A Beginners Guide to Sports Card Collecting

More factors affecting price include scarcity and condition.

Condition
In many collectibles, the phrase is used that "condition is everything." This is true of card collecting as well. There are very few rare sports cards. Most can be had relatively easily for a price. What is rare, however, is older cards in good condition and newer cards in "perfect" condition.

In cards, condition has to do with 3 major factors:

• Any defects to the card when it was printed
• Any defects to the card when it was cut
• Any defects to the card after it left the pack

Most of the damage to cards that affects the decision is the result of handling of the cards after they leave their initial packaging. Prior to that, however, defects can occur when the cards are printed onto large sheets (such as a double image) or when the sheets are cut into individual cards (problems which result in centering issues.) Ultimately, everyone wants the most attractive card. A clean card with good centering and color, sharp corners and edges, and a focused picture, is the goal of almost every collector. Since cards are so relatively plentiful, it is condition that is the big purchase decision on a particular card. As one would expect, the better the condition, the higher the price (sometimes exponentially so.) Cards are graded on a scale from Poor (the worst) to Mint (the best).

Scarcity
When future Hall of Famer Honus Wagner, lifelong hater of smoking, learned that a tobacco card has been produced with his likeness, he took action to have the card withdrawn from distribution. Only a handful remained in circulation. It is currently the most valuable baseball card in existence due to the desirable of its subject and its great scarcity, perhaps the ultimate example of the scarcity principal at work.

Modern card companies have taken scarcity to a new level with insert cards, cards specifically limited in their production to drive pack sales. It is the scarcity of these inserts (sometimes only 1-5 are made) that ultimately drives their price and the price of their packs and sets.

Next >> Grading, Is it worth it?

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