Nonsense Newsletter No. 80: Wembanyama, Community is the secret sauce, baseball grading grows, A Bill Russell Rookie fetches $660,00 and More!
Sponsored by SGC Cards gosgc.com
In this weeks incredible edition of the Nonsense Newsletter, John Dudley looks at the hype of Victor Wembanyama compared to other No. 1 overalls. I examine the importance of community in the hobby, and the Quick Hits, well, we’re considering a re-naming of this section to Totally Awesome News siren they’re always so cool and awesome! So, after you order your Spurs season tickets, kick back and enjoy this week’s edition of the Nonsense Newsletter!
Contributor: John Dudley
With the Spurs winning a much-hyped lottery yet again, they get to select the most talked about young player in the last few years with Victor Wembanyama. Undoubtedly, he will be the next big thing and the clear guy to get in all of next year’s products. How does he stack up historically though? Number-one picks are always sought after, but there is a wide range of hobby buzz with them going from the lows of Anthony Bennett to the highs of LeBron James.Â
I want to get a handle on Wembanyama before forking out a fortune for his cards in the near future. To do this, I decided to figure out where the hype surrounding him ranks in relation to the hype surrounding other number ones at draft time. While noting the hype was great around Abdul-Jabbar, Ewing, Olajuwan, and Robinson, I don’t have enough personal recollections of the media environment then to rank them accurately. Consequently, I’m only considering number-one picks from the 1990 season to the present.
Contributor: John McTaggart
Collecting cards can be a very complex thing.
In fact, all of us who love the hobby are inundated with facts, stats, tidbits of information and opinions on a daily basis.
Heck, on an hourly basis we can log on to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Discord or any other social media platform not aforementioned and find out something new about the hobby and the industry spouted off by a wide range of people claiming to have it all figured out.
Someone is always there telling us what to buy, who to buy, what to sell, when to sell, how to sell and what to expect when we do any of these things.
There are tons of folks with graphs, charts, projections, stories and vlogs about their whirlwind adventures at a card show or trade night.Â
It’s all very nice, and mostly very self-serving.
After many years in this hobby I can honestly say the entire thing can be summed up in one word — community.
The hobby is, at it’s core, about the community.
Bounties!
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Quick Hits
Grading News- Baseball was up 38.8% in grading volume in April over the previous year. Football was up a modest 3.4% which is strong given the overall football market. TCGs are the runaway winner with a 215.2% increase. The big loser though is basketball which dipped a whopping 44.5%. Wembanyama can’t get here fast enough to save the sport (at least in terms of the hobby). Figures were calculated using GemRate data.
Vintage- With the news of the NBA Draft Lottery dominating the headline, let’s take a second to look back on what could be the greatest big man to ever play the game, Bill Russell. Russell’s dominance was unparalleled, and this past week, a PSA 8.5 copy of his 1957 Topps rookie card set a new record, selling for $660,000 at the close of PWCC’s May Vintage Premier Auction! For more on this amazing card and sale, click here.Â
Pop Culture News- Topps Chrome Star Wars comes out very soon. It features one auto per box and the regular assortment of refractor goodies. The inserts actually look interesting with Manga Madness! using the art style on some well-known Star Wars favorites. It looks like Topps has a cluttered release calendar again with this, a Kenobi set, and Signature Series all still available on the Topps website along with Sapphire soon to come. This was a problem in baseball when they released the bulk of the season’s products in December. Spreading things out could help greatly.
Hobby News- Topps created the Topps Ripped news section of their website recently and it is worth checking out. While it doesn’t update frequently enough and doesn’t really hit the major stories of the day, it is fun for articles like this one looking at the various Jeter rookies. Nothing groundbreaking, but they’ve got some decent timewaster reads. Hopefully, they’ll keep it going.
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.