General Forum

I was on ebay looking at packs from 1989 upper deck and couldn't belive what people wanted for them plus what people were paying for them.  it is crazy the only high price card in that set is the griffey rookie, but even if it gets graded a 10, you are paying big money for a chance.  

You gotta watch them too. The UD pack sorting was predictable.  Any open box may have already had the packs removed that were likely to have the Griffey.

It is funny to see early 90s basketball boxes of Hoops go for $200+ NZD here in New Zealand. A year ago you may have got $20-30 for one...

I know its crazy, some of these years don't have a lot of superstars that people want.  

I don't get it either.  Especially when you can find the card under $40 with shipping.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1989-Upper-Deck-Ken-Griffey-Jr-Rookie-Card/303790065306?hash=item46bb4c869a:g:g-wAAOSwuXJfu-S7

wonder if people that are paying those prices are returning to the hobby and do not realize the "junk era" ever existed. 

Is the interest in Griffey RC cards like the "bloody arm" or '89 UD RC or are buyers just looking for '89 UD cards, or in the case of early '90 Basketball.boxes. Whose in the '90 boxes that buyers are looking for?

1989-90 Hoops has the Robinson RC which if you could get one that grades a 10 is worth a few hundred USD at least. You will get multiples of it in a box but centering is pretty bad usually.

Otherwise from 89-90 to 91-92 there are RC of lots of borderline guys like Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton Mitch Richmond, Kevin Johnson, etc but those cards aren't worth any real $. 

In 92-93 there are Shaq RCs and in Stadium Club the first Beam Team inserts where the Jordan especially is a good find.

There are a few really tough to find Autos in some of the products but hitting one of them would be worse than a needle in 1000 haystacks.

Otherwise you are looking at Jordan base cards in the early 90s as inserts weren't really a thing at that stage. 

Many of the late 80's and 90's stars don't seem to have much demand. Griffey seems to be one that has maintained. I find it interesting/frustrating that many of the Ozzie Smith artists proofs and higher end stuff always seems to sell higher than many comparable cards of stars that would have been worth much more back in the day. Like the pinnacle Frank Thomas proof I pulled the other day. I checked eBay and it's not selling at $10, Ozzie goes for $25 easy. They probably didn't print as much Ozzie stuff back then because they always seems to be harder to find than other players from the same sets too. I'm on the younger end of Ozzie collectors out there I've noticed amongst the Ozzie collecting groups. I think the market for the 90's stuff hasn't hit yet. The guys that really started collecting in their younger years have not reached the point that they have the disposable income to throw at all those cards they wanted back then.

People looking for gradeable PSA 10s.  In Hockey the 1990 Score box is $10 or less.  It has three gradeable RC in Jagr, Brodeur and Lindros.  If you luck out and get a PSA 10 of each, you should get over $200 for the three.
I think people are assuming they have a better shot at a pack fresh PSA 10 from a 30 year old box than one pulled from a pack 30 years ago.