Mail Day: Way Too Early Trading Card Hobby Predictions for Next Year
I'm on a big predictions kick these days and was thinking to myself, 'what will be hot trends in the trading card hobby this time next year?' And lucky for you, I have the answers.
Here are the five I'm expecting to happen within the next year (plus or minus a bunch of extra months just in case):
Checklists are going to make a comeback: I picked up the 2003-04 Topps Basketball Chrome checklist the other day because, hey, for $10 you too can own a LeBron James chrome rookie card. And it comes with 400 other players - what a bargain!
What I love about checklists is that they have historically, typically, been the first card in you've tossed in the garbage - I've even seen sellers use them as protective cardboard when shipping out cards I've purchased. The complete lack of regard for the checklist I believe is going to make them even rarer and more desirable.
The Cooper Flagg 1/1 Logoman card will beat the $528k price for Victor Wembanyama's Logoman: Here, I'll say this with my chest - Victor Wembanyama will be considered one of the all-time greats in the league. He will have a better career than Flagg and it won't necessarily be close.
However, I'm taking two things into account: first, I think we've hit a bit of a Wemby-fatigue in the hobby where collectors are just overwhelmed with the amount of Wemby cards on the market; second, I think that this time next year we'll see a nice upswing in the hobby - there's a lot of post-Covid correction, there's the economic factors weighing on people, I just have an optimistic sense that things will be a bit more settled and that the market will be back on the upswing.
Someone is going to invent a better way to sell low-value base cards: This just needs to happen - if you can figure out a way for collectors to sell a $5 card and get as close to $5 in actual cash (not in store credit) in return - you will become a trillionaire.
Topps is going to penny-sleeve all cards inside packs: Don't we already pay enough for these cards that you can't just put them in penny sleeves? It would be the nicest thing you could do for us; saves us from scuffs and potentially dinged corners. Do it!
LEAF is going to sign a newborn baby to an NIL deal: Sounds crazy, right? But go ahead, bet me they won't and check back here in a year.
Someone will build a home out of Prizm Monopoly cards: Literally there are more Monopoly cards out there than there are trees, so it kinda just makes sense.
I was doing a little spring cleaning in my eBay saved items and found this one:
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot French Inventor 2008 S. Tome E Principe Perforated Stamp: Huh, um, what? For those who don't know, Cugnot is credited with inventing the first self-propelled automobile. He also is said to have been in the first car accident ever.
I wish I had a good story about why I saved this, but I'm not even a stamp collector.
I ended up going down the rabbit hole of 'custom Jesus trading cards' and boy was it a journey.
The most popular version of custom Jesus cards seams to be the Downtown variation - which for those who don't know is a highly sought-after SP card released in Donruss and Optic sets.
This particular Jesus Downtown card is lauded as being a 'BLACK FINITE 1/1' variation because, sure, why not.
The card was listed for only $199.99 and you might think that's absurd for something that you can go to Kinko's and print for less than $5, however when I checked back in before hitting send on this newsletter, I discovered that someone had already bought the card!
If you are bummed for missing out on the BLACK FINITE (sorry, I had to do caps) version, you can score a 'graded' JHCC 10 for $25. Not bad for a '1/1' card that's been bought - let me just check my math here - at least 65 times already, which as far as making it a 1/1 card goes that math is not really math-ing.
The other popular custom variations are KABOOM! cards - which, again, are SP variations that Panini sells across different football, baseball and basketball sets.
Those are a bit trickier mostly because a lot of the 'custom' KABOOM! cards tend to be custom-made cards of current and former players; like, Caitlin Clark, Victor Wembanyama, Shohei Ohtani, etc.
While most of these listings have 'Custom' in the title, some don't. That can lead to some trickery if you're not necessarily paying attention.
I have absolutely no beef with custom art cards, I think people should buy and collect what makes them happy, only when it feels like people are trying to sneakily sell them - that's when it gets yucky.
I mean, I would have gladly 'accidentally' bought this custom Caitlin Clark and Taylor Swift KABOOM! card after a few beers had someone not gotten to it mere minutes before I discovered it.
Foiled again.
It turns out some jerks didn't end up buying the Paul Skenes Debut Patch 1/1 card, just Dick's.
The sporting goods store. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
Who would have thought that the most controversial trading card that Topps would release this year would be the live-action Snow White card they dropped this past week.
If you haven't been paying attention - lucky you - but there has been a bunch of controversy surrounding this film. I don't have enough real estate here on this Mail Day to go into all of it, but it will be very, very interesting to see what the print runs end up being on this.
I'm curious to see if people hate-bought the card or if they completely avoided it.
My thinking is that without the controversies the card would have gotten close to zero on the print run. The bigger more controversial miss here by Topps is that they didn't release 7 Dwarfs cards.
I would have one-million percent bought a set of those insane looking cards.
I was thumbing through the Mantel app the other day, as I do on a quite regular basis and saw someone post their Guerschon Yabusele cards for their collection and outside of needing to triple-check that I spelled his name correctly I was starting to think it would be fun to start a thread of people's random PCs.
So, head over to Mantel and share your most random player that you collect. Would love to know 'why,' too.
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