early base mariano rivera pricing

was reading someone's post earlier this week about breaking some 1996 score and something in his post made me do a double-take....when he mentioned the BV of the 1996 score rivera was 12.00 i was skeptical so i checked out the pricing on all his cards from that year...the score is indeed 12 , but only one other base card from that year is over 2.50 which seems odd....i checked back further and here's what i came up with (looking at base cards only from mainstream sets)

1992 - 1 card
bowman - 60.00

already knew about this one and understand it completely...

1993 - 1 card
bowman - 15.00

didn't realize it was quite that high , but also understandable

1994 - 1 card
94-95 excel - 15.00

found that one quite surprising....

1995 - 3 cards
bowman - 3.00
stadium club - 2.00
topps traded - 10.00

bowman and stadium seem about right , but the topps traded is bit more than i'd expected for what is essentially a 4.5 year card

then comes the confounding year...

1996 - 9 cards
collector's choice - 1.00
donruss - 1.50
fleer - 1.50
leaf signature - 2.50
pacific - 1.00
pinnacle - 1.00
stadium club - 1.50

all of these seem appropriate.....

then we have these two :
score - 12.00
ultra - 15.00 (with a whopping 50.00 on the gold medallion version)


i admit i haven't really done any research on this yet which i would normally do before posting about it....just curious and looking for input from others who actively buy/sell/collect rivera material....

i am almost certain they aren't short prints , and the "first card" theory isn't valid since 1996 is his first card from choice , donruss , fleer , pacific , and pinnacle as well , so is there something i'm missing that would cause these two to be so high in relation to all the others (and in fact far higher than all his 1995 issues as well) ?

are they simply overpriced by the guide ? are the others UNDERpriced ? do these two generally sell/trade for significantly more than the other lower priced ones or do people recognize this as nothing more than an anomaly/aberration and actually value them at a similar level as all the others ?

any input , either opinions or actual sales data over the past few years , is appreciated....

The strangest part is his true rookie season is 1995, but card companies put "Rookie" on his 1996 cards for some reason. Most of his 1995 base outsells the 1996 stuff which would be nothing had they not put "Rookie" on them.

sportscardtheory said:

The strangest part is his true rookie season is 1995, but card companies put "Rookie" on his 1996 cards for some reason. Most of his 1995 base outsells the 1996 stuff which would be nothing had they not put "Rookie" on them.

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I think this is definitely a factor in regards to actual sale prices. Uninformed collectors will buy the one the says "Rookie" across the card in big letters, even if it is later than others. As far as the "guide" goes, those numbers are literally pulled out of someone's butt and probably haven't been adjusted in 10 years. Book values are a sham and seem to only be there because people are still willing to pay to have some "authority" tell them their cards are worth more than they actually are. Beckett gets money and those people who use BV will believe it and defend it to the teeth because they want to believe it.
There's probably a better or additional reason the Score card "books" higher but I'd be more interested in why it "sells" higher, if it even does

It's hard to remember these types of things so far on, but the mid-90s was where card makers were putting out a set every month, or more, each. The stakes were rising with 1-per-pack autograph cards, and the "high-end" market was starting to take shape. So who cared about base cards? Team collectors, and people who weren't willing to spend $5 on a pack, which was a minority by then, even kids. By then even Ultra was, to me, extremely meh, especially the 1996 design, although Mo's card does look rather classy.

Especially the Gold Medallion version


They'd put "Rookie" on the 1996 cards because card sets used to be basically documents of the previous season.

Yes, Beckett is overpricing these cards, but not by a lot. Just looking at ebay, asking prices are in line with the book values, and sold items are not for nothing. Score and Ultras for $6-$9 seems to be where it's at.

Brewer Andy said:

I think this is definitely a factor in regards to actual sale prices. Uninformed collectors will buy the one the says "Rookie" across the card in big letters, even if it is later than others. As far as the "guide" goes, those numbers are literally pulled out of someone's butt and probably haven't been adjusted in 10 years. Book values are a sham and seem to only be there because people are still willing to pay to have some "authority" tell them their cards are worth more than they actually are. Beckett gets money and those people who use BV will believe it and defend it to the teeth because they want to believe it.
There's probably a better or additional reason the Score card "books" higher but I'd be more interested in why it "sells" higher, if it even does

Click to expand...

my 2 cents on BV......some things sell waaaaay under book , others sell at or above book.....i realize that everyone wants to pay a certain percentage of book (which logically would mean every card's BV would be infinitely approaching zero since every sale for a fraction of current value would be leading to an even lower BV)....while it would be nice , i know that a card's BV is not the same as its real world (cash) value.....what a book value SHOULD do is give a card's value REALTIVE to other cards....in my rivera example above , do i think the 96 score and ultra are worth 12 and 15 respectively ? no....do i think they are worth 10-15 times most of his other cards from the same year ? no way....now if they SELL for 8-10 times the other brands , then i'd have no problems with the current values....(a quick peek of ebay did show that you can find the score for a buck , it also has numerous sales between $4 and $9 while the other brands have very few sales over $1-2...i dare say the BV is influencing the sales in this case)

going off on a tangent here , but there is another rather common trend i've noticed over the years that really irks me.....let's say you have an insert set from the mid-90's.....set has 20-25 cards in it....3-4 major stars , 10-12 minor stars , and the rest essentially commons...the set is popular and all cards have a solid high value....over time the set becomes "forgotten"....the commons and minor stars are seldom traded anymore so according to beckett , there is no activity present to warrant a change in prices.....the majors stars still change hands frequently just because they are the major stars ; however , as the product fades out or a major star loses popularity , those begin to sell for lower and lower amounts. leading to a drop in BV's....eventually you end up with a set that (according to beckett) has commons valued at $10 , minor stars in the 12-20 range and major stars (like bonds , clemens , sosa , or a-rod) with values of 5-8 each ....this isn't hypothetical or theoretical - i've encountered quite a few sets in the opg that have the major stars valued below the minor stars....in one mid-90's product (1996 denny's holograms) i was looking at this week it is clear....let's just take ripken and frank thomas....base set , ripken is 10 times thomas (3.00 vs .30)...basic grand slam insert has ripken 4 times thomas (10 vs 2.50)....the oddity though is in the grand slam artist proof that sees them EQUAL at $40...check out the 2007 bowman chrome draft draft picks (base and refractors)....plenty of those started out pretty high ....many of those were out of the game by 2010....most of the players who have stuck around have seen their values crash while those that were done before AA have maintained their "value".....you can also look at the players who had both autos and non-autos in 2007 bowman chrome.....just as a quick example , a cedric hunter gold refactor /50 still books at $60....the autographed gold refractor was at either 80 or 100 originally...it is now a whopping 25.....that's right , the autograph /50 is "worth" a whole 41% of the non-autographed version....that trend extends across the entire set....given some time , i could cite dozens (and probably hundreds) of examples but i think you see my point : if it doesn't change hands , it maintains "value" even as far better cards fall below it in the guides....


rant over...stepping back down from my soap box and tucking it away for safe-keeping til next time....

Before I go off topic, anything from mariano or Jeter from 96 or before, gets labeled as a "rookie" in my store. Not a "rookie card", but as a rookie. It's the "mlb RC logo" before it was invented.

And yes, at least for me, the 96 score mariano outsells every other 96 card of him solely because "ROOKIE" is prominent on the card. Same goes for Jeter.


I've been critical of Beckett values for a while only when it pertains to the truly, completely ridiculous prices, such as STILL listing Sean Burroughs 99 traded auto ($6/15!) and '03 Chrome Draft Adam Miller ($1.50/4). And I'm not getting into STILL listing base and common inserts of bonds, Clemens, etc.

Theres no defending those prices above, but the hobby always automatically thinks "book value" ONLY refers to Beckett high value and totally disregards the span between low and high values.

Think of it like this, we all know there's no shortage of $2-$5 autos in this year's bowman chrome. Yet when they become priced in Beckett, everyone will look at the hi value of $8 and smirk.

But the span (low to high) will be $3-$8 so in reality, the Beckett value will be close enough.

I'm actually shocked they took the time and effort to raise the values on Mariano's 1993-1996 base cards to accomodate the market.

They like raising prices, and you had to be in a Maltese convent not to see the increased demand for Rivera cards the last couple years. The point about BV really being a range and not a single number is completely valid, too.

Some excellent points here fellas. Maybe I'm jaded over Beckett but I also refuse to believe they are anything more than one guy sitting at a computer "guessing" at prices and adjusting anything older than 6 months only when some major market change makes him think of it until I see clear evidence that there's an actual procedure to it. So many new sets and deadlines......there's just no way there is an actual department assigned to value reporting these days. Anyone know how many actual employees are assigned to Beckett sports cards alone with no other corporate asssignmets?