Hockey Cards - Part II

[kaiser matias]

Simply put, cards are made by US companies, they must be imported into Canada by distributors. There are only a couple of these distributors in Canada that can do this. Since there are so few, they collude on the price...also Canada has some brutal sales taxes. So between the distributors colluding and the government, I call this the cabal, where each takes their rather unfair portion of each sale, adding no value, and making the minimum price on any box something like 35% more than in the original US cost.

And we're not even talking about the conversion rate yet.

Our poor fellow HF member paid $210 for his box of Artifacts.
Here is a walkup regular Joe Schmoe price in the US:
2020/21 UPPER DECK ARTIFACTS HOCKEY HOBBY 10-BOX CASE | eBay

That's basically $146.50 per box that any dude can buy, free shipping. That's not even wholesale yet. And it's a very legit dealer, Dave and Adams.

Right, didn't think about the import side of things. That makes total sense, and also clarifies to me why Upper Deck restricts online retails from shipping internationally with their "Authorized Internet Dealer" thing: keeps us Canadians from avoiding the distributors on current product.

 

[miscs75]

You're right but I don't think he's saying he got shorted, he's saying he didn't hit Laf in the YGs he did get.

I think they put a majority of the Laf in the boxes opened on release day to drum up hype for the product.

 

[TheGreatOne11]

I think they put a majority of the Laf in the boxes opened on release day to drum up hype for the product.

I got mine in a retail booster box off Amazon last week for 60 cnd lol.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

I was never a fan of Artifacts, as jersey cards have no value and there are hardly any autos for the price point. I always found the design pretty ugly and uninspired too. At this price point, I much prefer sets like Ice or SPA. You can pull some pretty highly collectable rookies from those sets. The SPA has hard signed autos, which is nice.

Do you mind elaborating on the bolded? As someone, as I've suggested in this thread, who is thinking of getting back into the hobby.

What is it about jersey cards that have no value? I would have figured a piece of a player's jersey would be a pretty good thing to hold.

And to expand, what would then be the most sought after, worthwhile cards? Autographs?

 

[Devonator]

You have to join PSA unless you have a friend that already has an account ....I have forgotten what the amount is to join but after you do that, then you can get various rates depending on what you send and how many cards....I would send in over a 100 cards and I would get a discount....but I only dealt in old stuff mainly from the 60's.....

 

[CutOnDime97]

You have to join PSA unless you have a friend that already has an account ....I have forgotten what the amount is to join but after you do that, then you can get various rates depending on what you send and how many cards....I would send in over a 100 cards and I would get a discount....but I only dealt in old stuff mainly from the 60's.....

$60 for a year membership to get access to get access to these per card prices:

 

[ted2019]

My hobby boxes were all pretty poor quality. Also, the type of S1 product doesn't change your odds of pulling any one specific Young Guns card....I just have awful luck this year. That being said, we may find out that Laf is not the best YG long-run, as he is playing like crap right now. Some random YG may emerge as the most valuable.

That's why I simply stuck to last years. Plus the Young Guns are a pretty nice looking card.

 

[Rorschach]

Right, didn't think about the import side of things. That makes total sense, and also clarifies to me why Upper Deck restricts online retails from shipping internationally with their "Authorized Internet Dealer" thing: keeps us Canadians from avoiding the distributors on current product.

Exactly! Their all kinda in cahoots and while their goal may be simple, just to make their money, it winds up boning bigtime the average Canadian hockey card consumer. I spent a couple months one time from LA in Canada (Ottawa) and I was so overjoyed to actually have brick and mortar hockey card stores to hang out in...so overjoyed I gladly payed 200% for all product.

The stores on the other hand were not only astonished to have a knowledgeable, die-hard LA hockey fan in their midst (this was like in 2008), but a guy who would routinely drop 4 digits in their store, casually.

 

[Rorschach]

Do you mind elaborating on the bolded? As someone, as I've suggested in this thread, who is thinking of getting back into the hobby.

What is it about jersey cards that have no value? I would have figured a piece of a player's jersey would be a pretty good thing to hold.

And to expand, what would then be the most sought after, worthwhile cards? Autographs?

In the old days, players would wear a certain amount of jerseys a season (like maybe a few a year, old jerseys have repairs on them) and later, companies would buy from that fixed supply, competing with the jersey collectors. The last 15 years or so, the majority of "game worn" jerseys, not only are the players' identity dubious since you can't tell who wore what from just a square of fabric, the teams "manufacture" these jerseys by having players constantly changing into new jerseys...especially star players. These jerseys are sold to card manufacturers to make a quick buck every year.

On top of that, especially for retired and rookie players, many of the jersey swatches on cards don't even come from game used jerseys. You'll see things like "Event Used" or "Photo Shoot" jerseys where someone, often the card manufacturer, works with the NHLPA to contrive some sort of event (special game or even just an event where players in street clothes just don a jersey for 30 min or less) and then use those jerseys on their jersey cards.

Thus you get so many of these jersey swatch cards in products...the worst thing is the card manufacturer clearly puts the bogusness level of these swatches right on the back of their cards and the vast majority of collectors don't care.
When I collected cards, I really treasured jersey cards of retired stars and HOFers from real, game used jerseys. To me, a real GU card of say, Lanny McDonald in a Calgary Flames jersey was a minimum $25 value pulled from a pack when I put it in my collection even though it may sell for $2 on eBay. While a 2005-2006 Thomas Vanek rookie jersey card that sells on eBay in 2006 for $25 was only worth $2 to me in my collection...because it was photo shoot.

So...

The experienced collectors in this thread treat on-card (hardsigned) autographs by the actual player to be the best type of memorabilia on a card. We can tell who signed (and touched/handled) the card usually and there's no way the card manufacturers can get over the players, NHLPA and the agents...they always have to pay a player per signature. That guarantees a certain level of scarcity and player real-ness. As long as the players continue to hand-sign things, we can't go from 100 Gretzky signed items to 10,000 Gretzky signed items for the same cost to the card manufacturer. They can't manufacture hard signatures. On the other hand, the sticker signatures are a bit like manufactured sigs so we frown on those.


Apply this logic to today's cards. You look at RPAs (Rookie Patch Autos) and how much collectors value how the patch looks. I personally won't pay much of a premium on those for my PC because the patches on 100% of those cards are all photo shoot jerseys. I pay for those cards because they hold a rookie year autograph from the player and are considered true rookie cards. This is why SP Authentic's /999 Future Watch autograph rookie cards are so highly regarded despite not having a patch. The important parts, the autograph and the rookie card factors, are both there.

 

[blankall]

Right, didn't think about the import side of things. That makes total sense, and also clarifies to me why Upper Deck restricts online retails from shipping internationally with their "Authorized Internet Dealer" thing: keeps us Canadians from avoiding the distributors on current product.

Rorschach did a pretty good job of explaining.

In terms of value, the monetary value for most jersey cards is very low. I have a bunch I can't even sell for $1. When I'm spending $200/box, I'd like to get more than $20 of jersey card back.

In terms of personal value, I'm just over them. It was fun to pull the first few. Then you realize how common they are, and how many are produced and the low amount of effort that goes into them. A random black swatch that was worn by a second line player just isn't all that appealing to me. On top of that there's all the dubious antics that go on with how much a jersey was actually worn, etc...

I definitely have a few vintage jersey and patch cards in my personal collection though. Those are typically older jerseys where you can see the stains they couldn't get out of the washing machine or a nice multi-coloured patch. I do like Jersey Auto Patches, as long as they are hard signed.

Another thing I quite dislike is sticker autos. If the player never held the card, I don't really consider it signed by them.

 

[OKR]

I remember some years back when Devante Smith-Pelly was a rookie and all his The Cup, SP Authentic and Ultimate card’s were stamped with a autopen or somekinda signing machine, kinda makes me wonder if that has happened more often. Upper Deck does claim they have a witness watching every signing but since that did happened makes me wonder how much of that is true.

 

[Bondurant]

Has anyone dabbled with HGA for grading yet? Slabs look nice and using AI is interesting but could lead to tougher grades. It is my understanding they have a quota per day they won't exceed to keep the flow and avoid a backlog of cards. Just watched a video where the guy had a 12 day turnaround on football cards.

 

[Cubs2024WSChamps]

I think it was Pacific who one year pin pointed the exact game the jersey swatch on the card came from, and from what I remember those cards are still at a premium.

It might be baseball tho, but I recall them being a big thing at the time because one of the cards came from a legit huge game by somebody.

The net cards from the Hawks 17 seconds game still command a huge price point.

Card makers are missing so much untapped potential in this. A jersey swatch from McDavids five point games would be insane to have. It's just easier to hold a handful of jerseys in front of a player and let them swipe it with their hand, which is what Fleer did to Derek Jeter who came out and admitted it.

 

[Maximus74]

I have a few thousand cards from the early 90's sitting in a box... Went through it a little and found a few Jagr OPC Rookies. Looks like they are worth getting graded. Does anyone use KSA? I would prefer to support a Canadian company. Is a KSA 9 worth a Beckitt 9?

 

[Bruhin]

Have these I would like to get graded.

 

[blankall]

Have these I would like to get graded.

Send them to psa immediately.

 

[Bruhin]

Send them to psa immediately.

Thats the plan, I was thinking of hand delivering them to PSA San diego. When restrictions die down a bit.

 

[BostonBob]

This is getting out of hand.






More from CBS Sports:

Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic has quickly established himself as one of the NBA's biggest attractions in a short time. The latest example is that a very rare Doncic rookie card sold on Sunday for more money than any NBA card ever has.

The card -- which went for a whopping $4.6 million on the open market -- features the NBA logoman catch, which is from a Mavericks jersey that Doncic wore, and a signature in blue ink. It was the only card made of that specific variety.

The Doncic card was originally from a box of 2018-19 Panini National Treasures Basketball trading cards and was revealed during a live pack break at the Layton Sports Card shop in Altamonte Springs, Fla. The card ended up being sold to collector Bolillo Lajan San. It's unclear what he initially paid for it, though TMZ Sports claims San paid more than $400,000 for the card.
On Sunday, San sold the ultra-rare Doncic card to high-end collector Nick Fiorella for $4.6 million. Not a bad investment on San's part.

This Doncic card isn't just the most expensive NBA card -- it's the second-highest purchase of any sport trading card in history. Only a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold for more ($5.2 million). Prior to the Mantle card being sold, the previous record was a 2009 Mike Trout rookie card that sold for $3.9 million.

Doncic has the potential to be in the conversation among the all-time greats if he continues on the current trajectory that he's on. If that ends up being the case, the value of Fiorella's might increase even more.

 

[Satan]

PSA announced new sub prices today. Everything has increased significantly.

A lot of people think this will weed out people submitting ultra modern junk (i.e., Chronicles, Illusions basketball)- and it probably will for the Average Joe.

 

[CutOnDime97]

Some recent modern sales

 

[hurricure]

This bad boy heading my way

 

[CutOnDime97]

View attachment 402241 This bad boy heading my way

Beauty

 

[blankall]

$60 for a year membership to get access to get access to these per card prices:

View attachment 400920

Psa just upped their prices again last night. $25 usd lowest price for "ultra modern" now.

 

[ncm7772]

Just cracked my first box in 3+ years. Did pretty well, I think. Sweet Plante 1/1!

Untitled by ncm7772, on Flickr

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Just cracked my first box in 3+ years. Did pretty well, I think. Sweet Plante 1/1!

Untitled by ncm7772, on Flickr

Cool on the Plante!