The Art of Cards, What I've Been Watching, & My First Flip of 2024
Aesthetic appeal is an underrated factor
There’s more to collecting than being tied to trends.
Outside of the stuff it’s just fun to rip or buy singles of, if you’re going to be tying up significant money (whatever that means to you) up in any type of collectible with hopes of getting something out of it later you think about having a thesis like any other investment. Think of it as the theme about why you’re buying.
You see more talk of this in the card world in the last 20 years as more people started looking at wax and cardboard as a place to park money. Some people go a little overboard trying to assign meaning that goes well beyond what makes sense to anyone else. For example, if your reason for buying something starts approaching numerology perhaps you’re just rationalizing. Which is fine, but don’t pretend like there’s any plan involved.
Your thesis doesn’t have to be monolithic, but however many you’re working from there needs to be a consistency to your approach. Why are you buying these cards in particular? If you can’t answer that quickly, you’re just operating based on what you like. Again—that’s fine, but it’s not a plan.
In the real world, most of us are not disciplined enough to always follow our theses. But if you’re going to take this type of more structured approach most of your buys should have a reason that relates back to your “why’s”.
And I bring all this up because I’m about to share what appears to be a pretty random collection of cards but they go back to a thesis.
Art of the Matter
It’s kind of crazy, but for a medium based on artwork and photography the aesthetic appeal of cards is often an afterthought. We talk about key cards and why they matter, but if they also happen to look good that gets thrown in as minor detail. But what if that changes?
As we think about the impact of AI-generated imagery and proliferation of advanced digital media tools, I formed a thesis about a time when nostalgia about human generated, photographed, and designed composition on cards will be valued much higher than today. And with that being a bit of an obscure factor in the success of cards, perhaps there’s a price advantage to picking up those kinds of cards now.
I think you may also see a disruption in the future collectibles as brands begin to lose their meanings, parallel inflation continues, and even concepts like “rookie cards” become fluid. When the old distinctions start to fall away, what is one feature that can’t be ignored? Visual appeal.
I also believe the influence of TCG art and visual focus on collectibility for the massive card on-boarding going on in the younger cohort could lead to a later focus on aesthetics as their card collecting moves into other properties.
With collecting, particularly on the higher-end, become more of a thing done through screens, the visual element does get elevated. From the screen views to the hi-res examinations, the composition of my cards gets more focus as I look through my stash.
For all of those reasons, the look of the card will be a theme that you’ll see in some of my pickup selections for sports and non-sports.
What’s Catching My Eye?
I had planned on wrapping up buying earlier, but saw some opportunities and picked up some good stuff recently. I will be getting a lot more selective going forward for a couple of reasons.
First, prices are moving back up on the types of cards I’ve been looking at. Some reasons likely include an income rebound from post-holiday bill payoffs, early tax refund spending, and investment (stock, crypto) gains. I think you’ll see more headliner sales for CJ Stroud and Wemby cards for the next couple of months that could bring some people back and attract new buyers that will raise overall values through knock-on effects.
We’ll likely see another dip this year before the normal holiday lull and I’ll add some cards when that happens.
The other factor for me personally is I wanted to redeploy what I made from selling off Panini NFTs last year into physical. I’ve now crossed that threshold with just a little extra contributed. This is money I wanted to have in collectibles, but not in digital. So I can check that off my list now.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been looking at cards that I think may not revisit the market price for a little while:
2018 Heritage and Chrome Juan Soto PSA 10s
Attractively priced Acuna and Ohtani slabs
My soccer prospect targets
Mbappe 2016 and 2017 slabs
Haaland rookie slabs
Early 2000s Upper Deck NBA slabs
Not all of that looking has resulted in purchases, but that’s what I’ve been keeping in my searches.
Probably as we get into prime Spring Training and the UCL later stages, I’ll be sticking mainly to older stuff in my searches.
Menacing Phantom
As I was looking at building out my growing vintage non-sports collection, the image of this card grabbed my attention and I knew I needed to get one immediately.
1951 Bowman Red Menace #53 “Ghost City” PSA 6 - $350
Red Menace was one of several war-based non-sports trading card sets that came out around the mid-20th Century. In some cases, it’s more history focused but this was definitely about anti-Communism. Propaganda art has always been a fascination for me and this card in particular stood out.
“Ghost City,” as the PSA article on the set aptly describes it:
Showcasing a skeletal spirit looming over the ruins of what appears to be Times Square, this card depicts the artist's idea of what an atomic bomb could do to a "great American city."
"The card has extraordinary imagery. It's haunting," said Bengen. "You don't forget a card like that. And if you showed that card to a kid in the '50s, they would probably say, 'Yeah, that's what I dream about at night. That's what I have nightmares about.'"
As striking as it is, the prices are pretty affordable for decent grades. I paid a little premium on this one because the coloring was still so vivid, but it seems like a good price to me based on the age and relatively low pop. Total PSA pop for this card is 168, 37 at 6 or 6+, and only 29 non-qualified grades above it.
I don’t think I’m done with this set, but I’m glad I secured this card with the haunting image.
Holy Nostalgia, Batman
I only got to enjoy the Batman TV show in syndication, but as a kid it was such a fun show to watch. Like many other late X-ers, I eventually found the darker depiction of Batman more favorable, but you can’t deny the fun and madness of the Batman ‘66 aesthetic.
The 1966 Batman card sets produced by Topps were made in the wake of the popularity of the TV show and can be differentiated by the color of the bat logo on the front. The art on these cards is bold and colorful. The pulp-based style is the work of Norman Saunders who worked on the 1962 Mars Attack card set art.
Cardboard Connection has a great list of the top cards across the Batman releases to start building a collection from and one of the cards below hits #2 on their list.
This is another vintage set where the art really is the star and these aren’t too pricey in nice grades (and very affordable in lower grades).
One note of caution if you are a set-builder—picking out the releases and reprint releases can get a bit complicated. PSA has a detailed article on the different releases, but it’s from 2008 and dated on the pop figures.
There was also a live-action color photo card set in the mix that might be of interest if you really liked the TV show.
Here’s what I picked up from this set so far (and will be getting more down the road):
1966 Batman Black Bat #1 “The Batman” PSA 5 - $400
Classic case of “buy the card, not the grade.” I don’t doubt the grade is legit, but it certainly looks like a much higher grade card at first glance and I paid a little extra for that reason. As one of the iconic vintage non-sports cards, this is likely one of those unofficially population controlled by PSA.
Total population on this card is 1,292, with 153 in 5 or 5+, and 349 non-qualified grades higher.
1966 Batman Black Bat #34 “Deadly Claws” PSA 9 - $500
This is a great example of when you stray from the well-beaten path you get a lot more for your money. Of course, that comes with less demand but getting an almost 60 year-old card in PSA 9 condition with such great art seems like a bargain to me.
“Deadly Claws” is not on the top lists of 1966 Batman cards, but the composition is just pure pulp. You could imagine it on some dime-store paperback cover.
Population is a lot tighter for this one: only 281 total graded by PSA, 19 graded at 9 non-qualified, and only 2 are graded higher.
The First Marvel Set
Until I restarted my physical collection, I was not aware that the first Marvel cards went all the way back to the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes set by Donruss.
The cards were related to the popular Marvel Super Heroes cartoon and it contains first card appearances of key Marvel names like Spider-Man, Thor, Daredevil, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and many others.
What’s funny is it seems like this set is perennial thought to be very underrated and people wonder why it’s not more collected. You can read the same thing today as what was in a 2012 article by PSA about the set. This may be the ultimate sleeper in collectibles.
The art is classic Marvel, drawn by Steve Ditko and others, and has a corny vibe to it. But that fits with how the Marvel cartoon was, which I also remember from syndication as a kid.
This is a set I plan to slowly add pieces from since it seems you can get nice grades for decent prices—I just don’t want to go overboard since I’m not sure what else it would take to make this catch on. Maybe once vintage comic books just move too far out of reach people will revisit cardboard first appearances.
1966 Marvel Super Heroes #37 “Just What I Needed, A Bug Bomb!” PSA 8 - $320
After reading about this set, I wanted to pick up a Spider-Man card but had a hell of a time closing a deal. This one wasn’t my first choice, but I felt good about the price I could get it at. The seller said this was an error card due to the white leg, but that is not a recognized variant by PSA—although I do see what he means since some are not like that.
Population for this one really gives you a sense of the potential for this set, given the first appearances. Only 120 total of these are graded by PSA, with 34 graded 8 or 8+, and only 23 non-qualified are graded higher.
I hope that was an interesting look at some sets maybe you weren’t that familiar with and gives you a sense of some of the ways I’m using aesthetic choices to figure out what to pick up.
There’s been a lot of focus on non-sports lately, but fear not! I’ve got several sports pickups to go over next time.
Before I sign off I have an update on a NFT pickup I mentioned in my first post written for my Substack:
FIFA+ Collect VIP Membership Card - bought for $1,000, sold for $1,750 ($1,662.50 after fees) - profit of $662.65 (+60%)
I sort of bought it half-heartedly because FIFA+ had just changed the management of their NFT products and immediately did a drop on another blockchain. These sold pretty quickly and I decided to take a shot at it with limited details.
As I said in the earlier post, “My thinking was if this provides early access to their drops going forward, assuming they don’t completely screw this up, the VIP card could have some resell value down the road if I decide FIFA+ is not for me.”
I ended up getting one airdrop pack out of the membership before I sold it, so there is a little extra value in that sale price as well. With not much more detail coming out since that airdrop, I feel good with this sale and was very happy that I didn’t end up losing money on my flyer.
It got better when I stuck the proceeds into BTC just as things were popping with that last week.
Most of my NFT moves since the early days of Candy have not been great, so it was good to get a win in this case.
Sorry for the book this time, but I had a lot to cover. I hope you all have a great time in the hobby, even if it is a business for you. I’m going to be reopening my eBay store for the many physical cards I still have at home once I get through putting my card transaction P&L together for taxes. I’ll probably be writing more about how selling is going and the strategies I use for low- and mid-end sales in future posts.
Take care, everyone!