Ask any US collector/dealer and they will say GU is a dead thing now. Cards sell for a small amount of BV and the market is completely saturated thanks to the greedy companies churning it all out.
Star players can be had at 1 cent -$2US buys and even second year Brons can be had cheap now.
UD and other companies can make thousands of GU out of just the one jersey alone and save the trims, patches and logo for the high end stuff. I've heard of them getting players to wear the jersey for the one game and then taking it off their backs for cards. SO we are getting a jersey played in for at most 42 minutes! Not forgetting the bullshit event worn crap!
I'm biased towards the legends retired player GU market as the supply of game worn stuff is very low. There are NO Cousy Celtics game worn card in which he has a green or white swatch as all the ones so far have come from his 1957 all star uniform bought from his private collection sale. Hence UD and others can't just churn them out and once they use all the pieces thats pretty much it. Same rules apply for Wilts, Alcindor, Bird etc. They cost more for the companies to buy and are in shorter supply. I actually cringe at the thought of a Chamberlain game used jersey being cut up into a thousand pieces!
On to the US market comparison. Here in OZ we are pretty isolated from communicating with many dealers and collectors apart from here etc. Some of us have a strong core of friends and dealers etc in the US but thats not the rule.
If you lived in the US you would go to shows and see GU sold for peanuts and talk to others about the hobby. You would get the gist of the hobbies direction a lot more easily.
As a lot of the new members here say they have been back for a while and just buying for themselves without much collector interaction apart form ozcards now. And after the dead period of collecting logged on and saw GU going for a song on ebay.com. I did the same and bought up at first. I think we all did to a degree. Buying and collecting based on likes not value and potential.
Its here I even think we here in Australia have kept truer to the hobbies real meaning and collect for better reasons. The US hobby is less dominated by true player collectors that stay with a player long term. BV and market value rule the roost and the must have thing is always the latest product.
BUT I honestly feel we are at least 1-2 years behind the US in hobby trends. Autos are even hard to sell now as the market is once again flooded. Although an auto will always hold some value as its more of personal link to the player in a sense. You don't get a 1/100th of a sig like a jersey. You get the whole name or hopefully the whole name. Now with players signing so much we rarely get that except on high end stuff. Thanks again ud, topps and others.
Maybe its because we are so far removed in distance to any NBA player or game that it provides a sense of being close to the player that Australians seem to scramble for GU so much. I mean a lot of US kids and adults alike would be able to see a game pretty easily if they really wanted to do. We simply don't have that luxury.
When GU was dying in the US the companies saw this and started with mulit colour patches and logos! Now we are focused on getting as many colours as possible and elusive logos. Once again sucking us in. Some teams have so much on their jersey it would be hard not to get a multi color swatch! LOL
For the sake of the whole argument and the cries of how it makes it all afordable I say thats crap. I'd pay good money for a rare or harder to get card if I had too. I'd rather quality over quantity any day.
I see stuff sell so well on ebay.com.au and wonder if the buyers actually look at US eaby?? Maybe there are factors influencing them buying from there such as no CC, shipping or pure ignorence? Its a good thing for the astute Aussie seller to cash in though. Good on the ones that do. They supply the market with what it wants.
I just wonder how many collectors there are sitting at home in Australian cities right now buying and that have no comunication with the card commuity??
hhmm now discus.
Chad
(one half of ozcards jounalists crew)
Star players can be had at 1 cent -$2US buys and even second year Brons can be had cheap now.
UD and other companies can make thousands of GU out of just the one jersey alone and save the trims, patches and logo for the high end stuff. I've heard of them getting players to wear the jersey for the one game and then taking it off their backs for cards. SO we are getting a jersey played in for at most 42 minutes! Not forgetting the bullshit event worn crap!
I'm biased towards the legends retired player GU market as the supply of game worn stuff is very low. There are NO Cousy Celtics game worn card in which he has a green or white swatch as all the ones so far have come from his 1957 all star uniform bought from his private collection sale. Hence UD and others can't just churn them out and once they use all the pieces thats pretty much it. Same rules apply for Wilts, Alcindor, Bird etc. They cost more for the companies to buy and are in shorter supply. I actually cringe at the thought of a Chamberlain game used jersey being cut up into a thousand pieces!
On to the US market comparison. Here in OZ we are pretty isolated from communicating with many dealers and collectors apart from here etc. Some of us have a strong core of friends and dealers etc in the US but thats not the rule.
If you lived in the US you would go to shows and see GU sold for peanuts and talk to others about the hobby. You would get the gist of the hobbies direction a lot more easily.
As a lot of the new members here say they have been back for a while and just buying for themselves without much collector interaction apart form ozcards now. And after the dead period of collecting logged on and saw GU going for a song on ebay.com. I did the same and bought up at first. I think we all did to a degree. Buying and collecting based on likes not value and potential.
Its here I even think we here in Australia have kept truer to the hobbies real meaning and collect for better reasons. The US hobby is less dominated by true player collectors that stay with a player long term. BV and market value rule the roost and the must have thing is always the latest product.
BUT I honestly feel we are at least 1-2 years behind the US in hobby trends. Autos are even hard to sell now as the market is once again flooded. Although an auto will always hold some value as its more of personal link to the player in a sense. You don't get a 1/100th of a sig like a jersey. You get the whole name or hopefully the whole name. Now with players signing so much we rarely get that except on high end stuff. Thanks again ud, topps and others.
Maybe its because we are so far removed in distance to any NBA player or game that it provides a sense of being close to the player that Australians seem to scramble for GU so much. I mean a lot of US kids and adults alike would be able to see a game pretty easily if they really wanted to do. We simply don't have that luxury.
When GU was dying in the US the companies saw this and started with mulit colour patches and logos! Now we are focused on getting as many colours as possible and elusive logos. Once again sucking us in. Some teams have so much on their jersey it would be hard not to get a multi color swatch! LOL
For the sake of the whole argument and the cries of how it makes it all afordable I say thats crap. I'd pay good money for a rare or harder to get card if I had too. I'd rather quality over quantity any day.
I see stuff sell so well on ebay.com.au and wonder if the buyers actually look at US eaby?? Maybe there are factors influencing them buying from there such as no CC, shipping or pure ignorence? Its a good thing for the astute Aussie seller to cash in though. Good on the ones that do. They supply the market with what it wants.
I just wonder how many collectors there are sitting at home in Australian cities right now buying and that have no comunication with the card commuity??
hhmm now discus.
Chad
(one half of ozcards jounalists crew)
