Nonsense Newsletter No. 70: Fool's gold, a look at the western divisions of the MLB, grading specials and more.
Sponsored by SGC Cards gosgc.com
In this week’s snow-covered edition (the snow is coming down like mad here) of the Nonsense Newsletter, John Dudley heads west and delves into the MLB’s left coast. I, on the other hand, complain some more about the hobby and my new-found auction house experience. We take a quick look at grading specials, old pieces of cardboard and more! So, by now, you know the routine. Grab a cup ‘o Joe, kick back and enjoy this week’s edition of the newsletter four-out-of-five dentists prefer.
Contributor: John Dudley
Spring Training is upon us. All of your favorite players still have the chance of a career season ahead of them and even the lowliest teams are still dreaming of divisional titles. Hope abounds. It is, put simply, my favorite time of the year. From Spring Training to the first month of the season, my interest in baseball is as high as it is during the playoffs. It’s also a great time to take stock and decide which players to target, hold, or ditch this year.Â
There are thousands of articles written predicting how the season will go, but I’m going to restrict myself to how the hobby fate of players will unfold. So, consider this your baseball hobby preview. Last year, this column gave you some great gems with Alejandro Kirk, and Luis Arraez, and predicted big things for Aaron Judge. Of course, I was also incredibly high on Ian Anderson so they won’t all be winners.Â
I’m going to focus on one player on each team whose hobby future I am intrigued by. These might not be the best players on their team (they might be) but they are the ones whose 2023 I am most intrigued by. Let’s start with the western divisions. They always get put last in articles so it is time to put them at the front for once. Look for the central and eastern clubs to get their turn in the next few weeks. This year I am including predictions for each player so I can score how I did at the end of the season. I’ll note that these are predictions so we can judge me and make fun of me at the end of the year and NOT financial advice.
Contributor: John McTaggart
A couple of weeks ago I did something in the hobby that I have not ever done before, which is kinda hard to believe since I’ve been at this for a good long while.
I took the advice of friends who had been pushing me towards checking out a few of the auction houses that now occupy an ever-increasing space in the hobby.
I perused a few of these sites, focusing mainly on the weekly auctions, and settled on one in particular, I won’t say the exact name of the place in this article, but with a name that evokes the thought of precious metals, you may figure it out.
Anyhow, I browsed the listing, zeroed in of hockey (yes, hockey) and narrow my focus to a handful of cards I thought were both interesting and seemed to be headed to finish at a good price.
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Quick Hits
Grading News- In unsurprising news, grading specials work. SGC has been aggressive with TCG specials and the 9-per-card Bowman Chrome and 2023 Topps specials. SGC’s biggest gap in the market has long been the TCG space and the special seems to have kickstarted a boom for them. Their most graded set for February was Pokemon Crown Zenith with Bowman Chrome second. These are impressive results directly tied to their promotional specials. As these seem to be working well, I’m expecting more and I’d be surprised if CSG and BGS don’t get in on the fun soon. With fast turnaround times allowing collectors to take advantage of first-to-market premiums and specials keeping costs down, SGC is positioning itself as a compelling option for new releases. I can’t imagine the other companies will let them have that space unchallenged.
Vintage-With March Madness knocking on the door, I thought I would talk a little bit about vintage basketball cards. Oddly enough, so did Sports Collectors Daily, and they do it much better than I could. Here’s a cool article about some old pieces of cardboard with pictures of dudes in really short shorts on it. Click here to jump to the article.
Pop Culture News- The Stranger Things set from zerocool took a bit longer than expected to come out (par for the course these days), but it looks like it was worth the wait with some attractive-looking cards being the payoff. The question now is if this will be the last hoorah for zerocool or if we’ll see more releases from them in the future. I’m not sure there is that much brand recognition yet so I wouldn’t be surprised to see future pop culture releases folded back into the Panini stables.Â
NFT News- Sorare’s massive investment into the hybrid NFT/fantasy space is going well. They were recently named as one of Fast Company’s 50 most innovative companies. The company has parlayed their success (and dollars) into licensing deals with major soccer leagues, the MLB, and NBA. More info about them can be found here.Â
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.