Nightmare scenario, technology kills the hobby?

[bogibatina]

Last week my son and I went on a 1 hr drive to check out a car. We are both avid collectors and got to discussing our card collecting hobby and the recent rise in prices. He is more tech savvy and brought up this theory.

In time sport card values will plummet to near zero especially on older non numbered cards and sets due to technology advances Ie 3D printers etc. With
The recent rise in prices he said now and in the short term future collectors should sell their cards.

In short he said technology will be able to replicate any current card and ner do wells would sell counterfeit cards that look and feel identical and no one will be able to discern the fake for a real McCoy. The hobby already has a fake issue like Gretzkys rc. He’s thinking of selling cards high and investing in cars which are harder to fake.

After some thought I do think this is quite plausible. What are your thoughts?

 

[Reddrgn88]

That’s an interesting perspective, I think technology (as per the new grading company that uses now uses AI) will address the fraudulent issues you speak of and, in fact increase the prices on validated cards. I think The market will continue to rise in the foreseeable future on some of the better known players like gretzky, Howe, Lemieux, Crosby, McDavid etc etc.

I’m a bit taken aback at the recent surge but based on much more in-touch collectors it sounds like hockey is the last frontier in terms of undervaluation. I’m not in tune with the other sports but it sounds as if we are still undervalued (if you can call it that) when compared to the other big sports. I’m not sure how ESPN will now factor into the values with more recognition potentially occurring in the US.

 

[japhi]

The technology to reprint a 1979 OPC hockey card has been in place since 1979. Yet most Gretz RC fakes are very apparent.

I think the risk would be with modern cards. And even then we are moving to TPG's being the be all end all - I hate this trend FWIW.

Don't see it happening. There are literally hundreds of thousands of altered cards in slabs today and collectors don't seem to care, values went to the moon in the midst of a pretty big card doctor scandal.

 

[TADontAsk]

I think one of the challenges for counterfeiting some of the modern cards would be the serial numbers. They would be showing up a lot more than you'd expect, and there would be duplicate numbers.

The exception would be something like Young Guns, and we've already seen listings of "reprint" Young Guns sell for decent money. It has me very cautious about buying any raw big name YG cards.