You pay more for the packs and hobby boxes and rarely you ever pull like a 1/1 auto or whatever. Them cards ain’t worth **** dawg.
It's becoming too expensive to buy retail boxes and packs nowadays. I just simply buy the cards I want via eBay or facebook groups. Instead of spending $100-200 on boxes and pulling an autographed Patty Mills I can take that $200 and buy the autographed Sengun and JC cards I actually wanted.
Kid collects garbage cards claiming they will be valuable in the future. Kid turns into father telling his kids that cards will be a valuable inheritance. Father dies and kids find out noone wants to buy cards. Grandkids collect garbage cards..... Rinse and repeat. I actually told my wife that I think the key is collecting period items that can't be counterfeited easily and storing them. I'm looking at roblox, minecraft and fortnite toys right now.
Lego is the best way to invest in toys. You can double your money in a few years on hard to find sets. I have this one sitting on my shelf. I think it was $150 new 15 years ago, worth $1500+ now. Of course it's opened and built but I have the box, instructions, etc and could easily sell it for $800. https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/10210-1/lego-pirates-imperial-flagship I bought this one because it was so cool for $300, and it's sealed and in my closet. I may or may not give it to my kids or just build it myself. Since it has 25 minifigs, it will skyrocket once it's retired. https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/76178-1/lego-spider-man-daily-bugle I got this one for $180 when it was out. It's doubled in value since 2018. https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/21311-1/lego-ideas-voltron I got this one on clearance at Walmart for $40. It's $1k+ now. https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/4184-1/lego-pirates-of-the-caribbean-the-black-pearl The old adage 'the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys' is true.
They're practically indestructible, timeless, ingrained in our culture for four+ generations and there's a massive collector's market. I was in the Lego store once and this guy came in and dropped $1k on the newest Star Wars sets. The counter guy said he came in every time they dropped and bought every set.
Ripping packs is like gambling. Not worth it. It's like throwing money away. We are not likely to see quality cards in the affordable range ever again. So yep. Buy on the bay or whatever, that is the way, but the golden era of buying low is long over. You will be forking over some cash for anyone who has a shot at being a GOAT.
Yeah, Legos are no joke. Crazy ROI if the right sets are collected. Even the not so great sets can still get decent return once they're retired.
Still crying about all those Garbage Pail Kid stickers i put all over my binder and then threw away ... they were a scam, too ... It's all a scam until people want them. lol.
Sports card boxes have always been like that. Rare cards are rare for reason...they are indeed rare. For example, 1:1 is uncommon...for a star, you could pretty much say it's rare, if you pull a 1:1 Michael Jordan from about 1992 to present. I'd wager there aren't that many to begin with and the older ones have probably been destroyed 25 years ago. Because, there was a time, during the 90s and 2000s, that many sportscards were pretty useless, because the market was oversaturated and people weren't buying them, like they once did. Non-sports cards are completely different animal. The market, turned itself around, exploded, during the pandemic, because the games weren't in session. Odd reason, but it gave the market a big boom. Even, I went back revisited some of the cards I had when I was younger, and quite a few have shot up in value. But, you also have to add in time and some of these players had just entered the league, while much older players from pre-1986 (baseball) and pre-1989 (basketball/football/hockey) have went up tremendously.
What's even more ridiculous now is the cost of grading, which was directly impacted by the explosion the past couple of years. It cost at least $30 to get a card graded nowadays and the biggest company right now--PSA--charges $100 per card. On the plus side it makes people think twice about sending a base/cheap card graded but on the other side if you're getting cards graded to turn a profit you better hope that the card you're sending out is going to be worth more than [cost to acquire card] + [cost of grading], and that really can't be determined until it's graded. I have an incoming Cade Cunningham autographed rookie card numbered out of 99 and, in normal circumstances, getting it graded would be a no-brainer. However, if that grade comes back less than a 9 I probably won't get a positive ROI on the card at all.
chi chi is pretty underrated. she just needs to redo her hair and wear less clothes. @Yung-T breh knows wusgood
Yeah, even then I did not think there was any point in having a basic/common card graded, because the value of its 10, is not substantially more unless it is a vintage rookie, vintage card, autographed, or rare refractor/insert. Yeah, modern cards below a 9 aren't worth grading, either unless they are refractors, inserts, or hot rookie cards.
