General Forum

Seoes it depend on where you live?  Won't find much for sale in North Jersey, much less discounted.  Also, good Marketplace bulk deals are far between.  I got enough to sort through and discover for a while knowing it's a matter of time before the saturation takes effect around where I live.

I guess I'm like plenty of collectors these days: I got back into it during the pandemic when I had time to go through my old card collection. The bug bit me (and others) again, and I'm still at it. I found this site in June 2020 and went to Walmart the next day looking for cards.

They not only had a bunch from 2020 but a lot of packs from 2019 marked for sale. I got a large part of my 2019 set with those discount packs. A year later, they had a large section of shelves put aside for cards, and much the stuff sold as soon as it came in, as "flippers" or whoever would come buy them in bulk. Another of our local Walmarts started putting the cards behind a counter, and you had to ask for help. They would sell folks only one pack at a time.

Now, that big section of shelves at Walmart has boxes of stuff that hasn't sold yet. I bought a few 2022 A&G boxes within the past two or three weeks on sale, and I guess I'm collecting that set now. There are 2022 Topps Heritage boxes and a few of 2023 Topps Series One boxes.

I figured this would happen. I didn't think everyone who started collecting again in 2020 would continue doing it with the intensity that we did then. And, as somebody has pointed out, inflation has hit so many parts of our lives, not everyone has as much money as before to pour into the hobby.

What is a flipper?

there is such a variety of collectors

* Tobacco / Vintage / Post world war 2 1948-1965 (or so) / early modern 1966-85 or so / junk wax / modern

* Baseball / Football / Basketball / Hockey / all other sports / non sports

* Raw / Graded

* Autographs / Memorabilia / Short Prints / Inserts / Errors / Parallels

* US / Japan / Europe / China / the rest of the world

* Set collectors / Team Collectors / Player collectors / hoarders / investors

* RC collectors / HOF collectors / Future HOF collectors / Hyped minor leaguers

*  LCS buyers / Walmart-Target / direct from Topps / E-bay / other secondary market / card shows

The manufacturers on the other hand, have tried to maximize profit, by making product for everyone, at every price point, in every way they can imagine making product to sell, and make a profit. The players and leagues get their share and are complicit.

One particular collector in the hobby, is the Topps Flagship ripper / base set builder [and Fleer, Donruss, etc when they had licenses] or just buy the full set box

The collector of Topps Flagship 1952-2000, who then added Bowman or Archives or A&G or Heritage to their set interest

I think that the idea of junk wax is specific to two areas of the hobby:

1.   Topps [etc] Flagship [and 1 or a few other sets] collectors, who see the over production

2.   Investors, who see that their investment is  worthless

In some cases collectors have an idea that are also investors, and losses cause some loss of joy in the hobby.

For all those that are involved in other areas of the hobby, I don't see a lot of dissatisfaction.

The guy that is collecting - buying:  graded /basketball / hall of fame / autographs

Buying at card shows, purely for the joy of the chase, is doing just fine.

A Flipper is known to buy packs / boxes at a smaller amount and sell them for a higher amount.

However at a card show your "flipper" may also be your dealer

As a long time collector it doesn't really matter to me if this is the start of another junk wax era. I loved cards in the early 90's when there were millions of them and I still love cards now. I have no problems with all the sets and the different parallels. I collect what I like and let others enjoy chasing what they want. If anything, I prefer having a variety of different sets and inserts to collect rather than only a few choices. The only thing that concerns me now is that one company has a monopoly and that they're pricing out a lot of the long time collectors from opening sealed product. All that being said, I still plan on collecting the way I have been for the past 30 years and I believe a lot of other collectors will keeping doing their thing too. Just like collecting survived the original junk wax era, I believe it will survive whatever is going on now.

Buy products simply for the purpose of trying to resell them for a higher price on Ebay, at shows etc.

Primary goal is to move the card onto another buyer as quickly as possible, not collect or keep.

The few card shows I went to in the past 2 years, the vast majority of tables were reselling blasters or packs. Only 1 or 2 people had boxes of cards to go through, kind of disappointing.

I agree with your sentiments Trafto311. The point I was making earlier, is that it's disappointing to hear of ones throwing away the commons just to keep the inserts/parallels. As a hockey collector, I am a big fan of some of the early 90's "junk", specifically Pro-Set and Score. The bigger sets made it possible for some long time players to finally get a card, plus they were nice looking cards. Today it's different though. The joy I used to get from opening packs that I was able to buy at the corner store is gone. Now, even just to get the common cards, I have to either buy the base set (for next to nothing, mind you) from a dealer, or pay big dollars to get blasters and hope I can complete the set that way or through trading. I am also a bit of an oddball I'm sure, as I am not a fan of borderless cards. The cards of today that I like are ones such as Parkhurst that have a nice border that dresses up the card a bit. I have no problem with people seeking out the inserts/parallels if they want to spend their money that way, and if the get some enjoyment out of it. To each their own. I also agree that it would be nice if other companies were allowed to make cards, and especially would like some food issued cards as well (other than Tim Hortons).

I really dislike flippers. They are the ones that know when retailers will be putting out product and they buy up everything to mark it up at a higher price. This is one of the things that has been leaving retail shelves empty the past couple of years. It makes it tough for a kid or any collector who likes to pick up a few cards whenever they have a little extra cash to treat themselves.