Forget Modern QB's are the 80's the next boom?

Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast with your host, Big Ken. A retired teacher bringing you lessons each week. He's learned in the hobby by taking you behind the table and inside the mind of a dealer and a collector. Sit back and relax. There one-of-one be a test. The only thing being graded here is the cards. Welcome to the Sports Card Lessons Podcast. I'm your host, Big Ken. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on a streaming service, please, please, like, subscribe and hit that notification bell so you'll be notified whenever I drop any new content. What is going on? Happy Saturday. Even though I'm not confused, you're not getting this episode until Sunday, but I am recording on Saturday and I'm gonna drop this episode on Sunday. And I'm doing that because our hobby Chop episode from Thursday night I thought was a really great, great episode. I think they're all great, but I just thought that was exceptional. So I thought I would give that one more day to breathe before I Tribute another episode. But I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Last week of NFL preseason fantasy football drafts. Getting down to crunch time before the season starts. I've completed all but one of my drafts and that group. And if, if you're in a number of fantasy football drafts, leagues, like, you'll know exactly what I'm about to say. One group, 12 people, cannot figure out a day and a time that works. It's, it's crazy. Other groups, they put one day up. Everybody's like, Yu-Gi-Oh okay, no problem. Everybody makes it in this group. I, I, I think we've changed the day like eight times already. Now it looks like Labor Day a week from tomorrow. And who knows if that can't happen? Maybe, maybe that league is canceled. I don't know. But my weekend started yesterday. Friday, I drove up to see my guy Joe at Premier Sports in Rhode island, went up to check out his warehouse, hang out with him for the day, did a little shopping while I was there. A nice mix of PC cards and cards to possibly grade and cards to sell it, some upcoming shows. So shout out to him for a great day and allowing me to to do some shopping. So as part of my reset and rebranding this year, I've talked about picking up lots of 90s basketball inserts, lots of 70s baseball, and lots of 70s and 80s football. And part of the transformation is just doing a ton of research on cards, players, and sets, right? Because, you know, it's one thing to know the sport and know the players. It's another thing to Understand the hobby market, right? We could all say, oh Yu-Gi-Oh I mean he was just a great player, so his cars have got to be expensive or sought after, things like that. But there's a lot, when you get to the hobby, when, when you get away from the player and the sport and you get to the hobby, there's a lot of other things going on, a lot of things you need to understand, right? So finding out why certain players are more expensive than others, why some are more sought after than others, why great players cards are, are much cheaper than other players cards, right? Why their card market is better than another player. And as I'm creating content around this to bring you guys, just trying to bring you guys along on the journey and share with you the information that I'm finding. And, and you know what, it may be I, I may be bringing information other people's like, oh, I knew that, I've known that for years. And, and you know, great certain things that I'm finding that I think is very interesting or just good information. Sports card lessons, right? The lesson, that's why I'm here. I'm here sharing it with you guys. And as I move away from the current rookie markets, not buying wax, staying away from breaks, staying off of Whatnot, and I know it took a little time, but I've come to the realization where the best place to spend my money on the hobby is not only for PC holds but for roi, you know, setting up at shows and just selling in the hobby. Buying and selling in the hobby. And because football is still my, my main sport, I asked myself, right? Why would I spend a thousand, two thousand, three thousand or even more prospecting on modern quarterbacks, modern players, ripping wax, that type of stuff when that same money buys rookie cards of players whose legacies can't bust, right? And one thing I've talked about on a number of episodes and I'm going to apply it here today, that flight to quality thesis. You know, I've been, I started discussing this with, with basketball and I think, you know, the 1980s football may actually be pretty interesting because there are fewer rookie card choices. So we, I, I, last week I talked about Sha Shack and I've been talking about, you know, the, the, the Jordan inserts and things like that and buying into those and watching that market soar up. Looking at the football market now, just going back and focusing on the 80s football and which cards are more sought after than others and why and just get more information on it. Fewer rookie cards, fewer choices, you know, significant condition, scarcity I found an article from 2014, a PSA article, and it highlighted the following players. Montana, Rice, Elway, Marino, Taylor, Ronnie Lott, Barry Sanders, among the decade's most coveted rookies. And if you are on YouTube, I am going to share. A file here and, and basically if you're not, if you're listening, I'll just explain what it is. It says toughest 1980s superstar rookies to find in PSA Tens. So it has Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Reggie White, John Elway, Joe Montana. So it just talks about. And this is from 2014. So basically on this it talks about their submissions, how many PSA 10s and, and what the percentage of the tens were for the submission. So that was based on this was article from. From 2014. 12 years later. Right, 12 years later. So they're, they're. I'm just going to run down the list. Steve young, in 2014 he had four psa 10s. All right, four psa 10s. Here we are. In 2026, he has eight psa 10s of his rookie card. PSA 9 today 2026 is 193. Jerry Rice, PSA 10s in 2014, 49 PSA 10s in 2026. 65, present day, 65. So that's only 16 more. 16 more PSA 10s that have come out over that many years. Over 12 years. And as PSA 9 is 1134 present day. Reggie White, PSA 10s. 2014 he had 4. Present day he has 8. So that's only 4 more PSA 9 to date. 487. John Elway, PSA 10, 2014 he had 79 present day 190. So that's 111 more cards. And as PSA 9 is 3189. Joe Montana, PSA 10s 2020, 14, 74, present day 114. So that's plus 40 PSA 9 is 2238. And Dan Marino I'm adding to the list Dan Marino, PSA 10s, present day. Because they weren't on this list from 2014. Present day, 423 nines, 4643. Lawrence Taylor, PSA 10s, present Day 198 PSA nines, 1274. So now we get two more players right at the end. I think they were the 1989. Right. Compared to, you know, Montana being 81 and going up through the. The 84 and 86. So now we have Barry Sanders. Right? Present day PSA 10, 2697 PSA 9 14,039 and Troy Aikman PSA 10, present day 1950 PSA nines 8607. So it's interesting, as we got to later in the 80s, they, you know, better, better quality of making the cards more, a better gem rate, you know, on Sanders and Aikman. And I added Sanders in Aikman just to show you the higher pop counts on the PSA 10s, right? So obviously production was better, but less rarity and less, less scarce, right? On those, on those cards versus going back to the other ones where production was terrible, right? Putting those cards out, it was so hard to gem one of those cards. And we can see the difference. Over 12 years, those pop counts didn't ride the low, lower pop counts all kept rising because you Goldin gem them, right? And, and Sanders and Aikman, you know, obviously not as expensive, you know, as the other players, doesn't take away from their greatness, right? Because if you would have asked me, you know, the greatest running back from the eight, I would have said Barry Sanders, right? Because it, why wouldn't I? And I know there's probably an argument around that too. I'm probably going to hear that in my, I might, might have some debates in the, on YouTube, in the, in the comment section later this week. But, but again, it doesn't take away from their greatness of how great they were, but their card graded better, so the values of their, their cards are lower. But when it comes to the hobby, you know, certainly not at the, the top of any collector's card pyramid when it comes to the value compared to a Joe Montana or a Jerry Rice, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, we're talking about PSA10s, but even in a PSA9 as well. So going through all these players, right, you know, I start to narrow it down and say who do I want to concentrate on? And it's easy. Like in this hobby, it's easy. Especially, you know, if you, like someone like me, watched all these players play. Like, I would be more pulled towards certain players that I really liked back in the day, right? And you know, I think a lot of that is what, what collecting is all about. But what all the information, just this information that I've given you right here, right? It would tell me if I'm going to be picking up cards for, for just to pick them up and hold, right? Who are the players I should be picking up, right? Where, where is there going to be opportunity in these cards? Where, where are we Going to see the biggest growth in their market. If I'm going and I'm looking at all these players. So, so I, I narrowed it down to five players right now that I would buy and hold. And I have to say it's crazy that I grew up in the 80s and I owned all these cars at one time or another, not knowing back then how iconic these players would be today. And who would have thought that you know, creating content around them all these years later. But obviously number one, Joe Montana. And I know I, I shared a, a card I recently Beckett up with a dual inscription and if you missed that, you can go on my, on my IG account sports card underscore lessons. There's a picture of it up there. Just a beautiful card but you know, the Topps Montana 216, definitely a blue chip pick, right? Four Zebra Bowls, three Zebra Bowl MVPs, you know, 49ers Dynasty, you know, he is instantly recognizable. The card itself, you know, difficult, difficult to, to get this card graded. You know, if, if you have it in a 10, keep it. But if you're a chase, if you can afford it, I, I guess get it. But I mean I, I'm looking at lower grades on this. Sevens, eights, nines, anything that looks good centered, you know, things like that. The 10 is definitely out of reach for me to go out and purchase. And this would be right, football equivalent to buying greatness right then, then trying to buy a rookie quarterback today. And, and in the Sevens eights, nines, very affordable on the Montana, you know, number two, you all know who it is. Jerry Rice. The Topps 161. The argument for Rice as the, the greatest wide receiver, you know, is, is, is strong, you know. And that set, that 86 set, notoriously difficult again to grade to gem. PSA significantly identifies Rice as one of the decades important condition sensitive rookies when it comes to their cards. And I think that's what we would want, right? We want rarity, we want scarcity. This is where we're looking. You know, obviously a go. Everybody knows who, who Rice is. Just like everybody knows who Montana is. And again, if you can afford the 10, certainly by all means go out and get it. But again, Sevens, eights, nines, very affordable. And I think they're just going to keep going up. I think, I mean when we're talking about pop counts, you know, so low and people want to say look, I want to start buying into this market, where are they going to buy into? They're not going to run in and buy tens, right? Because who can afford the tens? So the seven, eights and nines. Perfect perfect place to jump into the market, in my opinion, and let that. And let that grow. Number three, Dan Marino, He did. He did not one-of-one a championship. So he, he's the one on the list that, that has not one-of-one a championship. Does he need it. Did he need a Zebra bowl ring to. To be an iconic player? His something flying around here. His. Again, another card that's difficult, had difficulty grading. Again, affordable, right? Yu-Gi-Oh And he was put in, right, he was put in the 1984 set. So he was in there with, with elway in the 84 set. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, even, even, you know, two cards that came out of it, I believe, right? One was on top, one was on bottom, something like that in the set. I remember reading something about that made them difficult to. To grade because where they were, where, where they were. Where they were placed in the boxes. Elway Topps, number four. Well, the number four, but number 63. And a lot of people put these two right together. Marino and Ella. Even though Elway has Zebra bowl and, And Marino doesn't. Elway historically been tougher. Tougher than Marino because of print issues on the card. So as far as printing the cards out, Again, PSA 9 is probably what I'm chasing on, on, on both of these cards. I mean, again, if you can get the tens, if you could afford them, certainly, you know, by all means. But I think for most people, especially me, jumping in, going in to do this and, and saying, look, this is where I want to be. I want to be in those eights and nines and I want to buy them and I want to hold them and, and, and see where it goes. This is what I want to do. So, you know, I said five. I've given you four. I've given you three quarterbacks and a wide receiver. I saved the fifth spot for a defensive player. And, you know, this is where a lot of arguments or, you know, debates will come in. And, and I'm hoping that in, in my comments, people are going to comment back and tell me who they think you know. So we listed Lawrence Taylor on the. Just gonna go back and see. Take that off. Just going back to get his pop count. So 198 on his rookie was 198. So we, again, he would be scarcity in the cards, right, because very, you know, the cards did not gem. You know, very few PSA 10s on that. But then, then we, then we turn to greatness. Right. And I'm just going to tell you the three defensive players that I put up here. Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, Deion Sanders. So there are three, right, different type of, of football players, but all great defensive players. I would think LT would, would have that top spot. But I'd be interesting to hear what, what you guys had to say if you, if you had any argument to go against LT to a Reggie White or, or, or a Deion Sanders on something like that. Lawrence Taylor, historical greatness, recognizable rookie card and affordable right. Reggie White, he had a, it was a USFL card. There were factory set issues with low production. So that's why you see such a low amount of, of PSA 10s on his too. Deion Sanders, they talk about a culture, you know, relevance outside his playing career with his coaching and things like that. I mean, I don't know. We have a son, right? We have Shador playing and I, I made a comment and I know a few people in, in, I was probably last season talking about Shador Sanders, me saying I don't think he can fail because I think he comes from a lineage of, you know, success with his dad and, and people fought back. But. I still think Dion was a great player. And, and I, I think a lot of people know who he is and know who he is. You know, may maybe, maybe not. Maybe the younger people may, may or may not know, but I think college football coach and everything he did with coaching, right. Did that, did that make him more relevant over the last few years? You know, I don't know. And, and, and like, if we were going to compare him outside of, you know, is there any other athletes we could compare him to, like, you know, to basketball or something like that? I'm really not sure. I'm really not sure there is. Let me know what you think, Let me know what you think of this list. Right. Do you think that these 1980s football players, the, you know, am I better investing in them? Like I'm telling you, this is what I'm doing, you know, I'm doing my research and I think my money is better spent into these 80s football players than trying to go off to these modern prospecting after these modern quarterbacks and ripping wax and, you know, or just buying the cards themselves. Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I did. I had a lot of fun doing the research for it. Next week will be the last Thursday night Hobby Chop with zip. Then we'll be switching to Wednesday night because of the NFL season. We'll be starting the following Thursday. And I will be back next weekend. I will be back. Yu-Gi-Oh I have the. I have the Mohegan show, the Mohegan sun show next weekend. So I will be there Saturday. I am not there Sunday. Somebody else has my table on Sunday, so I will be. I will be here creating content for you next Sunday, a new episode. So until next time, take care of yourselves and everyone around you.