oz-antoine
Antoine Walker collector
There seems to be alot of talk about the flooding of the market with Game Used, Autos and endles parallels and it got me thinking. Is it really that there is to much or is it the fact it is now to "easy" to get and that there are to many "sellers".
Take a look at the inserts of the early 90s, most tough inserts including the SE Diecuts were placed around 1 per box. These same inserts (Shaq and Penny) for example reached values of up to $300. The reason, without the internet not every single person was a seller nor did they have the power to advertise to millions of people what they had to offer. You either pulled one from a pack, traded away half your collection for one or forked out the money to the local card shop. These cards were produced in the thousands but they still held value. Even up until 1998 I remember if a card was numbered out of 100 you would be lucky to see 2 or 3 come up on eBay.
eBay has made every one of us a seller in our own rights. I know that I sell off just about anything that I know I can get some coin for thats not needed in my collection and so does every other Joe Blogg around the world. The fact now that there may be a card numbered out of 100 but only 20-30 people seriously collect that player then what happens to the other 70-80 out there when it seems like more than 50% of every low numbered card gets chucked up on eBay? They end up selling for pennies and used as trade bait. It doesn't bother me if I miss out on a card numbered out of 25 as I know another will probably pop up next week and theres only a handful of guys trying to get it. Lets face it without the internet how many cards of your player would you have numbered out of 10, 25, 50 and of course 1/1s when they could be anywhere in the world!
Maybe the problem isn't the flooding of the market but the technology allowing us to hunt down every single card with relative ease and the fact that everyone is now a dealer....
Take a look at the inserts of the early 90s, most tough inserts including the SE Diecuts were placed around 1 per box. These same inserts (Shaq and Penny) for example reached values of up to $300. The reason, without the internet not every single person was a seller nor did they have the power to advertise to millions of people what they had to offer. You either pulled one from a pack, traded away half your collection for one or forked out the money to the local card shop. These cards were produced in the thousands but they still held value. Even up until 1998 I remember if a card was numbered out of 100 you would be lucky to see 2 or 3 come up on eBay.
eBay has made every one of us a seller in our own rights. I know that I sell off just about anything that I know I can get some coin for thats not needed in my collection and so does every other Joe Blogg around the world. The fact now that there may be a card numbered out of 100 but only 20-30 people seriously collect that player then what happens to the other 70-80 out there when it seems like more than 50% of every low numbered card gets chucked up on eBay? They end up selling for pennies and used as trade bait. It doesn't bother me if I miss out on a card numbered out of 25 as I know another will probably pop up next week and theres only a handful of guys trying to get it. Lets face it without the internet how many cards of your player would you have numbered out of 10, 25, 50 and of course 1/1s when they could be anywhere in the world!
Maybe the problem isn't the flooding of the market but the technology allowing us to hunt down every single card with relative ease and the fact that everyone is now a dealer....