Going prospecting

-
Recently, I had an idea that for some reason I hadn't considered before, probably because I have never really cared about collecting cards.  It's also probably because recently a Mike Trout signed rookie card went for over $900,000 in an auction.  That's a lot of zeros.  I like owning items in my collection that have lots of zeros.  I did a little online sleuthing and realized that right now the sports card market is booming and that there some shrewd investors buying into the market to make some money.  It then dawned on me that reading two articles now made me an expert.  Actually no it didn't, but I do know who the best baseball prospects are and which ones have the highest ceilings to become superstars, so I decided to go prospecting for cardboard gold.  The first up was Jo Adell.  This guy sometimes gets Mike Trout comparisons, so I figured why not start with him?
Note the top right, where this particular card is numbered 16/20.  Logically, there being a lower total number of cards in existence would make the card more valuable long term as people lose the other 19.  I did realize after reading my third article that maybe Leaf didn't actually hold the highest value of all the sports cards manufacturers, and that was why I was able to obtain this card more cheaply than I was anticipating.  Oh well!  It is still a clean, low numbered card from a player I did not have an autograph from yet.

The bigger name to come in the mail yesterday is one I'm mentioning second because it wasn't an autograph card.  This blog is supposed to be about autographs, but I still wanted to post a picture of this card since this guy is already a legitimate player in baseball and is still young.  I found a Juan Soto rookie card that had been slabbed and graded a gem mint 10 by PSA.  I suspect that if young Mr. Soto continues on his current career trajectory, this card will continue to rise in value.  There are dozens of rookie cards for so many players nowadays that it honestly gets kind of overwhelming.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

John Stockton

-
Image
 One of the notoriously tough autographs to get among all modern era sports figures, I saw recently that John Stockton was going to be doing an ultra rare signing. After looking at the prices, I decided that they were on the pricey side, so instead looked into getting a card off eBay. It is often the case that signings are more expensive than getting an auto card from Panini or Topps, etc. because you can send in exactly what you want to get signed. I don't typically complain about pricing for signings, but I did observe that the cost to send in my own card was 4-5x what buying a John Stockton signed card off eBay would cost. Therefore, I found a fairly priced one and went that direction.  As you can see, I went with an Obsidian auto and this particular card is numbered /35. 
Read more

John Elway

-
Image
 My Hall of Fame and elite quarterback train is still steaming along, as I just added a signed John Elway card to my collection. This card comes from 2023 Prestige football, is numbered /25. I saw that a lot of people were having a lot of luck with their hits in Prestige megas in retail, though the few boxes I opened were crap. I jumped into the eBay market to get this card, as card prices have come down and you can get some of these all time greats for much less than even a year ago. Honestly, I bought this card for the price of two mega boxes, so I'm not sure what I'm even doing buying sealed product in the first place.
Read more

Joe Montana

-
Image
 Much like the Dan Marino and John Elway autos I have posted about recently, I also acquired a Joe Montana Panini autographed card.  Like the Marino card, this is also a blue cracked ice numbered /75. Of the big name, all tike great QB's in the league, I believe the only one I might be missing still is Tom Brady. It might be a while yet before I find a way to get something he signed into my collection.
Read more