Scarcity Over Stars: The 90s Parallel Flipping Edge (7 Key Lessons)
Player popularity sets the buy-in price, but scarcity sets the ceiling. These lessons break down how to spot and profit from that gap.
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This is not buying or investment advice. I’m simply reporting the data I’m seeing. Some of the numbers and price breakdowns come from ChatGPT and might contain errors. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. Just because cards have increased in value up to this point, it doesn’t mean they will continue to do so.
When it comes to rare 90s-00s cards that you just don’t see become available very often, sometimes it’s more about the card than it is the player.
Actually, it’s more about the scarcity - how many have sold recently and how many are currently available - than the player.
I have seen a handful of examples of this over the last couple of months:
Like this 1995 Upper Deck Gold Andy Van Slyke I flipped, and ended up outselling Greg Maddux:
Or my 1997 Pacific Silver Dennis Eckersley (and someone else’s Bill Mueller) outselling Frank Thomas:
Most recently, it was a couple of 1996 Collector’s Choice Crash the Game Gold Parallels that got me thinking more and more about this as a piece of info that can jumpstart your card flipping game.
If you want the clearest proof of how overlooked cards can outpace the big names, it’s in this set—and it led me to 7 big takeaways that every flipper should keep in mind.