Hockey Cards - Part III

[Rorschach]

Serious question: Why do people still buy wax when it's sooo much easier and a lot cheaper to buy singles that you want or need? You could spend $200 on a rookie or spend $2000 on wax and still not get said rookie. I'm a low-end collector who use to be a big time collector of 50's singles and got back into things and I like to prospect. Started last year with Adam Fox, Oliver Walhstrom and Igor Shesterkin and a few others. Made some nice money and then I got the wax bug, got a bunch of 2019 series 1 retail from last year and did decent, but not what I wanted, so I went back this year to buying singles of a few players. I understand stand that it's "fun and exciting" to rip own boxes of wax, but sometimes your wallet calls uncle and you need to use your noggin and go back to what you want to collect.

I wish I could show you my non-PC collection, accumulated by 99.99% busting Upper Deck wax from 2005 to 2017-ish.

 

[Eggtimer]

FWA is a very desirable true rookie . Hard signed autographs (for the most part ) and has been around and is established. I consider it one of the best bang for the buck rookies.
I am kicking myself so bad for not judging the market . I has an insane collection that I got into just before it exploded here recently . At one point I had Mcdavid FWA black / gold auto , there fwa BGS 9.5 all true gem 9.5’s , Ice /99 BGS 9,5 , Yg silver foil BGS 9.5 , 2x YG BGS 10 , premier rpa and several raw YG’s . Not to mention P.Kane cup RPA BGS 9 - at that time was the highest graded there was (tied with a few others at BGS 9) had a 3 c patch for crest . I had two Draisaitl Oil drop patch cup RPa , BGS 9.5 3 c etc etc etc . I more or less sold most at the exact wrong time before things exploded . Ovie YG BGS 9.5 true gems I bought for 300 CAD and sold for $550 USD thinking there was no way his Yg could go up that much more.... I sold his fwa BGS 9.5 and bought a MacKinnon fwa BGS 10 and pocketed the change. Now the Ovie fwa is $$$ . No clue on what the Mack fwa is but am going to hold onto until the Avalanche win the cup lol.
For now I just PC Jack Hughes . I have his YG exclusive jersey #86/100 , ice premieres /99 x5 , fwa inscribed , fwa raw x5 . The cup RPA 3 colour and YG BGS 10 x2 .
I left an astronomical amount of money on the table by selling too soon. I feel like I am going to puke right now.

 

[blankall]

Serious question: Why do people still buy wax when it's sooo much easier and a lot cheaper to buy singles that you want or need? You could spend $200 on a rookie or spend $2000 on wax and still not get said rookie. I'm a low-end collector who use to be a big time collector of 50's singles and got back into things and I like to prospect. Started last year with Adam Fox, Oliver Walhstrom and Igor Shesterkin and a few others. Made some nice money and then I got the wax bug, got a bunch of 2019 series 1 retail from last year and did decent, but not what I wanted, so I went back this year to buying singles of a few players. I understand stand that it's "fun and exciting" to rip own boxes of wax, but sometimes your wallet calls uncle and you need to use your noggin and go back to what you want to collect.

I made all my value busting series 1/2, selling off what I did not need and then grading the good young guns.... It was also fun to rip packs. It's basically gambling.

I spent about $1500 on 2015/16 series 1. Pulled 4 Mcdavids. 3 of them graded 9.5 true gems+. Plus I was able to sell off about $800-1000 worth of other cards.

 

[ted2019]

I made all my value busting series 1/2, selling off what I did not need and then grading the good young guns.... It was also fun to rip packs. It's basically gambling.

I spent about $1500 on 2015/16 series 1. Pulled 4 Mcdavids. 3 of them graded 9.5 true gems+. Plus I was able to sell off about $800-1000 worth of other cards.

Did you keep those McDavid's or sell them off?

 

[blankall]

Did you keep those McDavid's or sell them off?

Selling them now. At pwcc.

 

[ANDI P IS CUTE]

Which group on facebook is legit or good to join?

90's to 00's Rare Hockey Card Collectors

 

[ANDI P IS CUTE]

Hockey Card Buy/Sell/Trade

Private group
·
18.6K members

 

[OvieGreat8]

FWA is a very desirable true rookie . Hard signed autographs (for the most part ) and has been around and is established. I consider it one of the best bang for the buck rookies.
I am kicking myself so bad for not judging the market . I has an insane collection that I got into just before it exploded here recently . At one point I had Mcdavid FWA black / gold auto , there fwa BGS 9.5 all true gem 9.5’s , Ice /99 BGS 9,5 , Yg silver foil BGS 9.5 , 2x YG BGS 10 , premier rpa and several raw YG’s . Not to mention P.Kane cup RPA BGS 9 - at that time was the highest graded there was (tied with a few others at BGS 9) had a 3 c patch for crest . I had two Draisaitl Oil drop patch cup RPa , BGS 9.5 3 c etc etc etc . I more or less sold most at the exact wrong time before things exploded . Ovie YG BGS 9.5 true gems I bought for 300 CAD and sold for $550 USD thinking there was no way his Yg could go up that much more.... I sold his fwa BGS 9.5 and bought a MacKinnon fwa BGS 10 and pocketed the change. Now the Ovie fwa is $$$ . No clue on what the Mack fwa is but am going to hold onto until the Avalanche win the cup lol.
For now I just PC Jack Hughes . I have his YG exclusive jersey #86/100 , ice premieres /99 x5 , fwa inscribed , fwa raw x5 . The cup RPA 3 colour and YG BGS 10 x2 .
I left an astronomical amount of money on the table by selling too soon. I feel like I am going to puke right now.

Sounds like it could have been a million dollars lost if not more.
But lot of us have been there just some numbers are just too big to get over.
What made you sell them?
I suppose you think this is it....can't go any higher.

 

[Rorschach]

Sounds like it could have been a million dollars lost if not more.
But lot of us have been there just some numbers are just too big to get over.
What made you sell them?
I suppose you think this is it....can't go any higher.

This is a question. Another question we can ask ourselves is, with the current political climate, is it better to have our assets stored as cardboard or are we better off having currency? Or is there some other cardboard or collectible/commodity that’s better?

As I’ve stated before, US currency is not a good performer right now. As long as the government is “unaware” of cardboard’s value as a commodity, unlike say, gold, I’d rather keep my assets in quality cardboard.

 

[GoldiFox]

Ovechkin fwa bgs 9.5 used to be $300 now $15k cad
At the time his Cup /99 was around $10k

You think you can get $500k for a Ovechkin Cup /99 now? No Chance.

So buying every possible graded YG/Fwa was a better investment than 1 Cup /99 for the same price.

I think those numbers are sauced up a bit, I never saw Ovechkin Cup RPAs selling for $10,000 around that time.

In my opinion you are observing the right data but coming to the wrong conclusion. What you are describing in comparing the value of YGs, FWAs, and Cup RPAs is already perfectly modeled by scarcity.

When Ovechkin Gem Mint FWAs were selling for $300 it was because there was an inventory available to buyers. There was a normal supply/demand curve which kept the market in check. Because 1) the product had come out more recently and 2) there are 999 FWAs which are worth grading.

Now look at each of those two drivers and compare it to the Cup RPAs. 1) the recency element exists with RPAs but the timeline is much shorter because 2) there are only 99 of them.

I find it helpful the imagine the life cycle of the entire market of a card release, such as Ovechkin's FWA /999. To start all the cards exist in boxes. Most of those boxes get opened in the first 6 months after release. Most of those Ovechkin FWA /999 are opened by collectors, investors, fans of all teams, etc. From that exact point that pool of cards will eventually find their way to an end-consumer. Every time a Gem Mint Ovechkin FWA /999 finds the last person who will own it, one inventory of that card just disappeared from the market, the supply drops, and the price increases.

So what I believe you are actually observing with FWA vs Cup RPAs is that the life cycle from boxes being opened to end-consumer is faster which means the demand and price from the start is higher. It also means an inventory never really develops to create a stable market.

What you see now at present day with a $15,000 Gem Mint Ovechkin FWA is that the FWA market has matured. There are 999 total and no more than 100 graded that highly, however there may as well only be one because buyers have one option.

I could continue to give examples of this. One that I personally buy into is PSA 10 Cale Makar YGs. As a buyer I can find as many as I want right now because 1) the product just recently dropped and 2) there are PSA 10s readily available to buy. That is the case right now. But every one that I buy and hold is one off the market.

Every player and product is different too. My personal thesis is to dig into the YG, FW, and Cup individual player life cycles and exploit weakness I see.

I will finish with this as it relates to your post. Have you seen an Ovechkin Cup RPA recently? There is a reason these cards are selling for newsworthy amounts. That RPA may be worth $100k+ to the right buyer.

 

[OvieGreat8]

It was really hard finding Ovechkin's at $300-$400 at the time especially graded because no one wanted to sell them especially dealers.
There were only a handful at at the Toronto Expo a few years ago.

When a price goes you can find any rare card everywhere.

There were tons of Cup /99 Ovechkin rookies not that long ago in auction on PWCC.
Once they get another big gain they'll be listed again.

I forget what they sold for. It was probably $60k-$100k depending on patch.
$500k would be really pushing it.
Maybe $200k in the future.


When I said $10k for Ovechkin Cup at the "time" I meant when his Future watch was $300 not now.

 

[SniperOnTheWing]

It’s getting way harder to win auctions these days. There’s one particular card I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a while now and I’m constantly falling short despite going higher and higher above comps each time. The FOMO is starting to set in lol

 

[miscs75]

It’s getting way harder to win auctions these days. There’s one particular card I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a while now and I’m constantly falling short despite going higher and higher above comps each time. The FOMO is starting to set in lol

I just found one I’ve been looking for to finish a set from 2012-13. I’ve seen some PC stuff get put up for insane amounts lately but we shall see with this. Personally I think it’s the guys buying big name singles to get them graded.

 

[Rorschach]

Before COVID I wanted to put my hockey collection up on COMC ASAP in order to begin converting the hockey cards into Magic: The Gathering cards, especially Legacy foils and reserve list cards. It was around $100k to $250k worth of cards, counting all cards $5 or more (real price, not Beckett price). I was even going to sell off big portions of my PC.

My theory was that 90% of my hockey card value was of players from 2005-2010...the Crosby Ovechkin era. I was afraid that when these players started retiring the few years, their demand would soften greatly in favor of new blood like Cale Makar, and then so would their real values.

So, instead, I procrastinated and now my value tripled probably...and that’s being very conservative considering how many of my cards are RCs and autos of the top players of that five year span. It’s weird, I don’t PC Crosby, Ovechkin, Kane, Toews, Malkin, Stamkos or Price, but I have nice collections of all those players based on product I’ve opened.

 

[Rorschach]

Currently I’m buying/investing in product that is totally considered junk wax...looking for nice copies of Jagr, Niedermayer, Hasek, Lidstrom and Forsberg RCs, along with the 30 other notable players’ RCs. Those players’ PSA 10 cards are severely undervalued, IMO. Due to grading company restrictions and condition-sensitivity across the board, I feel the supply is controlled and if you look at all the people paying hundreds for a player like Leon Draisaitl raw YGs despite how many there are, you hope he has a career like Forsberg. But Forsberg’s lone RC in PSA 10 is half that. And you can’t tell me there are more PSA 10 Forsberg 91-92 UD English than there are raw Draisaitl YGs. Nor can you tell me the Draisaitl YG is more iconic than the Forsberg.

So it’s a matter demand correction and it is steadily correcting itself as prices continue to rise each month (not counting the anomalous Feb 2021) on the high grade key junk wax players’ RCs.

But now I’m in a quandary...if these long retired legends are now going up, does that mean I should just hold the top guys of my current 2005-10 collection?

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

I made all my value busting series 1/2, selling off what I did not need and then grading the good young guns.... It was also fun to rip packs. It's basically gambling.

I spent about $1500 on 2015/16 series 1. Pulled 4 Mcdavids. 3 of them graded 9.5 true gems+. Plus I was able to sell off about $800-1000 worth of other cards.

I spent a couple hundred hundred basic boxes from Wal mart and got jack shit.

I spent about a hundred on loose packs and got 2 McDavid.

Unfortunately they don't sell individual packs anymore.

I think I shared the story already, but I was only going to grab 2 packs, but there was 3 packs left, so I had to grab all 3. 1 of them was a McDavid

 

[SniperOnTheWing]

if you look at all the people paying hundreds for a player like Leon Draisaitl raw YGs despite how many there are

There aren't that many relative to almost every other year of YGs. 2014-15 was very low printed and not very popular at the time since everybody was waiting for McDavid. Especially Series 2 (the Pastrnak and Horvat YGs). You'd probably have to go back to like 2003-04 to find lower YG print runs (the Bergeron and Fleury come to mind)

 

[Rorschach]

There aren't that many relative to almost every other year of YGs. 2014-15 was very low printed and not very popular at the time since everybody was waiting for McDavid. Especially Series 2 (the Pastrnak and Horvat YGs). You'd probably have to go back to like 2003-04 to find lower YG print runs (the Bergeron and Fleury come to mind)

That's irrelevant to my point. None of my points are to unjustify what a Draisaitl raw Young Guns is worth. My point is that PSA 10 cards of top 25 players' of-all-time RCs in the junk wax era are undervalued. A Draisaitl YG raw has a population of at least five digits. A junk wax card like 91-92 Upper Deck Peter Forsberg #64 in PSA 10 is 657 and 139 for French). You hope Draisaitl has a career as good as Forsberg's when all is said and done. Draisaitl YG goes for hundreds, raw, and it sells just fine. PSA 10 UD Forsberg RC goes for $85 to $135 sold on eBay. I think there's a strong argument that the latter card is highly undervalued considering the population (French goes for around $225). The 91-92 UD Forsberg #64 RC is an iconic card so it's not like demand doesn't exist due to obscurity...in fact it's a much more famous card than any Draisaitl card.

 

[GoldiFox]

Currently I’m buying/investing in product that is totally considered junk wax...looking for nice copies of Jagr, Niedermayer, Hasek, Lidstrom and Forsberg RCs, along with the 30 other notable players’ RCs. Those players’ PSA 10 cards are severely undervalued, IMO. Due to grading company restrictions and condition-sensitivity across the board, I feel the supply is controlled and if you look at all the people paying hundreds for a player like Leon Draisaitl raw YGs despite how many there are, you hope he has a career like Forsberg. But Forsberg’s lone RC in PSA 10 is half that. And you can’t tell me there are more PSA 10 Forsberg 91-92 UD English than there are raw Draisaitl YGs. Nor can you tell me the Draisaitl YG is more iconic than the Forsberg.

So it’s a matter demand correction and it is steadily correcting itself as prices continue to rise each month (not counting the anomalous Feb 2021) on the high grade key junk wax players’ RCs.

But now I’m in a quandary...if these long retired legends are now going up, does that mean I should just hold the top guys of my current 2005-10 collection?

I think gauging the zeitgeist around a player vs. history is important to determining the velocity of the short/mid/long-term market value. Demand can be a tricky thing. In this case I would ask myself what would drive a buyer to go out and buy a PSA 10 Forsberg RC in the short/mid-term. I think most of that demand are people like you who understand how good Forsberg was, see a market arbitration opportunity in RC price vs. legacy, and invest. In my experience that market will take longer to develop for a cemented legend like Forsberg and essentially it will follow whatever Gretzky's RC is doing in some ratio.

With Draisaitl the price is so high and the demand is increasingly rapidly because he holds a key position in current hockey fandom. He is very visible and in the present. For that reason there is a market of consumers who are buying Draisaitl that probably don't have much interest in older cards.

As far as your 2005-10 collection, in my experience the interest and demand around the collectables of a player spikes around their retirement. It puts them squarely in the great hockey conscious which short-term increases the demand for them if they are superstars.

I am mostly on the opposite end of investing in hype rather than legacy. Objectively it does seem silly that a PSA 10 Makar is $400-500 while a PSA 10 Forsberg is 1/4 the price. But Makar is on the highlight reels every other night. That exposure and hype (I hope) will only increase with ESPN/TNT. Especially for the most talented players.

 

[blankall]

Uggghhh....my bad luck this year continues. 4 more blasters last night, no good young guns. 15 blasters on and a single Cozens is the only good yg.

 

[OvieGreat8]

That's irrelevant to my point. None of my points are to unjustify what a Draisaitl raw Young Guns is worth. My point is that PSA 10 cards of top 25 players' of-all-time RCs in the junk wax era are undervalued. A Draisaitl YG raw has a population of at least five digits. A junk wax card like 91-92 Upper Deck Peter Forsberg #64 in PSA 10 is 657 and 139 for French). You hope Draisaitl has a career as good as Forsberg's when all is said and done. Draisaitl YG goes for hundreds, raw, and it sells just fine. PSA 10 UD Forsberg RC goes for $85 to $135 sold on eBay. I think there's a strong argument that the latter card is highly undervalued considering the population (French goes for around $225). The 91-92 UD Forsberg #64 RC is an iconic card so it's not like demand doesn't exist due to obscurity...in fact it's a much more famous card than any Draisaitl card.

That's because it was never worth grading 90's cards so the Pop is low for a reason
It will be huge when PSA is finished with them.
There's millions of Forsberg rcs and even if they gem 10% of the time that would make it 100k pop.

Plus no one cares about Forsberg at this time.

Draisaitl will pass Forsberg easily because Forsberg is a bad example of a player who had a short career in the worst scoring era.

Forsberg 249 goals 885 points
Draisaitl 192 goals 495 points and he's 25

Forsberg numbers will be crushed.

Selanne is way more iconic and he has better numbers/records

 

[OvieGreat8]

But yeah there's a million McDavid BGS 9.5's /PSA 10's out there yet idiots still pay $4000 + for them...

There's way less Jagr's PSA 10's and McDavid will never accomplish what Jagr did...if you think he will you are delusional.
But that's the way hobby works. Flavor of the month.

Took people 15 years to finally pay up for Ovechkin.

 

[GoldiFox]

But yeah there's a million McDavid BGS 9.5's /PSA 10's out there yet idiots still pay $4000 + for them...

There's way less Jagr's PSA 10's and McDavid will never accomplish what Jagr did...if you think he will you are delusional.
But that's the way hobby works. Flavor of the month.

Took people 15 years to finally pay up for Ovechkin.

Maybe I am mistaken but:

2016 Upper Deck Hockey Cards | PSA Population
1990 O-Pee-Chee Premier Hockey Cards | PSA Population

There are 88 McDavid PSA 10 Young Guns
There are 2,790 PSA 10 OPC Jagr Rookies

 

[OvieGreat8]

I think you clicked on wrong year.

There's 2000 psa 10s and 7500+ Bgs 9.5+

Psa is low for now because BGS was the popular one for young guns till recently

 

[GoldiFox]

I think you clicked on wrong year.

There's 2000 psa 10s and 7500+ Bgs 9.5+

Psa is low for now because BGS was the popular one for young guns till recently

2015 Upper Deck Hockey Cards | PSA Population

You are correct, I had the wrong year.

2,790 PSA 10 Jagr OPC vs. 2035 PSA 10 McDavid Young Guns

Have you had a lot of success convincing people that collect PSA 10s that a BGS 9.5 should be a similar price? I usually find the value to be about 30-40% as both a seller and a buyer.

A cursory glance at eBay shows that McDavid BGS 9.5s are selling for $1600 while PSA 10s are $3500-4000.