The gamble keeps bringing you back
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Many collectors are gamblers by definition. There are many of us who open cards for the love of the rip, but more often collectors are seeking certain cards without knowing what is in a blind pack.
They want to hit a Mike Trout autograph or Zion Williamson Prizm Silver or Conor McDavid autograph relic card.
One definition of gambling comes from Oxford Languages: “take risky action in the hope of a desired result.”
That sounds like a lot of collectors – including yours truly.
Take a closer look at the definition. There are two parts to it that matter. The first is “take risky action.” With cards, that risk is money. Buying high-end products, clearing out shelves of new releases, or spending way beyond our means on sealed products is inherently a risk.
Then there is the second part, “in the hope of a desired result.”
It really all depends on what that desired result is. Are you looking for a Trout autograph? Are you chasing Jasson Dominguez 2020 Bowman cards?
So, what happens when you didn’t pull that big hit? What happens when that gamble didn’t pay off the way you hoped it would?
Nothing. You’re right back where you started, only with cards in exchange for money. For many collectors, there’s nothing wrong with that because that’s the exact transaction they were looking for.
However, cards have changed so much over the years where gambling has become an increasingly bigger focus. The card companies don’t outright say, “Buy this box of Bowman or Prizm or The Cup and you too have a chance at hitting it rich.” Topps tried that in the late 1990s with its Bowman “Guaranteed Value” promotion, offering $100 or $125 for a complete set, but now the company includes this line on packs and boxes: “Topps does not, in any manner, make any representations as to whether its cards will attain any future value.”
Instead, the companies have everyone else promoting the lure of the chase for them. From breakers to influencers and card shops owners to their own customers, everyone is touting that big hit as the reason to take a chance on a card product.
It’s the reason why products like Bowman Sapphire Baseball work. For $150, you get a whopping 32 cards per box. They’re all shiny with a printed design that makes the cards look like cut gems. Since supply is limited, the cards carry a higher secondary market value.
For example:
Jasson Dominguez 2020 Bowman Sapphire Purple Refractor autograph
Adley Rutschman 2020 Bowman Sapphire Orange Refractor autograph
Bobby Witt Jr. 2020 Bowman Sapphire Green Refractor autograph
These auctions will or have brought in thousands of dollars from a $150 box.
And for someone who focuses on my PC cards and generally steers away from current wax, I bought two boxes.
Why?
Because of the gamble! I had the opportunity to get boxes early as one of the perks of being a member of the 582 Montgomery Club. In the pre-sale, I was allowed to buy two boxes and I did. I spent a little over $300 not knowing what base, parallels or autographs I would get in a box.
I had dreams of hitting a Jasson Dominguez autographed card, which would likely fetch more than $1,000. Even his base Sapphire base card is running in the $400 range. I don’t even buy regular Bowman and these had me feeling like the emoji with the dollar bills in its eyes. 🤑🤑
When the boxes arrived, we got to ripping. Four cards per pack with a slim chance at parallels, along with one autographed card in every box. So, we opened pack after pack. There was a Bobby Witt Jr., base, and Adley Rutschman base along with some other prospects I have never heard of (remember: not a prospector) and plenty I did.
After opening all 16 packs – no Dominguez cards.
And here’s the terrible part: I was disappointed.
Because I took a gamble and lost. Or did I?
If you add up the secondary value on all the cards in the two boxes, I actually came out ahead. I got two Witt Jr., base cards along with a couple of parallels and other base of well-known players. An autograph of Joe Genord goes for about $50 – and that wasn’t good enough.
I had to ask myself, why?
Why did I buy a box for the sheer gamble of it? Why was I disappointed when I got exactly what I paid for?
I don’t think it was greed. I don’t find myself to be a greedy person. I generally just get what I need out of life with a few extras to enjoy it. Was it entertainment? Partially, but then why the big disappointment?
My hope for the gamble didn’t pay off. It’s tough sometimes to see beyond those wide eyes because of the virality of social media. Someone hits that Dominguez autograph you were pining over and it’s on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. It makes you think it could be you next.
The thing is, I have been that person. That’s partially why every so often, I’ll throw my money down on a gamble. It’s like walking into a casino and throwing my chips on 20 Black. It probably won’t hit, but sometimes it does.
As someone who lived in the Atlantic City area for nearly a decade, there’s a lesson I forgot.
The house always wins in the end.
My last card show before everything changed
By Dan Good
I was digging through my jeans pocket recently — I haven’t worn them much, given working from home and that whole COVID thing — when I came across a card in my front pocket.
It was from the latest White Plains card show on Sunday, Feb. 23.
“March Madness Show Free Autograph Ticket,” good for Pedro Guerrero’s signature. They gave out the cards at the door when you paid for entry.
Sooz and I went. The show was downstairs at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York. The floor was busy.
Signers were crammed into a corner, meaning the line for autographs twisted up and around a confined hallway. My friend Clemente was at the show with his daughter Grace — I stood with them as they waited in line for Jose Canseco’s autograph, everyone shoulder to shoulder. The biggest concern was getting in the right line for Canseco (who you had to pay for separately) instead of Guerrero (who was free) since they were both signing at the same time. For Canseco, you had to stay close to the fans in A’s jerseys.
As I walked the floor, I wanted to buy something special … I usually gravitated toward unopened junk wax, or Nolan Ryan cards, but this time I felt the urge to pick up a different type of item.
I kept coming back to a World League of American Football team-signed football of the 1991 Barcelona Dragons, which lost the first World Bowl to the London Monarchs. The autographs were faded to a yet-unidentified brownish-green color against the white football, but damn it was still nice, and something that you don’t come across very often. The football was in a display case with a $40 price tag.
Forty dollars for a Barcelona Dragons team-signed football? I expressed my interest to the dealer.
“It’s $40 for the case,” he said. “The football is $200.”
Eh. That’s a lot of scratch for autos of Jack Bicknell and Scott Erney and Jim Bell. A Monarchs team-signed ball, on the other hand …
I ended up leaving the show without buying anything, but thankful to look at cool cards and see familiar faces.
A handful of other shows followed the February White Plains Card Show, such as Valley Forge, Pa. But soon enough, as COVID-19 spread throughout the country, the card show calendar was wiped clean. Within a few months, the Westchester County Center was transformed to become an alternate care facility for coronavirus patients, and later a testing site.
Regardless of when card shows return — some have already begun — I’m sad that everything isn’t going to feel the way it did on February 23. When you could flip through a row of $1 cards without worrying who handled them before you, monitoring if those nearby are wearing masks, standing six feet away when talking to anyone, the air quality. When signers could pen autographs for fans and pose for photos without having to fret about their health.
Back when a cough was a cough, and a handshake was a handshake, and Jose Canseco was the mightiest presence in the room, at least as far as we could tell.
Topps Features a Baseball Card of Mike Trout Wearing a Mask
Trading cards do a lot of things, including capturing what the world was like at a moment in time. None of them memorialize the current state of the world than this TOPPS NOW cards featuring Mike Trout wearing a mask during baseball’s Summer Camp.
If you want your own card to never forget this weird time in our lives, you can pick it up the card here.
Trading Card News Round Up
Take a Couple of Cards and Call Me in the Morning (Dub Mentality)
CCG to Start Sports Card Authentication and Grading Division (Sports Collectors Daily)
Topps Allen & Ginter Chrome Coming this Fall (Sports Collectors Daily)
2020 Upper Deck Spring Promo Pack Hockey Cards (Cardboard Connection)
“Not me": How it Took Al Kaline Himself to Reveal in Image Long Thought to be Him was, In Fact, Not (Beckett Media)