Hobby Boxes down hill?

How many hobby boxes do you buy per year? (since the econmy is doing bad)


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    41
  • Poll closed .

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Pawelnj

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I was surfing ebay and i noticed alot of "old school" hobby boxes dirt cheap compared to how much i used to pay about 5 to 10 years back! Like bowman chrome hobby box was $100+ at the shop back in the day was only $30 dlvd on ebay with BIN option! I think people are spending less on cards and alot of people dont buy older hobby boxes so the price drops very low!

So is the hobby going down hill? or it just at a stand still cause of the bad econmy? I would like to hear your take
I made a little poll please vote on it below!

Thanks
Paul
 
In recent years I was spending around $100/month on cards. The last few months I've been spending less than $20 a month.
 
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A little of a bunch of reasons. Out of sight, out of mind, what have you done for me lately, rookies that didn't pan out or just don't have the demand they used to, long odds for the bigger hits... 10 years ago you had players in year 2, 3, 5, with the future ahead of them, now they are retired or on the precipitous downside of their careers. How much are you willing to pay for a chance at Jerry Stackhouse, Damon Stoudemire, Rasheed wallace, and Antonio McDyess rookies and parallels? Or maybe a shot at a parallel that's just tougher than a 1:10 box pull?
 
Good topic, if there isn't a demand for the cards on trading sites like this one then the demand on ebay I wouldn't think would be that much either. I may pick up box if it is a really good deal just to have set fillers avalible for trades on the off chance someone would want to put together a set of cards from 10 years ago. Outside of Allen and Ginter I open packs/boxes very seldom. I only want the Brewers out of them anyway. I just wait until now and pick up the complete team set on ebay and save lots of time and money.

This also means having a lot less of current trade material for cards that I do want.

Thanks,

Frank
 
Great time to be a buyer. 2010 wax is WAY down. Although Topps really hasn't done a great job this year with much of anything.

I've opened less this year than most. Only half a dozen cases or so.
 
Haven't really had the interest this year. Maybe it's because I know that Topps is the only company producing cards.....Just picking up 1 or 2 cards here and there.
 
I last bought a box of "new" product in June of 2009 when I got an SP Legendary Cuts case. Since then I have bought a case of 2006 UD Epic but that is the extent of my busting.

It is not so much the economy but the quality of product with a return on anything you pull on the secondary market to offset the cost of the purchase. I don't collect to make money - I hardley ever sell - but if the value is not there given the expensive products I can't shell out the money. Nowadays I just buy the cards I want which are primarily just the new Gehrig cards as I don't collect anyone else that hasn't retired since 2008 (Mussina) so there is no incentive.

I also collect HoF memorabilia/auto cards but most of that is dried up to the point the Topps Relic cards this year of Gehrig don't even specify it being a "bat" so it is more than likely a piece of stadium seat or bench and it may not even be from his time period. That is plain sorry and I don't even want to spend the $100 or so a piece for those cards even though they are Gehrigs.

I guess for me it just boils down to disappointment in what is out now coupled with the steep costs for products with anything of true value. I miss Donruss/Playoff/Leaf.

God bless,
Dewayne
 
I was surfing ebay and i noticed alot of "old school" hobby boxes dirt cheap compared to how much i used to pay about 5 to 10 years back! Like bowman chrome hobby box was $100+ at the shop back in the day was only $30 dlvd on ebay with BIN option! I think people are spending less on cards and alot of people dont buy older hobby boxes so the price drops very low!

So is the hobby going down hill? or it just at a stand still cause of the bad econmy? I would like to hear your take
I made a little poll please vote on it below!

Thanks
Paul

Without knowing which boxes you're talking about specifically, it's tough to get a feel. The two boxes you mentioned (Bowman Chrome and the 95-96 Pacific Prism basketball draft you posted the link to) are primarily sets geared towards the rookie hype. A lot of those rookies just didn't live up to the hype. Take 2000 Bowman Chrome. Back in the day it was a higher end set loaded with rookie cards of up and coming prospects. Today is 10 years later, a lot of them didn't pan out and the potential for a new breakout star from that set is slim to none. Even if they were 18 then, they'd be 28 now, and the ceiling isn't nearly as high for 28 year old prospects as it is for 20 year olds. Of those that have done well, Roy Oswalt is the head of that list, and he was even a bit old when he made his debut. He looked great racking up those 19 and 20 win seasons, and only had one off year so far. Problem is, he hasn't been GREAT the whole time. He's 32 and has 150 wins. He'd need to pitch another 10 years at 15 wins a year to get there, and there aren't many 42 year olds who have been averaging 15 wins a year (Jamie Moyer comes to mind as a possibility) Zito has looked rough for 4 years now, K Rod is a closer, and Zambrano is looking like a head case. You get 2 refractors a box, that's 2 chances from any of the 440 cards in the set. How much are you willing to shell out for the CHANCE of an ARod or Bonds or Jeter or Oswalt refractor that MIGHT get you $5-10?

Part of it likely is the ebay factor as well. As great as ebay is for adding to a collection, it has killed a lot of prices. So many things used to be tough to come by unless you went to major shows, now you can find so many things every day. A dealer in my area came into some 1991 Topps test issues the triple headers and the candy stand ups. I had not seen these before, but there are 25 listings on ebay right now for these just under 1991 topps test issue, more if you use stand up or triple header in the search. There are 27 listings now for 1990 Leaf boxes, I remember going to shows all the time and not seeing 1990 Leaf boxes.

The economy isn't helping, but I don't think that's the biggest factor for the lower prices on older boxes.
 
with most of the card shops closed and ones that are opened don't carry much inventory. I still like to go to card shows when I get the chance. But with Target and Kmart having exclusive rights, they don't sell new hobby boxes, just by the packs or retail boxes.
And I have to agree that with only one card maker I have lost some interest in buying cards..(but every once in a while I have to have my fix :)
 
I mean newer products still carry sv but i bought a box of 1999 bowman for $25 for a friend for christmas remember they where $100 each back in 1999?
 
Haven't really had the interest this year. Maybe it's because I know that Topps is the only company producing cards.....Just picking up 1 or 2 cards here and there.

+1

The quality is bad this year too. I've mainly just been picking up singles here and there also.
 
I mean newer products still carry sv but i bought a box of 1999 bowman for $25 for a friend for christmas remember they where $100 each back in 1999?

Another case of a rookie driven set and there is a chrome version available. The demand for base Bowman is lower now than when it was new, and a lot of the players didn't live up to projections. Soriano can be great, or drive you insane, or both at once. Sabathia and Crawford are great, Dunn is a masher in the Kingman mold. Others have had moments, but for most of the prospects, it was a roller coaster. Then there are the inserts, the one per pack International parallel, and a handful of 2 per box inserts of youngsters. Autographs fell one every 3-4 boxes and there are 7-10 decent ones out of 70. The gold parallel fell about 1 in every 2-3 boxes and again, could be any of the 220 players in that series. Not much left keeping this box hot. It's a fun box, you're not going to lose a ton opening it, but there isn't much in most of those boxes to get much more than $25 either
 
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