Forget the Flippers, Just Have Fun Collecting
The sports card craze has settled down to the point that collectors can find retail product, even if it may not be about the big hit any longer.
The other day, I visited a Walmart and noticed the distributor stocking the trading cards. The cards were now placed behind a register, in hopes of controlling what was once the flood of people coming in to buy the cards, then flip elsewhere for a higher price.
I was there to see what was available, when the distributor noticed me and asked if I was looking for Donruss Optic football. She mentioned somebody had bought it all. I told her that I was just curious what else she was stocking.
I went about my way, but walked past the shelves where cards used to be stocked. This Walmart still keeps trading card supplies there, but does have a few packs of cards available that they are unable to fit into the section behind the register. I decided to grab a couple packs of Panini Chronicles football and that was enough.
Donruss Optic is one of those sets that the flippers are still pursuing, along with Panini Prizm, though it's NFL football and NBA basketball that they favor. The baseball and the draft picks versions get a shrug of the shoulders now.
I suspect they'll be chasing Select football when that hits retail shelves. But they aren't bothering with other sports. Case in point: I visited a target and found blasters of Select WWE trading cards. There were about five left -- I have no idea how long they lasted, but I think it's safe to say they weren't flying off the shelves like Donruss Optic football.
I previously wrote about the players in the sports card craze and who bore responsibility for the craze. The flippers, of course, are the ones who get the most ire. At this point, though, the flippers seem to have gone away from certain types of cards and are more fixated on what's perceived to be higher-end product.
The whole point about sets like Panini Prizm, Donruss Optic and Topps Chrome is that they have these different parallels and shiny surfaces that look so cool. However, as I wrote a week earlier, the parallel craze is getting out of hand, with Prizm football having 28 different parallels across hobby and retail boxes.
But these individually numbered parallels don't appear to be in any of the retail Prizm boxes. I don't know if Panini did this in hopes that retail product wouldn't fly off the shelves, but if that was the intent, it didn't work.
Of course, this brings me to some of the things I discussed when I wrote about who was to blame for the craze during the pandemic. There's been the push to get a "hit" in every box of product, regardless of what it is, and there's the collectors who are either new or returning, who didn't keep up with how the hobby evolved.
Now we have fewer retail products that guarantee a "hit" such as an autograph or relic in every box. Some collectors don't like this, but I'm fine with it. I'll repeat what I've said before: If you are promised a hit in every box, those hits are no longer special. An unexpected hit is truly special, but an expected hit isn’t as memorable.
There can still be times when I come across a hit that is truly special. But I've found, in those cases, it's more about the player in question. For me, it's usually when I pull a Denver Broncos player, a Hall of Fame player or a player on another team who I like.
But I do think we've gone a bit far with insisting that every retail blaster or mega box contain a guaranteed autograph or relic card. Hobby boxes are one thing, because you pay more and because they are a draw to get you to do business with a hobby dealer. Retail product, though, is more about the impulse buy, in which you decide you'll pick up a couple of packs and have some fun.
As for the collectors who are new or returning, I suspect a lot of them have grown wiser about the hobby and thinking more about what they should pursue. Reasons could range from wanting to focus on activities not available during the pandemic to finding more fun in getting together with their kids, opening junk wax of days gone by and enjoying Hall of Fame players or creative card designs.
Tony Reid wrote at Sports Collectors Daily about how demand for retail trading cards just isn't at the levels it was during the pandemic and that, if you're just flipping product to make a quick buck, you're going to have a harder time doing so. Furthermore, Reid wrote, you're missing out on the joy to be had in the hobby.
I don't declare the current era to be junk anything, because production numbers are nowhere near the levels back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, that does not make product rare, nor does it guarantee that there will be a massive jump in a hot prospect's cards over time. Product may not be overproduced, but it's still plentiful and people are going to make choices now that they are not limited in terms of available activities.
I did write a couple years back that the boom would come to an end, and while we may not be in bust territory, we are in market correction territory. Things should stabilize and it's likely that the flippers' influence will diminish.
And if they still continue to go crazy over Prizm or Optic, collectors can know that other brands are out there and can be just as enjoyable. Collectors just may have to adjust to days in which the autographs aren't guaranteed in every retail box -- and that's OK. You can still get your hit fix at a hobby dealer.
What's really fun about retail product is the impulse decision to buy a couple of packs, rip them open and see what you get. There's nothing wrong with that and, truth be told, that makes getting the "hit" more special than if you expected it from the start.