re: 2026 Sports Cards and Memorabilia Thread

Havent posted in here in a while. Here are some of my pickups from the Murray, KY show this past weekend. Its always a wrestling heavy show.

Saw that this morning. WIld. If you're that rich, it doesn't matter, but that's not a great buy investment wise imo just like the this one wasn't...

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the previous record posted in 2020 -- $3.936 million for a 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Superfractor signed Mike Trout card, which was also one of a kind and numbered "1/1."

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Probably would go for 500k now.

If you're going to buy high value newer cards for investment, Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, Ohtani and Brady are the only way to go. Maybe Mahomes. Curry is a pretty safe bet as well. Could be wrong on the long term value of Judge but I think it's certainly not a guarantee.

We have some neighbors down the street that lost everything to a house fire the other night. They have two boys in 1st grade and 4th grade.

We got a note from the school saying that they have all their needs taken care of but the boys are sad because they lost their entire card collection. The school is having a card drive for them but I have no clue what brands are the best so was wondering if someone can give me some advice.

TIA!

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We have some neighbors down the street that lost everything to a house fire the other night. They have two boys in 1st grade and 4th grade.

We got a note from the school saying that they have all their needs taken care of but the boys are sad because they lost their entire card collection. The school is having a card drive for them but I have no clue what brands are the best so was wondering if someone can give me some advice.

TIA!

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Depends on what sport they collect. If they're kids and lost their collection I'm sure they'd just love to open anything but some go to's that most enjoying opening are:

Basketball: Donruss, Topps,Topps Chrome, and Optic
Football: Prizm, Donruss, Optic
Baseball: Topps, Topps Chrome

I wouldn't worry about specific brands, just opening something will make them happy. I will say probably just avoid Wild Card and Sage. They are unlicensed products and don't have the actual team names on them.

You can find most of those at Target or Walmart. Most of them have some on sale too.

That’s a nice one.

Two more Veriswap trades finally arrived…

Jorge Posada signed a card for me in Houston last week. Not a bad get considering he doesn’t typically sign.

It's a high dollar card, that's for sure. You'd get a nice payday if you do sell.

You could do the PSA review where they review the card in the slab and only crack it if they think it will get the grade you want. You tell them you only wanted it graded if it will come out at least a 7 or 8, whatever you want. If they don't think it will grade that they send it back in your BGS slab. I think that's like $150.

I sent to high end case breaks for basically same service

I didn’t know psa offered it.

Kind of dumb bc at bgs 8.5 it’s about 7000 but a psa 8 makes it 10k basically.

Psa 9 of linchpins did $21,000 last week

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I’m looking to get into it again, mainly cool looking or players I like that are graded. I’ve seen so many grading services, is there one or 2 to look for?

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So the biggest in the game is PSA. They have the highest resale value but if you grade, they take by far the longest to get back if you submit which is frustrating. Beckett and SGC IMO are pretty much a tie for #2. But almost always, apples for apples on grade, for ex, a PSA 9 is going to always sell more than a BGS or SGC 9. SGC holds a vlaue closer to PSA with vintage cards. I grade my modern with PSA and sometimes Beckett and my vintage with SGC.

There are some other companies like CGC that are very reputable that were the biggest in comic grading but now are gaining ground in sports and especially in Pokemon.

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I just bought into a box break. Never did it before and waiting to watch it. Took Seattle baseball bowman draft. Are breaks a good idea or buy boxes or just buy individual cards? It’s been a long time since I collected.

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It's hard to beat the fun in a box break or just opening packs yourself. That's pretty much how every person ever (except the people that got into it during covid to flip cards) got hooked on collecting.

I personally have moved away from opening boxes because throughout history I have never had good success and almost always regret it. I'll buy a $150 box and get $20 worth of cards and immediately think afterwards why didn't I just buy a $150 MJ card I wanted?

Only boxes I buy anymore are non sport boxes like an occasional Game of Thrones, Dune, Star Wars, Marvel type cards. The success rate are much better in those and hobby boxes can easily be had for $100 compared to crazy prices of hobby sports boxes.

If you are going to open boxes or get in box breaks, just know there are "retail" boxes and "hobby" boxes. Retail is the ones you get at Walmart or Target like the blasters and mega boxes. Hobby are the ones you mainly get at a card shop or online. Retail boxes are cheaper but the odds of getting "hits" or good cards is significantly less. Hobby boxes are more expensive but better odds. Nothing wrong with buying some retail to open stuff for cheap but if I'm doing a box break, I would stick with hobby breaks.

All that being said, for quite a while, I buy singles. I collect for fun and I collect for investment too. So I'm kind of specific with what I buy. But I am also one of the guys that gets a lot of joy out of getting a single card I wanted in the mail just as much as opening a box. Plenty of cards I buy are ones that I wanted as a kid but we were too broke to buy. now that I'm older and have some money I can have some nostalgia in my collecting and have some investments at the same time.

If you want to buy some singles, I will say I get my best deals off Facebook groups. There are thousands upon thousands of buy-sell-trade- sports card groups on FB. Just search sports card sales and join a few of the groups that have a good bit of members. Usually can get a better deal on there because people are avoiding eBay fees. Just sometimes harder to find cards if you're looking for an exact card. One thing with buying off FB though is you ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pay PayPal Goods and Services and not Friends and Family. 99% of the people on there are pretty good, but there are scammers. If you pay with GS you are buyer protected, if you pay FF they can take your money and never ship the cards.

It's a fun hobby, glad you're getting back into it. I'd search out to see if there are some local card shows in your area. That's the most fun to me. Hard to beat a good card show.