Well, I hate to break it to you, but when Panini bought out Donruss in 2009, my account when along with it. Which means I can buy as much product from them or as little as I want. No offense, I've been in this hobby longer then the two main distributors and have one of the best reputations within my area as a big time buyer and seller.
See, when people were chasing Mattingly and Canseco, I was, as a teenager mind you, buying up every high grade card from the 50's and getting them graded by PSA when they first opened up shop. I bought cases of Fleers first basketball set thru the magazine shop down the street from my parents house with my mom's credit card.
Remember Tuff Stuff magazine? I'm sure you don't, but I had an ad in it every month until it stopped publication offering top dollar for vintage cards every sport.
Not that I don't like hearing others thoughts on why this hobby blew up, I do, but I've heard it all before. The speculators and gamblers will be gone once the world goes back to normal and the cardboard will once again go back to being cardboard outside of unique limited numbered cards.
I do feel sorry for anybody trying to get into this hobby right now that's at the mercy of the big two distributors. I don't pay those prices and I wouldn't. If anybody has to, that's rough.
My advice- buy direct. Get in good with the card companies. Hell, I'm on such good terms with UD I get free stuff all the time. Last time we checked I have like 40 epacks just sitting there for series two.
Sorry, this hobby is kind of my thing.
That's great but 99.99% of people won't have access to that.
Speculators have been around forever way before covid paying big bucks for lot of cards.
Exquisite basketball was hoarded up forever and sold high.
Same with any Bulls Jordan autos.
Any high end basketball did not need Covid.
All the prospects in baseball sold for thousands every year.
Covid just added fuel to the fire on junk graded base cards and lot of 90s graded junk.
So Jordan/Gretzky rookies are not becoming cheap.
Kobe autos are not going to be cheap again.
Exquisite will never be cheap.
I could go on forever.
Lot of cards will go down as they should but that's with covid or without.
Cheap interest, unlimited money, housing, bitcoin, etc is what's fueling more of the boom than covid.
Nasty houses around me cost 700k and I live in a crap city.
They were 300k three years ago.
They won't be going down after covid is gone.
That's free money for people to speculate on.
