haha.

With that said, I've learnt a lot. I've learnt how to best spend my money. I have a mortgage and a record collecting addiction to feed so I can't responsibly go out and spend a heap of money on cards. But going back and buying low-end-ish rookies ($50-$300) in beautifully graded cases at ease online, chatting with the wider community on message boards and in Facebook groups, starting up a mini-PC and small side PC's has made it an enjoyable ride.

Re: my comments about live breaks and gambling, etc.

Check out this thread about a guy who started doing live breaks in the US: https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1182927&highlight=gambling

Agree with you James, the value-for-money from busting boxes/cases is terrible.

We should at least get a 25% return I feel. Buy a $200 box and hit a $50 card.

I often wonder if when they fill packs and boxes if it's all done randomly or they select the all star players and balance the good rookies etc.

Would love to see the production line.

And yes! love seeing packs at the local retailers, a $4 shot is fun

Just coming back to have a look at the state of the hobby as I've been gone a while. Was thinking about taking part in a group break to dip my toe back in the water. Do they even do these here anymore?

ryawil0 said:

Just coming back to have a look at the state of the hobby as I've been gone a while. Was thinking about taking part in a group break to dip my toe back in the water. Do they even do these here anymore?

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Not so much here directly. Lots of us groups and plenty of aussie ones too.

For Australian ones (search Facebook)
Cherry collectables
West Oz Cards @West Oz Cards
Dungeon master breaks @chris_rimp
Late night breaks @Neb
Z force trading cards @zeeman

Awesome read so far.

Have been away from the hobby (and the forum, unfortunately) for a while, after I got rid of my entire collection 2-3 years ago. Having said that, I have always been and always will be a massive fan of the game. And, eventually, here I am again, looking to start collecting again, slowly and at my own pace.

Because, at the end of the day, I realised that collecting for me was never about investing, or completing a set, or having the most cards or the best cards. It is a part of the game I love. Some cards are reminders of a different era, some cards have a little piece of history and many of them mean something special to me, for completely personal reasons.

I haven't bought a single card yet. I'm planning on purchasing some packs tonight, and probably a couple of boxes down the track. Nice and easy, no rush. I am not sure what the current situation is like, but I would bet good money that the crap that used to turn me off is still around today: Speculators, people trying to make a quick buck, overpriced garbage and a market that is over saturated and literally impossible to keep up with. I don't even want to think what next year is going to be like, when Zion and co cards start hitting the market.

Down the track, I might regret my decision to start over again. I definitely am in a different place compared to a few years ago and my priorities have slightly changed, but collecting is something I have always loved (comics and cards), and a hobby I can share with my kids now that they're older.

I really don't know where the hobby is heading. What we don't realise sometimes is that the hobby changes as the game changes. And the NBA has blown up in the past few years (not necessarily always in a positive way), and that will reflect on everything surrounding the sport, cards included. I'm not terribly optimistic about the future, but what do I know?

But, hey, as I said, for me, it's all for the love of the game. Plus, few things beat cracking open a new pack or box and discovering what's inside

PS. Good to be back.

exzibit3 said:

One of the biggest reasons why collectors bust boxes is because they are taking a gamble of getting a big pay day. And just like gambling, there's an addiction that comes with the high of winning against the odds. Some people are just more prone to getting hooked, just as they are with going to the casino.

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I agree, I spent a few years buying off eBay.. numerous times cards weren’t sent and or the card was damaged. I am hooked on buying boxes/cases and enjoy the thrill of hitting something big. It is like gambling.. hard to shake the habit.