One of the hottest products in the market this year has been the Topps Project 2020 on-demand set. Topps chose 2o of their most iconic cards and hired 20 artists to re-produce the cards based on their style of art. Two new cards are released every week day (Mon-Fri) and are available to order for 48 hours.

Similar to Topps Living Set, the first few releases had rather low print runs (1k - 2k) but the project has picked up steam and cards are now seeing average print runs of 6k-8k with some cards up to almost 35k. Based on conversations I've had with fellow collectors, some are collecting their favorite players, some their favorite artists and some are just picking and choosing which cards they like. 

I made my first Topps Project 2020 at card #51 - the Mike Trout card designed by Ben Baller. The card ended up being the highest print run so far - 34,950, but it was the first card that really appealed to me. While I'm not an art expert, his style of hiphop/bling caught my eye and I regret now buying his earlier cards at the time they were released. As expected, Mike Trout has been drawing the largest print runs so far.

I've already made one other purchase from the set - saving that information for another day, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Topps Project 2020 set. Have you purchased any? What are you buying from the set? Who is your favorite artist so far?

Who is this guy that is writing a lot of posts all of a sudden?  It's amazing what a global pandemic will do for creating capacity and time to write more.

Pretty sweet mail day yesterday. I had made two recent purchases and they both arrived on the same day, so I figured it was a good chance to share.

First up - I have always loved the 1953 Topps set, and although it doesn't fit with my HOF RC focus, it may be as close as I get to a Willie Mays rookie card. BBCE had this posted on eBay, and the price was closely aligned to recent sales (a rarity on eBay - BINs close to actual sale prices). For a PSA 2, it has great eye appeal, the centering is decent, no visible wrinkles and the color on Mays is really sharp - it presents better in person than a picture could show. Really proud to add this to my collection.

The second card is one that I've been trying to find for close to two years. 1975 is such a tough issue - centering, tilts, printer dots and Brett cards sometimes have a black ink line that runs down the right side of the card. I was able to find this Brett RC, fairly decent centering and the price of the auction closed pretty close to what PSA 7s have been going for (pre-recent bump/craziness). Really psyched to add Brett to my HOF RC collection.

I'm curious to hear from folks about what vintage cards they are chasing. Leave comments below, I'd love to see what folks have their eyes on.

Greetings fellow stay-at-home'ers! I haven't posted since February and I figured now was a good a time as any to write up a new post. I hope that everyone is safe and doing their part to stay home, stay distanced and taking into consideration those of us who may have underlying health concerns and susceptible to COVID.

The last few weeks of the hobby have been unlike anything I've ever seen before. Earlier this year, the passing of Kobe Bryant drove his card prices up to levels they had never been at before. Recently, there have been prices rising almost universally across the card collecting industry - 2020 Topps Series 2 pre-sale prices are higher than I can ever imagine, PSA graded cards from my childhood (80s/90s) are reaching prices that are beyond belief and ESPN's "The Last Dance" has substantially increased the price of any/all Michael Jordan cards.

A few examples I thought I would share:

I had purchased a PSA 10 1989 Donruss Curt Schilling RC back in 2015 for roughly $12-$15, as I was starting to gather some items from the Red Sox registries on the PSA site. Despite my hatred of him due to his political views and overall personality, he does have one of the most memorable moments in Red Sox history. While looking on COMC, I noticed that someone posted one for sale at $120. I figured it was a random person posting a card at a crazy high price, but a quick search of eBay showed that the card was selling for roughly that price. I couldn't believe my eyes and quickly posted mine for sale - there is no way this card could possibly be valued at that price. By comparison, the PSA 10 1989 Upper Deck John Smoltz has roughly the same population with PSA (so its not that the Schilling is rarer) and continues to sell for around $30-$35.

1987 Topps is a cherished set in the hobby, but there is no disagreement with the fact that it was MASS produced. Hobby boxes were as low as $15-$20 not too long ago, and if someone called a card shop asking if they'd be interested in 1987 Topps, the card shop owner would likely hang up on them or tell them the cards have almost no value. On February 17th, a PSA 10 1987 Topps Mark McGwire card (not his RC, that was in 1985 Topps) sold via auction (granted, it was PWCC) for $41. In addition to the recent card craze, supposedly ESPN announced that they were working on a McGwire/Sosa documentary similar to The Last Dance. If I look at the most recent PSA 10 sale for the McGwire card, the card has now sold for $242.50 on May 14th. Nearly a $200 increase on a card that is not his RC and from one of the most mass produced sets in history, in less than 3 months. 

There are a number of other examples available. Some news outlets have picked up on the sports card craze and theorized on what could be driving it (i.e. people stuck at home, The Last Dance, Topps 2020 project, etc.) but its clear that rational decision making is no longer a consideration for some folks.

This is a good reminder that you should collect what you like, research historical pricing to help inform your decisions and remember this hobby is supposed to be FUN. 

Until next time, stay at home and stay safe!

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