What's an unpopular opinion you have regarding cards?

[Morgoth]

1. T206 Wagner is not the rarest or coolest card ever made and is overvalued.

2. Warren Spahn is the greatest pitcher of all time and his cards are severely undervalued

3. Base Topps RC's of modern players are overvalued

4. A majority of dealers would knowingly sell altered vintage items if they knew they would get away with it.

5. Your Mantle memorabilia autographs are all fake unless you saw him sign them, ALL OF THEM

6. China is going to reprint every popular card in the next 20 years and they will be so good it will kill the modern market.

7. Every auction house shill bids their auctions and we are ok with it but somehow hate it when it occurs on Ebay.

8. If you had invested in high grade magic cards since 1993 versus Graded High End HOF RC's you would have made over 10X more money.

9. Every Pre WW2 bat knob put into a Topps or Panini product in the last 10 years has come from non game used bats and in some cases not even from the player portrayed on the card.

[Darth Bryzzo]

Originally Posted by Morgoth

1. T206 Wagner is not the rarest or coolest card ever made and is overvalued.

The part about it not being the rarest card ever isn't opinion. That's fact. Don't think it's even the rarest of the T206 cards, at least if you consider error variations and/or base the concept of rarity on verified examples known to currently exist.

It does have one hell of an iconic, long-running underlying narrative history though, which certainly accounts for a lot of the "overvalued" opinion.

Beyond the T206s and other anciently vintage cards, isn't the "rarest card ever made" like a 25,000-way tie between all the 1/1 superfractors and player DNA sample relic cards churned out in recent years (not to mention things like the special retrospective Bryant auto cards from last year's Transcendent series)?

The whole concept of rarity/scarcity has kind of been destroyed in this hobby by crass efforts to engineer it on a daily basis.

Chad

[YankeeRic]

Originally Posted by Morgoth

8. If you had invested in high grade magic cards since 1993 versus Graded High End HOF RC's you would have made over 10X more money.

And if you put the money in a low cost index fund, you would have made more than that. If you collect baseball cards to make money, you are in the wrong hobby.

[dhunerdosse]

-I think 1973 Topps baseball looks cooler than 1972 Topps baseball. The 1972 Topps set is just ugly if you ask me.

[Darth Bryzzo]

Originally Posted by dhunerdosse

-I think 1973 Topps baseball looks cooler than 1972 Topps baseball. The 1972 Topps set is just ugly if you ask me.

I don't hate the '72 design by any means, but for some reason I have always really loved the '73s. I like the little positional silhouettes for some reason, even though I wouldn't begrudge anyone hating them.

To me, the biggest clunker of that era is 1970. Just a bleh, lifeless, rotary-phone-it-in of a design to me. I think the soul-siphoning blandness of the 1970 design distracts people from hating too much on the fact that there is very little creative difference between the '68s and 69s (like, could they just not take new photos for '69, and did they not think kids would notice all the reused photos?)

Chad

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by Darth Bryzzo

I don't hate the '72 design by any means, but for some reason I have always really loved the '73s. I like the little positional silhouettes for some reason, even though I wouldn't begrudge anyone hating them.

To me, the biggest clunker of that era is 1970. Just a bleh, lifeless, rotary-phone-it-in of a design to me. I think the soul-siphoning blandness of the 1970 design distracts people from hating too much on the fact that there is very little creative difference between the '68s and 69s (like, could they just not take new photos for '69, and did they not think kids would notice all the reused photos?)

Chad

I think that's one of the big reasons I like the 1976 Topps set (see my avatar haha).

[Darth Bryzzo]

Originally Posted by Big35Hurt

I think that's one of the big reasons I like the 1976 Topps set (see my avatar haha).

Awesome. I really like the '76s as well. In fact, in the entire run of the '70s, I really only dislike 1970 and 1978 (sorry iconic Eddie Murray rookie card).

Seems like a good many people hate on '75, but I love them. It's just the epitome of the whole decade for me, sort of in the way the edge design elements of the '82s always make me think of Atari marketing graphics from that era.

[Morgoth]

Originally Posted by YankeeRic

And if you put the money in a low cost index fund, you would have made more than that. If you collect baseball cards to make money, you are in the wrong hobby.

If you found a hidden treasure chest full of gold you would have too, that wasn't my point

[bobthewondercat]

If you like silhouettes a la 73 and 76, you gotta love 2004 Topps, the only design I can think of with an etched silhouette that matches the exact photo. A very underrated base design IMO.

[Darth Bryzzo]

Originally Posted by bobthewondercat

If you like silhouettes a la 73 and 76, you gotta love 2004 Topps, the only design I can think of with an etched silhouette that matches the exact photo. A very underrated base design IMO.

I do kind of like those. One of the few years in the early '00s that I do like.

[Gradek]

Originally Posted by YankeeRic

And if you put the money in a low cost index fund, you would have made more than that. If you collect baseball cards to make money, you are in the wrong hobby.

I don't think this is true across the board. For instance (and yes I played/collected Magic from the unlimited days, sadly I sold all of it for beer money in the late 90s) dual lands were going for $5 each or less during revised, now they routinely go for $150. Or I bought an Ancestral Recall for $50 sometime in 93 and now they go for $1000. You aren't getting that return from an index fund (maybe Apple stock, but not the market as a whole).

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Gradek

I don't think this is true across the board. For instance (and yes I played/collected Magic from the unlimited days, sadly I sold all of it for beer money in the late 90s) dual lands were going for $5 each or less during revised, now they routinely go for $150. Or I bought an Ancestral Recall for $50 sometime in 93 and now they go for $1000. You aren't getting that return from an index fund (maybe Apple stock, but not the market as a whole).

Average on Duals is about 100, so an increase of 20 times. The stock market is only up about 6 times. Depending on what rookie cards and what condition you invested in, you could easily be up more than 6 times. M101-4/5 Babe Ruth, 1925 Exhibit Lou Gehrig, t206 Honus Wagner, t206 Ty Cobb Green or 1951B/1952T Mickey Mantle have all done better than the stock market.

t206 Joe Doyle NY National card is rarer than the t206 Wagner, but isn't worth as much. That is the difference between a fringe major leaguer and one of the two best players in the game being one of the rarest cards in the most popular baseball card set. While not the rarest card, t206 Wagner is the coolest.

[mattjc1983]

Centering should not only NOT be the most popular grading criteria, it shouldn’t be a criteria at all. As long as the card measures the correct size, centering should be irrelevant, because it is 100% dependent on the manufacturer themselves. Grading should be a reflection of how well cared for an item was after it was obtained, not how lucky you got with the way Topps cut the sheet.


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[TimBuckTwo]

Here is my unpopular thought.

That in alot of cases, to complete sets it should be card for card. Maybe weighted to a degree but that would mean someone's stuff is gold and mine isn't.

And I am not including the big rookie guy etc which is okay of course I am just talking about mid player for mid player etc. Some have not much value except in a set.

[Astros19]

I don't care if a material card is game used or not. It's a one square inch of material, big deal if it was worn or not.
If the design if the card includes a spot incorporated into the card is what I care about.
I despise cards that randomly have the space for the material cut right in the middle of the players waist.
Incorporate the swatch into the design or just leave it out altogether.

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[Astros19]

All chrome cards are ugly unless they are refractors.
Give me the old Topps Gold Label, 1993 Flair or Stadium Club any day. Much clearer pictures that any chrome card.

I love almost any color of refractor except xfractors and shimmer refractors.
Those are ugly too.
Not a fan of the etching on chrome cards either.

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[ckpismo]

Originally Posted by Astros19

All chrome cards are ugly unless they are refractors.

Was thinking the same thing when sorting some base chromes last night.

[theboz]

Topps needs to put more of Henry Owens Autos in their products!

[CharlieHustle]

I'm interested by the people saying to get rid of Archives, Heritage, Ginter and Gypsy Queen. What do you collect? Because, other than the flagship set, you're almost exclusively targeting set-builder sets for elimination.

Though, I will agree that when trying to think of a rebuttal as to why Gypsy Queen should still be made, I actually came around to the other side of the fence and agree that it should be discontinued. Gypsy and Ginter are too similar to be different (much like my opinion of Bowman, Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft). I think Gypsy should be condensed into Ginter, as a mini parallel to the Ginter base set. For that matter, I think it would be cool if Ginter had "old timey" manufacturers represented as parallel minis to their base set. For example, a 300 card, standard size, base Ginter set. Then a mini parallel set of Gypsy Queen, T205/206, Cracker Jack, National Chicle, Turkey Red, Bazooka, etc. And maybe Topps rotates the old timey manufacturer every year, to keep things interesting.

[mattjc1983]

Originally Posted by Astros19

All chrome cards are ugly unless they are refractors.
Give me the old Topps Gold Label, 1993 Flair or Stadium Club any day. Much clearer pictures that any chrome card.

I love almost any color of refractor except xfractors and shimmer refractors.
Those are ugly too.
Not a fan of the etching on chrome cards either.

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1993 Flair was on another planet for the time.


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[Darth Bryzzo]

Baseball cards should be parallelograms, not rectangles.


J K (Maybe)

[bobthewondercat]

Here’s an unpopular opinion I have regarding baseball cards: collecting them is enjoyable. Pretty much no one I know agrees with my opinion on that one.

[PatchSentinel]

- Game-used jersey cards /100 and I'd even go to /299 are underrated.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by CharlieHustle

I'm interested by the people saying to get rid of Archives, Heritage, Ginter and Gypsy Queen. What do you collect? Because, other than the flagship set, you're almost exclusively targeting set-builder sets for elimination.

Though, I will agree that when trying to think of a rebuttal as to why Gypsy Queen should still be made, I actually came around to the other side of the fence and agree that it should be discontinued. Gypsy and Ginter are too similar to be different (much like my opinion of Bowman, Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft). I think Gypsy should be condensed into Ginter, as a mini parallel to the Ginter base set. For that matter, I think it would be cool if Ginter had "old timey" manufacturers represented as parallel minis to their base set. For example, a 300 card, standard size, base Ginter set. Then a mini parallel set of Gypsy Queen, T205/206, Cracker Jack, National Chicle, Turkey Red, Bazooka, etc. And maybe Topps rotates the old timey manufacturer every year, to keep things interesting.

I'd flip it the other way....keep GQ and get rid of Ginter (which has been around since 2005, I think, and has virtually identical designs every year).

[Stifle]

Base cards are a means to pulling the extremely rare cards from previous decades.
Trading is becoming rare because collectors don't crack boxes
The cards that others have are overpriced, yet when a trade is proposed nearly everyone is without trade bait.
Very few collectors who want others to dig for them are willing to reciprocate.
Dime collectors are a necessary aspect of the hobby but are relegated as afterthoughts.
only a minuscule of boxes will produce decent money cards.
My opinions