Nonsense Newsletter No. 116: Postseason heroes, Making the grade, stadium club baseball and more!
Did you miss us? Well, we missed you. Sorry about the technical hangups last week that caused the delay. But, we’ve got our IT team humming now, and we're ready for another brilliant edition of the Nonsense Newsletter. This week, John Dudley talks heroes, I talk grading, and the Quick Hits section will make your toes curl! So, after a week without us — we’re back!
By John Dudley
Kirk Gibson. Joe Carter. Sid Bream. David Tyree. “Bigshot” Bob Horry. Just mentioning their names summons up images of some of the most pivotal moments in their sports. They thrust themselves into our collective memories not by being fall of famers, or even All-Stars in some cases, but instead by exceptional performances in the postseason.
Postseason glory can create a modicum of permanent celebrity status. The big question is how does postseason success carry over into the hobby. The short answer is simply that it doesn’t matter much. Take a look at Sid Bream’s and David Tyree’s pricing and this becomes quite clear. The longer answer is that it matters somewhat and in certain conditions.
Where postseason glory matters a bit is for players that had strong careers, but not quite hall-of-fame level careers. Joe Carter’s 1984 Donruss rookie sells decently with PSA 9 copies going for $60. Not that impressive, but multiple copies have sold at that price recently so at least the volume is strong. Without his famous home run, Carter is very similar to Ruben Sierra. Sierra’s own rookies sell in surprisingly decent volume as well but for far less. Horry’s rookie cards sell for around $35 in decent volume. Joe Smith is listed by Basketball Reference as having the most similar career to Horry and his cards seldom even get graded, The difference is the postseason heroics.
By John McTaggart
Back in the day, when I first tinkered with this hobby, there was no such thing as a graded card.
There were no PSA 10s or SGC Gold labels, or BGS Black labels for that matter either.
It was just a card, and a variety of opinions on what condition a particular card was in at that moment.
I can remember arguments across dealer tables, people studying the corners and edges for minute upon minute assessing the condition.
I can remember lengthy discussions about what it means to be in mint condition, and what it means to be in near-mint condition.
Then, the occasional slab came along… and was usually chuckled at by most back then.
No one really understood the concept.
No one really could wrap their minds around someone else telling them what the condition is of a particular card.
And, of course, the encasing of the card really blew people’s minds.
Quick Hits
Grading News- One interesting difference between TCGs and sports cards is that the list of most graded sports cards is dominated by junk wax era cards whereas TCGs see their list dominated by more recent releases. This is largely explained by the fact that TCG grading is a more recent phenomenon, but it is also tied to print runs. The real takeaway for me is to check older TCG pop counts as they are lower than one might expect.
Vintage- Okay, being a writer myself I could not pass this opportunity by to plug this book about vintage baseball. Someone, namely Phil Coffin, has written an entire book about 1959 Topps baseball… and it’s brilliant! Check out more info on Coffin’s look at the ‘59 Topps set by clicking here.
Hobby News- Stadium Club is finally here! It’s one of the more popular releases every year and this year is on-point as always with a fresh batch of great photography with a design that does its best to get out of the way of said photography. The new wrinkle this year is that Topps has introduced what are essentially half-sized boxes that include a guaranteed one auto as opposed to two for the regular hobby boxes. The other change is that the price has increased since the last time Topps solicited these. These were available for $110 for hobby boxes before the delay, but are now priced at $140. A delay followed by a price increase might damper the reception this one has.
Hobby News- Fanatics Live introduced us to The Ten this week. This is an ever-changing list of the top ten cards in the hobby that are believed to still be in packs. Cute, but what makes this program interesting is that Fanatics Live has a bounty of $10,000 that will be awarded to anyone that pulls one of these cards on the Fanatics Live platform. The kicker is that you get the bounty AND keep the 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.