The 1998 Topps Tek Thread

I have to agree with togaman $500.00 a box is crazy high when you might get 2 diffractor's if your lucky and a bunch of base you figure 90 different players you might get lucky and get 3 or 4 of each superstar and I don't know about Griffey but I generally see Jeter's selling from $5.00 to $15.00 as a max so you pull 20 cards you might get an average of $10.00 each for the stars and the rest a dollar or two then the left over's go into a lot the odds of you getting that $500.00 back are not good in my opinion. Then searching for the cards you want what are the odds you will get the cards you want as well. I generally think buying boxes now are just a bad idea because you normally take a loss and a big reason why I don't buy boxes and only cards I want.

chris19978 said:

I have to agree with togaman $500.00 a box is crazy high when you might get 2 diffractor's if your lucky and a bunch of base you figure 90 different players you might get lucky and get 3 or 4 of each superstar and I don't know about Griffey but I generally see Jeter's selling from $5.00 to $15.00 as a max so you pull 20 cards you might get an average of $10.00 each for the stars and the rest a dollar or two then the left over's go into a lot the odds of you getting that $500.00 back are not good in my opinion. Then searching for the cards you want what are the odds you will get the cards you want as well. I generally think buying boxes now are just a bad idea because you normally take a loss and a big reason why I don't buy boxes and only cards I want.

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yea that was my point, $500 is insane for these boxes. Here is a pic of someone can get confirmed end prices someone is buying these for high prices. I personally would pay about $80 tops for a box as the biggest hit you can pull would be worth about $300 (Jeter or Griffey Gold. Also exagerating that as I don't think many would pay $300) At least with like an EX or Cetified you could pull a card worth thousands.

Togoman the one thing I would give up on is Beckett. I love them for the checklists they have buy pricing they don't even try. They make too much on the Grading to put any resources in tracking down prices it seems. Here is a prime example:

If I could get a Mirror Gold Griffey for $150 I would buy the entire print run!

Golds are '99 Tek.

Passive-aggressive is what popped into my mind last night reading this.

Joey_peapod said:

yea that was my point, $500 is insane for these boxes. Here is a pic of someone can get confirmed end prices someone is buying these for high prices. I personally would pay about $80 tops for a box as the biggest hit you can pull would be worth about $300 (Jeter or Griffey Gold. Also exagerating that as I don't think many would pay $300) At least with like an EX or Cetified you could pull a card worth thousands.

Togoman the one thing I would give up on is Beckett. I love them for the checklists they have buy pricing they don't even try. They make too much on the Grading to put any resources in tracking down prices it seems. Here is a prime example:

If I could get a Mirror Gold Griffey for $150 I would buy the entire print run!

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Again you can't believe every sale price I watched a guy sell a 1996 select certified Mirror Blue Derek Jeter as a PSA 10 for $10,000.00 like 3 times a lot of times people do this as others will see and it might inflate the price of that card. I believe this happened to the Mirror Gold Jeter as well but can't confirm it. The fact of the matter I have yet to spend over $8.00 on any of the 1998 Topps Tek Jeter cards I own to include the Diffractor that I got a steal on for $5.00 and I own most of the base set with only 25 of the 90 remaining. So if it stays that way the Jeter base set will cost me $720.00 or less and I don't have to deal with all the extra cards I am trying to trade or sell and only spent $220.00 extra dollars for it. So why would I buy an entire box to maybe get 3 or 4 Jeter Tek cards that could be doubles. Even set collector's I doubt would pay that price. The 1996 Select Certified sells for about that much or less for a box and you can have some monster hit's in that one where the Topps Tek $150.00 would probably be a max price on any Diffractor. That's a lot less than the few $1,000.00 or few $100.00 for the Mirror Gold cards and that's not including the Mirror Red or Mirror Blue cards as well as any of the other subsets and parallels they made from that set.

I honestly don't what your point is because I agree with what your saying.

My point was based on supply and demand prices will not be going down significantly. Just because you where able the amass all those Jeters at those prices doesn't make that marke value, makes you a
savvy collector able to find good prices. If those card went up for a well listed auction they would not be going for $8. I'm only talking diffractors as base cards are never going for huge levels.

One of the biggest problems Topps Tek had in the past was that back when Beckett was relevant they lumped diffractors / golds together and didn't differentiate between patterns. It was more noticeable in 1999/2000 Topps Tek since the golds are serial #ed /10, but Beckett made it seem like the parallels were #ed /600 for 1999 Tek golds instead of 60 patterns #ed /10; #ed /200 for 2000 Tek golds instead of 20 patterns #ed /10. This in turn spilled over to the 90 patterns per diffractor parallel, causing confusion for the average collector and skewing the rarity of them to the uninformed.

Joey_peapod said:

I honestly don't what your point is because I agree with what your saying.

My point was based on supply and demand prices will not be going down significantly. Just because you where able the amass all those Jeters at those prices doesn't make that marke value, makes you a
savvy collector able to find good prices. If those card went up for a well listed auction they would not be going for $8. I'm only talking diffractors as base cards are never going for huge levels.

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My point is with bigger hits in the 1996 Select Certified the more people are willing to spend as you can see here you can buy one now for $375.00 and another is on auction and there wanting $325.00 with no bids. So if these boxes are selling for less than $500.00 I don't honestly see the 1998 Topps Tek boxes selling for more. You are right with supply and demand though and going after a 8100 card set 18 years after it's released all I have to say is good luck so why would you even want to buy a box at that price and get a bunch of people you probably don't want unless your a set collector with the major hit being a few hundred dollars compared to thousands of dollars and honestly I wound not buy the 1996 Select Certified box for that much either. I would say 98 out of 100 times you will end up losing money buying at these prices for either box even if you make money on the Topps Tek the time and effort to list all of them pack them and sell them just not worth it. This is basically why I stopped buying packs all together and just buy cards I want.

$1/ea LCS finds. I will be going back with more time to burn very soon.

Whoa. $250 sitting right there.

pootshwan said:

$1/ea LCS finds. I will be going back with more time to burn very soon.

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Holy shhhhht

pootshwan said:

$1/ea LCS finds. I will be going back with more time to burn very soon.

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Not bad...

Ryan

pootshwan said:

$1/ea LCS finds. I will be going back with more time to burn very soon.

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Makes you wonder how many are still sitting in dusty old dollar bins

Will Style 13 said:

Makes you wonder how many are still sitting in dusty old dollar bins

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Or even the .10-.25 common boxes with no soft sleeve

togaman said:

Does LCS stand for Local Card Shop?

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Yes.

pootshwan said:

$1/ea LCS finds. I will be going back with more time to burn very soon.

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Let me know if you want to move that Griffey. If not, hope it stays in your PC.

It's like a broken record at some point.

Ground hog day.

Using the statement "keep dreaming" seems strange with a senior citizen. But hey, whatever - keep dreaming!

Added 12 diffractors to the collection this past week. So sweet!

brian26 said:

It's like a broken record at some point.

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i was actually going to reply a bit ago too , but i wasn't able to find the "beating the dead horse" emoticon....

the thing i really find annoying is how virtually every post he makes has to mention how many diffractors he has , his 8100-card set , and multiple additional sets in progress while he has the gumption to complain in the same breath about any other collector who tries to buy more than one copy of a given card (as evidenced in his most recent post above in which he whines , "the # 1 guy even bidding on cards he already has in his collection.")

i realize not everyone collecs duplicates , but i know i am one of many (including "him") who DO like having more than one of a card and frankly it's nobody's business what or how anyone else collects.....