Every dominant company eventually reaches a point where people stop talking about its strengths and start talking about its position. That isn’t necessarily a sign of decline. Sometimes it’s simply what happens when a company becomes so large that everyone measures the rest of the industry against it. PSA has occupied that position for years. … Read more
One of the products I look forward to every year is Topps Finest Baseball. The chrome finish, on-card autographs and strong rookie checklist make it one of the most appealing modern baseball releases, but it also comes with a price tag that forces collectors to think carefully before opening a box. As a collector in … Read more
Every few months somebody asks for unpopular opinions about sports cards. The answers are always entertaining because most of them are not unpopular anymore. Buy singles. Collect what you love. PSA is overrated. Modern is junk. Breakers are ruining the hobby. We have repeated those lines so often that they have become part of the … Read more
Selling a Michael Jordan card can look perfectly rational. Prices are high, the profit may be substantial and there is always the comforting idea that another copy can be bought later. That works with many cards, especially common base issues that appear constantly on eBay and at major auctions. It becomes much less convincing once … Read more
Greatness Without The Ring John Stockton and Karl Malone are two of the easiest players to underrate when people look back at the NBA of the 1990s. Stockton remains the great passer, the player who seemed to see every cut before it happened, while Malone became the Mailman, a scoring machine who turned the pick-and-roll … Read more
Topps wants to fight resellers. Fine. The problem is obvious. Every major release sells out in seconds, bots destroy the checkout process, breakers and professional sellers get product before normal collectors even have a chance, and sealed boxes show up immediately on the secondary market with a fat premium. That has been happening for years, … Read more
If you ask experienced collectors what makes sports cards so fascinating, very few will start by talking about money. Most remember the player first. A Mickey Mantle card reminds somebody of baseball’s golden era. A Michael Jordan rookie represents the NBA of the 1980s and 90s. Younger collectors may feel exactly the same way about … Read more
Every few weeks, another sports collectible breaks an auction record. Michael Jordan jerseys command seven-figure results, Shohei Ohtani memorabilia accelerates past traditional market ceilings, and Lionel Messi’s World Cup kits transition into museum-grade assets. These headlines suggest that sports collectibles have evolved into a highly institutionalized alternative asset class. Yet, the core driver of this … Read more
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner may spend the next ten or fifteen years deciding who ultimately owns this generation of men’s tennis. The strange part is that collectors don’t seem interested in waiting. The market has already started leaning towards Alcaraz. High-end trading cards sell for several thousand dollars, signed cards attract strong prices almost … Read more
The tennis GOAT debate is strange because sport and market do not seem to answer it in the same way. If you look only at titles, Novak Djokovic has the strongest case. He broke the numbers, lasted longer than almost anyone expected, kept chasing records while Federer and Nadal had already become memory, and turned … Read more