General Forum

Not posing this as a investment question per se, more just curious about the thoughts of the community here. For me, it is more about maintaining my PC interests and making sure I don't miss out on cards now that will likely become very hard or expensive to procure down the road, making certain cards priorities to pick up early in a card's lifetime as opposed to waiting down the road and filling the holes later. Where do you see the hobby going in regards to cards today and what cards will stick out long term? I'm thinking 10-20 years down the road.

My opinion is the most desireable cards from the modern era will likely be shortprinted base card variants (SP/SSPs) and tough, non-paralleled inserts, low #'d "game" jersey cards and on-card autos (the latter two some companies have almost completely abandoned - i.e. Panini). I think parallels, with some exceptions ("legacy" parallels like, say, Topps Gold or Black may be an exception, 1/1's and some other very low #'d ones). While I don't foresee the death of parallels (or a "culling" so to speak), I do think the oversaturation of them is only a detriment and really confuses the market long term. A /399 isn't rare if there is a /349, /299, /199, etc... to go along with it. 

Really curious to see your thoughts. 

I'm not sure I'm good at this but I would say the elite players of any sport but I mean the true cream of the crop all time great type players. I'm not a big rookie card guy personally but I look more at LeBron cards will always have demand, same with a Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. Mahomes looks like he could be one of those guys but he will need to carve out a full career. Mike Trout will always be desireable. Guys like Tatis and Guerrero look prmising but again will need long careers.

The short answer is my opinion is look at who is on the card and not a serial number or parallel.

Yes - players matter even more these days, I agree. I think it will be less common to see odd players with desireable cards (more a product of set-building on the older sets). Outside of the (getting to be) overproduced Topps flagship and heritage, I don't think set-building matters to value as much with these modern sets (unless you are building master sets with SPs I suppose). Football it seems even more and more interest is centered on the QB these days as opposed to a sprinkling of other key position players in previous years. I don't collect a lot of basketball or hockey so it is harder for me to say what is going on there. 

That said, your "base" RC values will probably flatline in this era. I can't see a Soto or Tatis Topps base RC ever compare to Trout RC purely because of production numbers, regardless if they all have outstanding HOF careers. 

Good question. Like the first junk era, I think only the short prints and key rookies from this era will be desired (as well as complete base sets, which are always desired regardless of era). We won't really know until some of the rookies from the last couple years (including Wander) have a chance to establish themselves as superstars. 

I can't see many people getting nostalgic for parallel sets. I know some people love the 92 and 93 Topps Gold versions, but that was a single parallel set. Now Topps has like 20, and I can't see people caring about that in 10-20 years. It's just too much for no reason. Same with all the inserts; a few were fine, but 20 inserts every year is too much to keep track of, and they will get lost to time.

These are good points. I believe that the other safe investment is in the base sets because I too agree that when all the chase sets get overwhelming there are a large number of collectors who want to continue collecting the Topps base set for example because they have been for 20 years.

I think it will just be the rookies. All the parallel, short print, glitter this, flashy that... just like commercials, I wonder if it will all be tuned out eventually because of oversaturation. Maybe in 10 years the noise will have calmed down and the sets will be more streamlined (thus making all the flashy stuff from yesteryear a bit more appealing), but even if they're not, there will always be the rookies. 

My opinion:

As someone who's been part of this crazy ride of a hobby since the 70s, I've seen the hobby go from being just a few of us nerds to everyone and thebrother, back to just a few of us nerds, and back to everyone, their brother, and their dog. Here's what this nerd sees happening.

The SP VARs are going to hold wherever they land at the end of the next season - so cards issued in 2019 will stay where they were at the end of the 2020 season - with the exception of any "pandemic prices". Those will normalize back down a bit. As someone else mentioned, base sets will hold their ground. Eventually (I'm not suite sure how long it will take, but I think it will happen at some point), the bazillion parallels will start to be looked at as a whole (almost as we look at some variation of some vintage sets - one is as good as the other), and when there are 100s and 1,000s of each card in each version of a parallel, there is still thousands of that "same" card available. Collectors will get to the point where if they have the base, green, blue, or whatever color, that will be "good enough", so the rainbow chases will end (for most collectors - there will still be super-collectors, as there have always been).

Traditionally, RCs have always held their ground, but only the true star players. I'm pretty sure, even going to the 1970s sets that were before the over-production era, one can find rookies that were more flash in the pan for reasonable prices (comparing them to common cards from the same set). Same will hold true 10-20 years down the line for today's players. We cannot guarantee any of the players who have RCs in the last 5 years yet. They will have to remain healthy and have solid careers - like Pujols, Molina, Trout, and Cabrera have done, to name only a few. As an example, Acuna was one of the hottest cards before his unfortunate injury. As much as I hope for his sake he has a full recovery from it, what if he doesn't? His cards will plummet, and those who paid big bucks for his early cards will be sitting on what amounts to commons or only slightly better than commons (much like Jose Fernandez cards these days).

Hopefully, no one has bought any cards in the last 20 or so years thinking that what they bought will help them finance property, an education, or retirement. Very few lucky people will have that luxury.

Soon enough, it will be back to just us nerds again. Says one of the biggest nerds of all. :)

Some great responses so far. Dan, you make a great point on the SP VARs. I've noticed the prices of those level and then (especially for the SSP variations) increase a bit by the end of the following season (as you say) as many get squirreled away in PC's and a $100-150 Soto SSP (for example) rests at a $250 initial offering price if it comes up (what I've personally noticed from what I'm buying for my PC). I think some older Trout SP/SSPs have since gone further up - but it would likely take an incredible career arc coupled with fan popularity to really affect the market. You can really expect only a couple modern players at any given time to have that kind of clout. One thing in my mind that dings the SP/SSP cards is they don't have "iconic" imagery through familiarity with the card itself (like a base card would), though I do enjoy my 2020 Topps Opening Day and Chrome Soto SPs as they spotlight his "bat handoff" World Series HR. 

The idea that the parallels will all be judged as essentially the same card is an interesting one. I personally think a few classic parallels will always stand out on their own (say, Topps Gold which numbers to the year, etc or Black which numbers to how many years Topps has put out sets) or basic refractors. I think if you look at unlicensed baseball you can already see it for the most part. Panini has been a blight with the oversaturation of parallels. With baseball, most people are treating Panini parallels as the same already, I've seen sale prices for low numbered parallels (outside of 1/1's) for dirt cheap in comparison for what a Topps parallel would command. I think most might be interested in a color match and that is about it. 

This might sound funny, but my favorite set every year is Opening Day. You can cheaply build a base master set (everything + common inserts) and there is one base parallel (PR to the year) and a 1/1 parallel. There are also incredibly tough inserts and SPs that if you bought a case you'd get 2-3 of (across all insert sets). To me that is just about perfect. I bought two hobby boxes this year for $80 and was one card short of the master set and had two complete base sets. 

I don't know what will survive the next card apocalypse/bubble burst. I would guess rookie cards of HOF caliber players and related signed/memorabilia cards will still hold some broad interest because of the popularity of the player and the remaining investor types. But ultimately, who knows. The industry, led by Panini, is producing way too many non-base cards to sustain value in most cards. Low-numbered serial numbered parallels really don't hold a ton of broad appeal if it's just a card with a different color border. And designed scarcity doesn't make cards more desirable unless what's on the card was already desirable. 
Long ago, you were amazed if there were more than 5 different cards featuring your favorite player released in one year. And that includes guys who are considered GOATs now. Now, a player has to be practically useless to have less than 10 cards a year. There are HOFers out there that have less than 1000 cards made of them to this point. Meanwhile, a rookie that hasn't even done anything can have more cards than that in their first year. Johnny Manziel has like 3000+ cards of him and he was a colossal bust. 
The glut of products out there has made it impossible for me to keep up with new players within the scope of my collection. I've pretty much stopped actively collecting currently active players and am generally uninterested in cards produced in 2020 and beyond. I get more joy tracking down a 1987 Topps base card of some guy that isn't a household name than I do from trying to figure out how many First Off the Line Snakeskin Mojo Prizm Parallels there are for some guy that might not even be in the league next year.

I agree with others about star players, #'d cards, sp/ssp's, autos, etc.  The one thing I'm curious about is what Fanatics will do when they take over.  Will they be more transparent with print runs?  Will they reduce the number of parallels? Will they change the outlets where cards can be purchased?  They really have the ability to shake up the card game.  As a collector who recently re-entered the hobby I'm kinda of excited to see what they do as it will be a possible reset button going into the next couple decades.