Nonsense Newsletter No. 109: Location, location, location. Young Guns, a $7.2million Ruth sale and much more!
In this week’s brilliant edition of the Nonsense Newsletter, John Dudley waxes poetic about the importance of location in terms of benefits to the hobby. I ramble on about hockey cards (shocker, I know) and the coveted Young Guns series. And, we have a Quick Hits section that is second-to-none! So, let’s agree that this is an edition you should be reading as soon as possible!
By John Dudley
The massive news of Juan Soto moving to the Yankees got me thinking about a topic that I’ve been intrigued with for a while. Mainly, I want to figure out what cities or organizations help hobby value and which ones erode value.
Location, location, location. We’ve all heard that mantra. While it is certainly true for real estate, it also seems true for the hobby. I think most hobbyists would readily recognize that playing for the New York Yankees brings more hobby value than playing for the Miami Marlins, but it is likely the significance is overblown.
For me, baseball is the sport where the market matters the most. The main reason being is that card prices in baseball are less impacted by team performance than other sports. Players in the NBA and NFL can overcome their less-popular cities through winning. This is less the case with baseball. Team success helps for sure (see Posey, Buster) but it matters less than in basketball and football.
So, let’s try to gauge which baseball organizations bring the most benefits to hobby value.
By John McTaggart
Believe it not, I was in the hockey hobby when the first Upper Deck Young Guns rookie cards landed in the wax product.
In fact, in 1990-91, when these first Young Guns rookie cards appeared, my brother and I were pretty deep into the hobby, and already a fixture as a dealer set up at card shows all over the area.
And, believe it or not, hockey was a pretty fair chunk of our business.
Not only because we were based in Detroit, but also because Upper Deck did a magnificent job of promoting the sport within the hobby, and the Young Guns rookie cards were a big part of this plan.
Back then, we were ripping cases of Upper Deck looking for Pavel Bure and Sergei Fedorov, in particular, and when you were fortunate enough to find those up-and-coming superstars, the return was very good.
Despite the buzz in my area, the subset wasn’t getting collectors too excited outside of the pocket areas.
Quick Hits
Grading News- The November grading numbers are out and they appear to show a volume decline across the board. The widespread nature of the downturn though can likely be explained by the Thanksgiving holiday as graders had fewer days to churn out the grades. Even with the downturn, PSA, BGS, and SGC saw their volume increase substantially over last year. More info here.
Vintage- We can’t ignore it, that’s for sure. The 1914 Babe Ruth card we discussed a few weeks back, well, it fetched $7.2million at auction recently. Not too shabby for a 100-plus year old piece of cardboard. Read more about it here.
Hobby News- Topps T206 is an intriguing release every year, but one of its more endearing qualities is the inclusion of unannounced variations that pay homage to cards of the past. This year Topps snuck in reverse negative copies of Ty Cobb’s card. No word on the print run but it is undoubtedly very low like most T206 cards. There is also no word if any other players are the subject of unannounced variations. If you bought any T206 High Series, it is time to go check those commons.
Pop Culture News- Upper Deck is giving James Bond his first ultra-premium set. James Bond Black Diamond 007 comes out this month and features autos and memorabilia from ALL the Bond films. Each box comes with a single pack of six cards. Out of those, one is an auto, diamond relic, or gold nugget relic. Each pack also includes an Exquisite card and either a Metal or Relic card.
The Sports Card Nonsense newsletters reflect the opinions of only the authors and contributors. They are for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation for purchases or of an investment strategy or to buy or sell any assets.