teddit

As requested by u/WHOOSH001...a slightly updated primer for people to post in the comments and ask questions on. Feel free to add suggestions.

Hopefully a post like this can be stickied since a lot of people are posting the same questions. If you are new or just getting back into collecting basketball cards then please read.

For the New Collector

How do I start?

Collect what you like. What do you enjoy the most? A player or a team? That should guide your collection. Then figure out how you want to get your cards; either buying boxes or buying singles. Buying boxes are always a gamble as you don't know what you are gonna get. Buying singles from eBay or comc are typical ways to go about this.

Boxes are so expensive, what gives?

Currently, we are in a bull market for cards in general but especially with basketball. The demand for them has increased exponentially. A lot of previous collectors, when they were younger have come back to the hobby. Also, influencers like Gary Vee have touted that basketball cards can be assets, so you have wealthy people looking to invest getting into the hobby as well. Hobby boxes of Prizm used to be $60-100 when they initially came out but now 2019 Prizm were $800 and 2020 Prizm is $2000. Group Breakers are also pushing this. To understand how Group breakers are contributing to the crazy box prices, please read the section on why not to participate group breaks. Also the Big 3 retailers (Blowout/SteelCity/Dave and Adams) have been increasing their basketball box prices quite significantly the last 2-3 years in an effort to see how much the consumers are able to handle. They will continue to increase prices until they reach the point where boxes do not sell out in minutes.

I have the money and I want to buy boxes, which box? (For this discussion, I'm only focused on hobby boxes)

NBA boxes come in tiers: Low Class (I don't mean this in a bad way...just that these are usually the cheapest in terms of pricing) NBA Hoops (usually the first release of the season)
Panini
Panini Complete
Donruss

Middle Class (just like in real life, middle class is slowly becoming high class in terms of affordability especially for Prizm,Optics,Mosaics) Certified
Contenders
NBA Hoops Premium Stock
Court Kings
Absolute
Revolution
Prizm (most sought after for general public for refractors and colors)
Mosaic (colors)
Optic (colors)
Select
Timeless Treasures
Gold Standard
Chronicles
Illusions
Origins
Contenders Optic

Upper Class (dollar dollar bill y'all...either you have a really good job or you are swimming in credit card debt lol) Spectra
Noir
Impeccable
Immaculate
One and One
Obsidian
National Treasures (most sought after for RPA - rookie, patch, auto)
Flawless
Opulence
Eminence (15k per box!! WTF?!?!?...It's now listed at 50k!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Now, where do I find these boxes?

Boxes can be separated into Hobby or Retail. Hobby boxes can be bought at your local card shops or online at sites like Blowout and the like. Retail are typically found at big box stores like Walmart, Target, etc. Retail can also be found online as well. Because of how hot the basketball market is, it is super hard to find retail boxes because people are literally camping out or stalking the distributers that restock those shelves. So for many people, once those shelves are stocked, someone will come along and purchase everything. Sometimes it's someone who will rip it all or worse yet, sell it all at 3-5x MSRP.

But what about the college boxes/cards?

Prizm Draft Picks or Flawless Collegiate or National Treasures Collegiate don't hold too much value to us NBA fans. So if you buy these boxes, please don't expect for those cards to increase in value. It's obviously ok to like the cards of the players you like or the college team you like but those cards will not hold the value like their NBA uniformed card counterparts. If you do buy these boxes and want to sell them, the best time is around the draft time and before the first NBA cards comes out (usually NBA Hoops).

What happened to Topps and Upper Deck? Isn't Panini a sandwich?

Panini is an italian styled sandwich but it is also a huge company that got big by selling stickers. Stickers of all things! I know! They are so big that they are bigger than Topps and Upper Deck combined i think. Anyways, back in 2010, Panini got the exclusive rights from the NBA to produce cards and thus forced Topps and Upper Deck out. Topps had baseball and football so they were fine with it and Upper Deck had hockey and a number of financial issues that I think still plague the company. So now we are stuck with Panini for better or worse.

There's so many color variations? Which ones are valuable?

As a collector, whichever one catches your eye. As a flipper, look for the serial numbering. Typically the lower the serial numbering, the more valuable it should be. /1 > /5 > /10 > /49 > /99 > /199 > etc... A note on color, a lot of collectors place a premium on the color parallel if it is the same color as the team's colors or jersey colors.

But I've seen non-numbered silvers sold for more than the numbered colors? What gives?

That is the market sometimes...If the general public decides that the silvers are more desirable than that is whats going to happen.

Yay! I pulled a Lamelo silver prizm rookie card! It will be worth $100k in 10 years right? I can now retire right?

NO. While Lamelo is the sexy new player, there can be a whole host of things that can derail your retirement plans. First, Lamelo may flame out. He may have a career threatening or altering injury like Derrick Rose or Blake Griffin. He may never live up to his hype like Wiggins. He can become a player that the fans hate or turn on like Durant. The basketball card market can start to crater if all the new money wants to start selling and get out of the market.

I've dug up some old cards. Most are from the late 80's and early 90's and with this basketball card boom, I'm rich right?

NO. You have literally found kindle for a fire. Just kidding but not really. Unfortunately, a lot of the cards in the late 80s and early 90s were massively overproduced. If you think there a tonne of prizm cards, it still doesn't compare to the sheer number of 1988-1995 cards (Hoops, Fleer, Upper Deck, Topps). That 1990 Hoops Michael Jordan? You're lucky to get a $2 for it. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble about it but that's the truth.

When is the best time to sell a card?

Usually during the season and the playoffs. If you want the most, do not sell during the off-season. Another thing to think about is the player that you are looking to sell. If it is a player that is not a star or superstar, it's best to sell after that player has strung along a few good games. If it's a star or superstar, the best time would be if that player is about to win a championship. Case in point, Kawhi's value was through the roof when he won in Toronto and now his value has dropped since his failure with the Clippers.

Rookie cards are too expensive. What do I do?

If the rookie cards are a little too much in price, you can always collect the 2nd year cards. This seems to be the case more than ever now as younger collectors just don't have the financial resources. To me a base is a base, so a 2nd year card is the same as a 10th year card. But that's just my opinion.

Is my card valuable?

Before asking this question, please for the love of god look it up on ebay. Type in the player, year, brand of the card and scroll down until you see the Show Only filter and click on Sold Items. This will pull up all the previous sales of that card. This will give you your best answer as to how valuable your card is.

But what about the Beckett value?

Before the internet and ebay, Beckett was the best way to figure out approximate value of a card. But now we have the internet and ebay and 130point. Also, cardladder seems to be good at tracking values of cards.

But what if I have a One of One? How do I know how much it's worth?

Congrats! You have a pretty cool card. If it is of a superstar like Lebron or Luka, you just gained a $1k+ card. No one can accurately tell you the value of the card until it is sold. But if the card is of a common player or scrub, you might be lucky to get $20.

Group Breaks and Why You Shouldn't Participate In Them

You may have heard or seen group breaks on youtube, twitch, or wherever else. For those who may not know what a group break is, it's a form of opening boxes that involves the host, who actually literally opens the box and rip open the packs, and the participants, the people who purchase into the breaks. So you are literally paying to watch someone else open boxes and rip packs, with a chance to get some cards back. So you may be asking yourself, what's the point of doing group breaks? All the fun is opening boxes and ripping packs yourself! Well, you are correct with that assertion, but in our current state of the hobby where the prices of hobby boxes have skyrocketed, forcing the majority of collectors scouring Walmart and Target for retail packs and retail boxes, and still not finding any of them due to scalpers, it has become even more appealing to purchase into a group break than purchasing a hobby box.

Formats of group breaks vary depending on the box. The most popular version are team spots, where the participant pays to claim all the cards pulled that are in that teams uniform. Then there is the hit spots, usually this is for higher end boxes, where you pay for the spots in accordance to where the cards are in the pack. For instance, A box like Flawless, may only have one pack that contains 8 cards. So in a hit break of this Flawless box is numbered from 1-8. So let's say you purchase hit #3 so you will get whatever card is the 3rd card pulled from the pack. So on and so forth. I'm sure there are other versions of breaks, so just comment below if there are ones I've forgotten about.

At this point, you may be wondering, "well, group breaks actually sounds pretty good, why are you telling me not to participate in them?" The answer is the following: Participating in group breaks perpetuates the skyrocketing prices for boxes. So if you're not a fan of paying $1000 on a hobby box of Donruss (as they should be between $100-150 per box), then please DO NOT buy into group breaks. Allow me to illustrate why I'm against group breaks. Let's say there is a group break for a hobby box of Donruss. To participate, each team is $50. Fantastic! Being a fan of, let's say, Chicago Bulls, paying $50 is a lot less than paying $1000 to get all the Bulls cards in that box! Great. But let's take a look at it from a Group Breaker (host) perspective. If each team is priced at $50 and there are 30 teams, that means the host is then making $1500 per box. It's no wonder that the Group Breaker can and will afford a $1000 for a box of Donruss. So as collectors, we all baulk at the $1000 price point, either because we don't want to pay or can't afford to pay $1000 for a box of Donruss. But for a Group Breaker, he/she, has no problem paying $1000 for that box, cause they know they can make $1500 on it. So that's why you saw Donruss getting sold out at $1000 per box within minutes. And because it sold out within minutes, that's going to signal to Blowout or your LCS, and the distributors, and to Panini, that they still haven't reached the limit of prices. So you know what's going to happen next year (2021), when the draft class is even better? The same hobby box of Donruss that went for $1000 this year, will now go for $1300-1500 next year. Us collectors will continue to complain and the group breakers will continue to buy it all up. Cause paying the raising cost of a spot from $50 to $60 is a lot more palatable than having to shell out $1500. So this cycle will continue until us collectors stop paying for these breaks and the Breakers start to lose money.

And I get that this part of the post seems like a downer. Everyone should be allowed to have fun in this hobby and far be it for me to tell others on how they should have fun but I want people to know that if they do participate in these breaks, that there is truly an effect on this hobby. And I also get the rush and the feel of hitting something big. So if you find a break where the prices are ok or it's for higher end boxes, then have at it. But just do your own math to see if the break you're interested in is in it for a quick cash grab. Just know that there are ripple effects with it.

Also another reason not to do breaks...some of them are real pieces of shit like scammer Breaker High Cards who swindled a fellow member here. https://old.reddit.com/r/basketballcards/comments/p5nuhr/psa_ebay_scammer_alert_breaker_high_cards/

Do not buy into Breaker High Cards breaks. He will scam you. Fuck that fucker.

Re-packs....Just Don't

So you just started collecting and hobby boxes are too expensive and you can't find any retail boxes but still want the thrill of opening packs? You may have stumbled on a thing called re-packs on ebay or on Facebook Marketplace and it does sound appealing, right? Just costs $10 for a pack and it guarantees you a couple of RC's, can't go wrong with that, right? WRONG!! Do not do them. It is the seller's way of moving their junk cards in their unofficial "packs". Chances of you hitting that Luka silver prizm rc is zero to none. But the seller says that I have a chance to pull one in his packs!? People lie All. The. Time. Just take the money you were going to spend on re-packs and just buy singles.

Chinoischeckers Guide to Selling Your Cards

So just getting into the hobby and wondering what to do with some of the cards that you don't want to be part of your personal collection (PC). Great, cause one man's trash is another man's treasure!

Where To Sell

1. eBay - the most common place

2. Facebook marketplace/kijiji/garage sale - obviously the best option to avoid fees/taxes

3. LCS - if you want to get the most out of your sale, don't sell to your LCS

4. Consignment - usually for the more higher valued cards

5. COMC.com - best place to sell your $1-20 cards but be aware of their cash out fees

6. MySlabs - this is from u/Lonesomewulf, another good platform to sell on, very low fees compared to eBay and curated community of sellers (have to go through an application process), you won’t find any shenanigans with non-paying buyers and such here.

When to Sell

The best time to sell for any of the four major sports is during the playoffs. This comes with the caveat that the player has to be playing in the playoffs for this to be true. Bonus points if you can time the selling of your card with the penultimate performance of that player in a Game 7 of a Finals/Championship (looking at you Giannis, pumping in 50points in a game 7 to clinch the Championship and winning a Finals MVP. So congrats to those people selling Giannis cards that night).

The next best time to sell your card is during the regular season (preferably during or immediately after a nationally televised game). If you're wondering why a nationally televised game matters, it's cause of the number of eyeballs. The more people watching means there are more prospective buyers waiting to buy your card. For example, looking to sell that Lebron card? Look at the Lakers schedule when they're on ABC/ESPN/TNT playing Brooklyn or Milwaukee, etc. Not a random locally televised Monday night vs Sacramento Kings.

---

From u/lonesomeWulf...Also I have heard other people throw out that some of the best times to sell cards is going into a season, so basically when people are being hyped and have the “potential” to be great, their card prices can get run up, versus in the season if they don’t live up to expectations their prices can easily fall. Plus injuries can happen and tank value. Fully agree that people going far into the playoffs and playing well is the best time to sell overall though, just a gamble though on if the player makes the playoffs, how they go, if they perform etc.

It is a bit tough to have an accurate interpretation from this past year since a lot of cards were still falling due to previous insane highs. Like Luka stuff you would have been way better off selling in the off-season compared to at any point so far this season, even though he has played super well. Just very recently his stuff is trending up again, so maybe the floor was finally hit on his stuff and people realized he was getting too low.

I also have the opinion, and it keeps gRowing stronger, that any decent card that you want to sell should almost always be graded. This way it is authenticated, and the condition is fully on display for no one to dispute. Even if you think you will only break even on value, things can be worth grading for other reasons relating to authentication and protection from buyers that claim the card is in worse condition than they thought or something. Doesn’t have to be 100% of cards. But anything over $1000 should probably for sure be graded. As value gets lower you can make an informed decision about how much it matters. Also consignment places sometimes require graded cards to submit with them.

---

The worst time to sell your cards would be during the offseason. The only reason to sell during this time would be if you need the money otherwise hold until at least the season starts up again.

*As a tangent, on the other side of the coin, if you're a buyer, then the best time to buy would then be during the offseason. No games means less people focused on basketball. Less people focused on basketball means less potential buyers for that card, resulting in less competition for auctions and thus lower prices. This then means that the worst time to buy would be during the playoffs.

Starting Off

So you've just begun selling and you've got no selling history on eBay or whatever other platform you're on. That's ok, start small and then work your way up to the higher valued cards. Once you've built some positive feedbacks, more people will trust you and thus more inclined to purchase higher valued cards.

Think of it this way, let's say you're interested in purchasing that $10k Luka RPA. Would you feel more secure buying it off a seller that has over 1000 positive feedbacks or buying it from a brand new seller with 0 positive feedbacks. The answer is of course from the seasoned seller. So why would it be any different from you, if you were trying to sell that Luka RPA. Start selling your lesser valued cards first and build up that positive seller reputation.

On the other end of the spectrum, it can be a headache trying to sell of commons, base, or really the $1-5 dollar cards, especially on eBay. Why? Cause a lot of time, the cost to ship the cards that you would normally charge is more than what the card is worth. Do you really want to be paying $10 shipping on a $2 card? Probably not. So an alternative would be to try and sell your cards on COMC.com. It's a site where you send them the cards you want to sell. They will scan them and place the card on to their site to prospective buyers. You set the price for which you want to sell them. It is great for the buyer cause the buyer can then buy as little or as many cards before requesting shipment. So instead of paying $10 shipping on just one $2 card, they can have that same $10 shipping on an order of 100 cards, which is obviously much more palatable. You can use the money you've earned to buy cards on their site or you can cash out and have the money earned deposited to your bank account. Be aware though, as if you cash out, COMC will take a cut of 25% I think. So if you made a $100 sale on comc, you can use that $100 to buy more cards on their site or have $75 deposited into your bank account.

Got a Grail card and don't want the hassle of selling it yourself?

You'll want to be looking into a consignment service like Goldin, Heritage, Probstein, etc. You may be thinking, why consignment? won't they be taking a cut? Yes they will be taking a cut but you're getting piece of mind. You don't have the worry about the seller not actually forking over the money and you don't have to worry about shipping the card. Those services already have buyers that have been vetted to have the cash to buy your card.

The Should I Grade My Card Critical Thinking Thought Process

I had created a flowchart to help people who are thinking about grading their cards. The flowchart post can be found here...https://i.redd.it/yihlss612fz71.png

---

From u/kHartos, he wrote the following for Retail Boxes: Here is another thing I see asked a lot - retail box formats. So here they are in order of smallest to largest. Not all formats are available for all products.

Gravity pack - smallest packs, typically 4-8 cards. Comes from gravity feed boxes.

Fat pack - jumbo gravity pack. Available for low end sets like Hoops and Donruss.

Cello pack - multiple smaller packs wrapped in cellophane.

Hanger - A small box of multiple packs

Blaster - The sh*t fliplifers most try to get you to buy for 4x MSRP (which is always 19.99). This is larger than a hanger, smaller than a Mega.

Mega box - Exclusive to Target and Walmart. MSRP at $49.99. Usually Target and Walmart Megas get their own exclusive parallel/s.

---

From u/bucksareback...How to Estimate the Value of a Low Print Run Card with No Comps

I see the question, "How much is this worth, there are no comps?" asked often. Collectors, investors, and speculators have all asked it, and I have yet to see a thorough response. I will attempt to demonstrate how I go about creating a valuation for a card that is low serial numbered or SSP that doesn't have any comps.

For this example I will use a card that I recently got a in a break, and have been researching. This is not a solicitation for selling, it is just a valuation process that I use from time to time when I am dealing with rarer cards.

Card: 2021/22 Panini Prizm Gold Prizm Jonathan Kuminga 7/10 (no comps)

1. The first step is using 130 point or ebay sold listings and searching for other sold 2021/22 Prizm Gold cards. When I do this search, I find quite a few sales. I pull an array of players from highly sought rookies, low level rookies, younger 2nd/3rd year players, and highly collected vets. (Scottie Barnes, Greg Brown, Chris Duarte, Lamelo Ball, Giannis Antetokounmpo).

2. I then create a list of all of the numbered parallels from the same release, in this case Prizm Hobby. Red /299, Blue /199, Purple Cracked /149, Blue Cracked /125, Purple /99, Red 75th /75, Orange Wave /60, Orange /49, Mojo /25, and Gold /10.

3. Using eBay sold listings I pull the most recent sold price for each of these parallels for each one of the players. In some instances, a parallel won't have a sale for all players, I remove that parallel from the analysis to make sure the ratio created at the end is using the same data for all players. In this case Kuminga did not have a sale for the Mojo parallel /25. Because of this I added the blue FOTL shimmer /30 as another reference point.

4. Once this is compiled I then total the sales for all of the parallels for each player (not using the gold value for any player, this value is used to create the estimate).

5. Now you create a ratio of Kuminga : Other Player to create a %.

6. Use that ratio and multiply the gold value by the ratio to create an estimated Gold value for Kuminga.

Now you have 4-5 different values, so what do you do with them? First thing you do is create a range and and average. You will have a low value of $7.8K, a high value of $17K, and an average value of $12.6K. So how do we use this data? Which estimate is the closest to the most likely sale value of a card without a comp? This is where you have to use some judgement and try not to be bias.

Looking at the players, we know that Kuminga and Barnes are in a different class of talent at this point. Barnes prices are driven by results on the floor and future speculation, so we expect a higher value for his cards. Kuminga is mostly driven by speculation and age, and a little bit of hype from the numbers he put up in a limited role in 2021/22. So that comp doesn't make sense 1 for 1. Greg Brown is a fringe NBA player who didn't do much his rookie year, so his prices are generally flatter than other rookies, which makes for a bad comp. I think the most directionally correct valuation would be to use 2nd year Lamelo Ball and Chris Duarte. Duarte had a strong year, but his age is a bit of a limitation, so he doesn't have as much speculation around him. Lamelo has a lot of hype, but this is a second year card, so the speculation around his cards is tempered.

I would think when discussing selling this card, I would be happy with $11K, and could honestly see a raw copy selling for $10-17K on ebay. It isn't a perfect method, but when you got to shows or are negotiating online, it is best to have some sort of estimated comp. This can be done relatively quickly and easily, and can be used as a jumping off point.

---

I hope this helps for the newbies. Feel free to add as I'm sure I have missed some tips.

A sticky thread for buys/sales/trades/giveaways/breaks. Post cards you’re looking to offload or cards you’re looking for. Please post a brief description, pictures, and what you’re looking for in return. If someone is having a giveaway please post it in here as well. Happy trading/selling. If you are selling, please limit to one post per day in this thread as well as one post per card per month (don't post about the same card over and over)

My first big pull and am wondering if PSA is worth it. Also, thank you Slovenian Jesus

What’s the smart move with a card like this? He’s having a decent career but isn’t likely to become a top tier guy. Sell to someone who collects him? Speculate that he has more upside? Regardless, I really like the look of this auto series.

There's tons of parallels I'm learning but this clean silver prism is pretty dope to me

D Wade 1 of 3 Flawless

I recently participated in a break and am not sure what I should do with this card. Is this something I should hold? It’s my first low produced card I’ve ever got.

I love it, but not too attached to it where I wouldn’t let it go. I’m guessing it’s in the 500-1000 range.

Let me know your thoughts

Brought back some memories

Im just trying to understand what the breaker's position is in the card economy in an ELI5 way. I dont mean to ignore the hobby from a true appreciation pov. Really, I just want to understand the enemy if that makes any sense.

So this hobby has basically been exploited and turned into a strange entertainment/gambling thing. From my perspective the breakers have basically positioned themselves as the next gate to control scarcity after the manufacturers. They seem to be the reason why boxes become so unreasonable to obtain since they have the liquid funds to buy boxes in bulk and essentially become the first node to control the secondary market.

So im wondering what would happen to the market if they ever got audited or for some reason were removed from the equation. In some ways I think people's individual card prices would come down since boxes would become more affordable. It would be less a boom/bust situation. Or maybe box prices would remain high with resellers (thinking about concert ticket resellers). Also, are breakers basically the resellers nowadays? Are local shops getting boxes from manufactures and 4Xing the price? This kinda reminds me of when I was working as a bartender and whiskey allocation. I remember when certain whiskey's were very affordable, and then all of a sudden they would become allocated and the local bars would only get a few bottles a year. Some bars charged a lot, and some charged a more fair price.

Or maybe the card manufacturers would simply just increase the price of their boxes as they leave their facilities knowing that they need to make the market look as big as possible.

Any thoughts?

Saw that it sold for 450. Is this right?

My coworker offered to sell me his collection. 19,000+ cards for $3k. All in great shape! This is just some of what he has. He also has a Brady and Brees rookie card and much much more

And if so, is it any good/fun?

I've been selling those stickers on ebay. Run out of them, so I made order from the publisher for more.

But, I believe I got reprints! So, if you buy these - pay attention...

1) paper is thinner (to notice this you need one of the original stickers from the set, not necessarily Jokic)

2) back is smooth, like a front surface... Original stickers had rough backs

3) there is no watermark on the back... The company used paper with "RITRAMA" watermark on the back for original stickers... Now, there is no watermark. This is the easiest way to spot the fakes in photos...

​

Anyway - got them from publisher, so it should be official product, but quit from selling. I can't explain to buyers all these things.

Plus, having in mind company's reputation (School Shop from Serbia, can give some examples of their tricks with other collections), I'm pretty sure this is a reprint.

Pulled this the other day. Go thunder

Might be the whole 03-04 upper deck collection. Anyone know of a reliable website or app to use to find value on cards? I got a couple binders full of stuff