It’s time to share a Top 5 Hot List of recent releases that are being well received at hobby shops. Granted, most releases these days are being dumped faster than tea into the Boston Harbor in 1773. Seriously, while it is great to be a collector and enjoy deep discounts even on release day, owning a sports card store might not be trendy again until 2014 NFL season or perhaps when the 14/15 NBA releases hit.
In spite of that fun and festive start, there are a few releases that are getting sucked up.
1) 2013 Topps Chrome NFL. Collectors are still drawn to this release and its numerous refractor parallels. In spite of it only offering one autograph per box, the chance at a 1/1 Superfractor or one of the hard to find autographed patches is driving strong sales in my shop. At this point, if I could turn all the remaining 2013 NFL boxes into another product, my vote would be for it to be this one.
Top single card sale on ebay – This Topps Chrome Geno Smith Superfractor sold for something less than $2999.99.
2) 2013 Topps Five Star MLB. Baseball fans have patiently waited for this $400+ per pack offering. With 1 Autographed Book Card or Silver Signatures Card, 2 Autographs, 1 Autographed Patch Card or Additional Autograph, 1 Jumbo Relic or Ultra-Premium Relic and 1 Base Card it’s stacked for the higher-end shredders. It has more than your average checklist with possible cut signatures from Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Mel Ott and enough current and former stars to choke a herd of horses.
3) 13/14 Upper Deck 1 NHL. I have always loved this release because it is driven by the Young Guns rookies. They aren’t individually numbered. They don’t contain autographs. They don’t even offer jersey swatches and in spite of that, outside of The Cup, they are among the most desirable rookies from each season. This year’s rookies include Nathan MacKinnon, Seth Jones, Tomas Hertl, Nail Yakupov and more. Throw in autographs of Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque, Patrick Roy, Mario Lemieux and it is no wonder that boxes are en fuego.
Top single card sale on ebay – Someone paid a bit less than the $1299.99 asking price on this Wayne Gretzky autographed card /15, but it still fetched some serious coin I bet.
4) 2013 Topps Strata Football. Last year this gem came out of nowhere to quickly develop a legion of fans. What’s not to like? For about the same price as a box of Topps Chrome, you get 1 relic card, 1 autographed card and 1 autographed relic card. Throw in some possible 1/1 patches and 1/1 printing plates and I wish we saw this same product in MLB. Outside of signatures from A.J. Green, C.J. Spiller, Eli Manning, Ray Rice and Reggie Wayne all of the autographs are from the glorious rookies from 2013 which will keep it affordable.
Top single card on ebay – This product is too new to have a track record like the above releases, but one hopeful seller has this autographed 1/1 glove card of Geno Smith out there for $1499.99.
5) 2013 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects MLB. This set is the annual dream offering for baseball prospectors. Sure there are cards of prospects that even casual collectors will know like Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Mark Appel and more, but so much of the value of this set remains to be seen in the next few years. It was rather nice of Topps to make sure that Mr. Puig had some singles in this set to lend some further name recognition.
Top single card sale on ebay – Austin Meadows seems to be the flavor of the week and while someone didn’t pay the full BIN price of $1990.00 for this monster, it should have covered a whole lot of keg costs.
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