Swish Research

Quick headscratcher for you guys: What is happening with Kobe’s Topps (Chrome) rookie cards?

As of yesterday, Kobe’s and Lebron’s PSA 10 Topps Chrome base rookie cards were trading at very similar prices. Kobe’s PSA 9 graded cards, however, traded at a 45% discount to Lebron’s PSA 9 cards. How does that make sense? When we look at the Topps rookie cards, we can again see that Lebron is valued at a significant premium to Kobe (96% for PSA 10 and 125% for PSA 9).

A few explanations come to mind:
(1) Kobe’s Topps Chrome PSA 10 rookie cards looks overvalued.
(2) Kobe’s PSA 9 Topps Chrome is massively undervalued.
(3) The market is irrational and people value Kobe’s and Lebron’s PSA 9 and 10 cards differently.

What is your take on this? Market anomaly that will correct quickly or a fundamental difference? Also, should Lebron trade at a premium to Kobe?

We are introducing a brand new format “numbers behind the thoughts” where we take interesting thoughts from recent podcasts/videos and try to dig up relevant numbers to start a more analytical conversation.

Today we are starting with the fire episode from 12/19 where , , Jesse Craig and dug deep into everyone’s favorite question: Who is undervalued?

Chris made the super interesting statement that those undervalued players might be those that have the potential to build a massive collector base. That made us think what kind of a proxy we could use for the potential collector base? Naturally, Instagram followers and engagement came to mind. And while it is certainly not a perfect proxy, it is at least easily obtainable.

So with no further ado, we are presenting you our analysis of the relationship between Instagram followers/engagement and the top 7 PSA 10 base prizm rookie cards (by market cap).

It turns out that the one player with the most potential based on this analysis seems to be Anthony Davis. And funnily enough, this is precisely the first player that Jesse Craig is mentioning when he talks about players that he believes might be undervalued (in the short term).

Disclaimer: This is entirely our analysis and apart from the quoted statements nothing in this post was said or insinuated by either Adam, Chris, Josh or Jesse. We just thought it would be interesting to look at some numbers behind Chris’ initial thought.

So over to you: What are your thoughts on this? Obviously there are many more takeaways than just the Anthony Davis aspect! Let’s discuss!

Yesterday we received a lot of questions about why and how to rebase card prices. Today we are diving deeper into the topic and are hopefully making things a bit clearer. Let’s dig in!

While Giannis’ cards have been the talk of the hobby with his new supermax contract, it feels as if Kawhi’s cards have recently been flying under the radar. Time to see what’s going on and compare the PSA 10 base prizm rookie cards of both players. Therefore we are looking at the prices of the two cards and are rebasing Giannis’ card prices to Kawhi’s.

Sidenote: In order to celebrate the brilliant first episode of cardladder’s SCC show on youtube, we are working with data for the first time today. Great job guys – keep it up!

So how does rebasing work? Swipe to find out:

(1) Chart the first card (Kawhi) using actual card prices

(2) Add the second card (Giannis) using actual card prices as well (result looks great but it is very hard to really compare the returns)

(3) Set the starting point of the second card equal to the starting point of the first card. Use the daily growth rates of the second card to calculate the rebased card prices. Now we can properly compare the returns of the two cards. Obviously the final data point of the second card (Giannis) does NOT represent its current price.

Hopefully this clears up some of the questions. If not, let us know! Also, how about that crazy drop in Kawhi’s card prices?

Today we have good news and we have bad news.

Good news first: Despite getting hit by the August slump pretty hard, Zion’s and Ja’s raw base prizm card prices have recovered and are up 24% and 120% since June 1st, respectively.

Bad news? The mosaic cards have not performed as well. Even though we disregarded the pretty hefty initial price drop right after the mosaic release (which is why the chart only starts at 6/1), Zion’s and Ja’s raw base mosaic cards are struggling to maintain their prices. While Ja’s cards are at least at a similar price point as in early June, Zion’s cards have lost about a third of their value. Ouch!

Where do you see the mosaic sets over the long-term? Clearly the hobby sees mosaic as inferior to prizm, but what about optic, select and hoops? Let’s discuss!

Today we are looking at the total number of ebay transactions for four major prizm rookie cards (PSA 10 grades only) broken down per quarter.

For Jason Tatum, Luka Doncic and Trae Young, the trend is pretty clear. The year started strong with a high number of transactions in Q1. But then the NBA suspension happened and with it came a time of uncertainty. Accordingly, the number of transactions dropped in Q2 compared to Q1.

Once bubble playoffs came back on the horizon in Q3, transaction activity started to go back up again as well and ebay ran hot. In Q4 to date, it looks as if it is going to be another weaker quarter (which had to be expected considering it was the NBA offseason). Recently, though, we have seen transaction activity go back up again in anticipation of what will hopefully be a very exciting NBA season 2020-21.

For Zion, especially the first two quarters were impacted by the fact that many cards were still trapped at PSA and the PSA 10 population was relatively low in the beginning of the year. In the second half of the year, though, the above trend also holds.

Just as a reminder, the current PSA 10 populations for the cards are: Tatum (4,321), Doncic (14,985), Young (7,874) and Williamson (14,119).

Yesterday, the brilliant folks at already reported the impressive run of Jamal Murray’s PSA 10 base prizm rookie cards over the last few weeks. And while the price surge is definitely noteworthy by itself, it becomes even more interesting when we compare Murray’s card to one of his close peers: Trae Young.

Pre bubble playoffs, Trae Young’s rookie card was sold at a reasonable premium relative to Jamal Murray’s. With Murray’s pretty wild playoff performance, however, his card prices increased to and even above Trae’s level.

Afterwards, prices seemed to track each other with a pretty high correlation. Until just about two weeks ago when Jamal Murray’s cards really took off.

What do you think? Should Murray be priced at a premium to Trae? Are these levels sustainable and will Trae’s cards catch up? Or will the bubble burst once regular season starts? Let us know!

Close your eyes and think back to 12/31/2019. Think back to much simpler times without viruses, lockdowns and bubbles. Now imagine someone gave you $100 to spend either on Luka’s or on Trae’s PSA 10-graded base prizm rookie card. How would you have spent that money (assuming you could buy fractions)?

Next, think about your return expectations. Could you have imagined making a return higher than 8x in less than a year?

So many people ask us if they should buy Luka or Trae and where we see the most potential. Who in the world knows.. But looking back at the last 12 months, one thing is certain. Between those two, it ultimately wouldn’t have mattered at all.

Recently we received the question how we would price a BGS 10 black label (BL) card. That got us thinking and while we most definitely do not have a comprehensive answer, we would like to invite you to check out a case study of Anthony Davis’ base prizm rookie card from 2012:

(1) The yellow chart shows the price evolution of the PSA 10-graded version based on daily average ebay prices.

(2) Since May 1st, we have seen four ebay auctions of AD’s BGS 10 BL base prizm rookie card. In one of those auctions (red box), it appears as if the seller re-listed the item afterwards – so we should probably disregard that one.

(3) For the three remaining auctions, we have listed the PSA 10 price on the day before the end of the BGS 10 BL auction, the final BGS 10 BL price and the resulting BGS/PSA 10 ratio.

(4) We have not included data on BGS 10 Pristine cards because those are also sold very infrequently and looking at comps that are 4-6 weeks old does not really make sense in such a quickly changing market.

Based on this case study, it seems as if there is a relationship between PSA 10 and BGS 10 BL prices (which you would also expect). It is interesting to note that the BGS/PSA ratio has increased from 4.4x to 5.0x which means that, relatively speaking, the BGS 10 BL prices have overproportionally increased vs. the PSA 10 prices.

Have you every considered buying a BGS 10 BL card? How would you go about pricing them? Let us know in the comments!

Yesterday we were almost all in agreement that non-rookie base cards are usually not the best investments out there. And Lebron’s 2019 base prizm card seems to be a pretty good example to underline this thesis. But what about the notoriously interesting 2012 prizm cards?

Let’s see: In today’s chart, the blue line shows the 3-day average prices of Lebron’s 2012 PSA 10-graded base prizm card. In yellow, we have added the price development of his 2019 PSA 10-graded base prizm card relative to the blue line (i.e. the prices of the 2019 card are rebased to the prices of the 2012 card).

Generally speaking, the relative price development looks surprisingly similar. Especially over the last few months, however, the 2012 card prices look notably more stable. Let’s look at a couple of fun facts side-by-side:

PSA 10 Population: 395 (2012) vs. 5,170 (2019)
Current 3D AVG price: $1,413 (2012) vs. $116 (2019)
No. of ebay transactions since 3/1: 160 (2012) vs. 1,577 (2019)

Are you more bullish on the 2012 base prizm card or do you believe that this is simply another non-rookie base card not worth looking at? Grandma crunch is curious…

When we first got into sports cards, our grandma used to say: Kids, don’t ever buy into non-rookie base cards, nothing good will ever come from that.

And guess what, grandma crunch was right. Check out Lebron’s 2019 PSA 10-graded base prizm card, but be advised, it’s not a pretty sight. And not even a championship was able to reverse or slow down this fiasco.

What are your thoughts on this? Have we reached a reasonable price or will we soon enter double-digit land?

Let’s move on to discuss bigger and better players! And amongst the players rated 80 to 85, we have a few super interesting data points. Let’s dig in!

(1) First of all, it is interesting to see that with the exception of Marvin Bagley the players rated 80 to 82 are all somewhat close to the trendline (though the extended vertical axis might play a role here as well).

(2) Next it is interesting to note that the three higher rated big men, i.e. Bagley, Robinson and Ayton, are all priced at a significant discount to the trend-implied prices.

(3) Ja Morant clearly is in a different stratosphere than all the other players shown here. Clearly, there is an underlying expectation in the hobby that he will continue to get better and better which almost certainly will also be reflected in his future 2K ratings. In that sense you could argue, that his cards are not priced like cards from an 84-rated player, but more in line with other future greats such as Trae Young, Luka and Zion.

What are your takeaways here? Any surprises?

Today, let us look at players with an NBA 2K20 rating of 75 to 80. This is where it gets even more interesting as quite a few cards appear to be “undervalued”. On the flipside, some of the more popular 2019 rookies seem to be notably “overprized”.

Remember though, we are not claiming that RJ’s Silver Prizm prices are too high in general, these posts are merely subjective analyses based on one arbitrary factor (2K ratings). So please take these results with as many grains of salt as you would like.

With all these caveats out of the way, what are your thoughts on this?

(1): How reasonable are these 2K ratings? Is Jaxson Hayes really a better player than RJ Barrett or Coby White?

(2): Should we now all buy Eric Paschall and Mikal Bridges?