Quote:
Originally Posted by mindcycle
What I’ve learned over the years of collecting is this hobby is pretty much based primarily around hype. Rookie hype, set hype, overall hobby hype, etc.. When the hype is high that player, set, etc.. is more desired and prices go up. Hype can flip at the drop of a hat though, and what was once hot is now worthless. Could be years, but can change over weeks or months, like we’ve seen recently once the covid craze died down a bit.
My strategy the last half dozen years or so has been to largely stay away from anything with big hype around it, player or set, and buy things I’m still interested in collecting but nobody is talking about. Inevitably, “most” cards you passed up on will drop and you can pick them up down the road for less.
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So in that case, the question of why rookies are more desirable than anything else, or why a base rookie is more desirable than an insert rookie, or why prizm is the king is somewhat immaterial, but is just simply a function of what a few influential people decided upon at one point, and the rest is a bit of "herd mentality". It surprises me a little that once these things get established, they don't change very easily if at all. Probably because there is too much money invested. For example the rookie thing has been going on ever since the vintage baseball cards were issued by Topps in series, and the rookies often got short printed by being in the later series. I'm a set collector, so if want to put together a set now, I have to buy the rookies even if it doesn't make sense to me to spend big bucks on someone that 20 years from now no one will even remember. So I become part of the herd. I'm not complaining necessarily. I'll go with the flow. but it just makes me wonder sometimes.