When too many different parallels and variations exist, it lowers the demand for all of them.
When serial numbers on sports cards first became a thing, it was a revolution. When overproduction had been going on for so long during the junk wax era of the 80s and 90s, and people were becoming more keenly aware of it, adding a serial number to a card helped sports card hobbyists to understand what was and wasn’t a rare card.
But in the ultra-modern sports card market, these serial numbers are beginning to have less and less meaning, and cards that don’t have something else to make them stand out, like an on-card auto or a game-worn jersey, have less reason to be sought by collectors or investors.
And thinking down the line a few years, that could mean catastrophe for their long-term value.
History of Serial Numbered Cards
When serial numbers first began, it wasn’t within the context of multiple different color variations of one card. The serial number meant something.
For example, when Precious Metal Gems first came out in 1997, if you got that Michael Jordan PMG, there was 100 total of that card made, 90 of the red, 10 of the green. And as far as parallels were concerned, that was it. 100.
During that same year, when cards with autographs and/or jerseys were released, that serial number on it also meant something, like for example this iconic 1997–98 Upper Deck Game Jersey patch auto of Jordan.
Only 23 of these cards were signed in total, and every single card was held in the hand of Jordan as he signed it, and the jersey in there was game-worn.
That’s a combination of a bunch of things that make that card truly unique. But nowadays, it’s a different reality. The card producers have taken good ideas, like special sought cards with shorter print runs, jersey patches, and autographs, and exploited those three things until they have been run into the ground and have begun to lose meaning.
The Example of 2020–21 Select Basketball
Let’s look for a moment here at 2020–21 Select basketball, and specifically let’s narrow down to the biggest chased rookie from that set, LaMelo Ball.
Now, for this exploration, I am going to completely ignore the unnumbered color variations and instead just look at the serial-numbered cards that LaMelo has in this set. Be ready for some crazy numbers here.
In total, LaMelo has 2091 serial numbered variations of his base rookie cards that can be found in 2020–21 Select. 2091!! Again, that is only serial-numbered stuff.
This number does not even consider the unnumbered variations, of which we don’t even know how many were printed, because print run numbers are not something Panini shares (and of course, they don’t, because I think most of us would be flabbergasted the lack of rarity with some of those unnumbered parallels are).
That number does not even include the insert sets, which all have their own numbered and unnumbered color variations as well. Add all those things in, and these numbers would look way crazier than this, but I’m not even gonna go there. This article is just about the base card parallels and just the ones that have serial numbers on them. That’s a small fraction of the full picture.
Let’s break down that number of base card color variations from 20–21 Select basketball into its different parts, and see how exactly there are that many serial numbered color variations of one player in one product of just his base rookie cards.
First of all, Select produces its basketball cards in 3 levels- Concourse, Premier, and Courtside (football even has a 4th level, so a similar exploration in that sport might find numbers even higher than this. Maybe, I don’t know, I haven’t done that).
At the Concourse level, not including the 17 unnumbered parallels, there are 23 numbered parallels, ranging from the 6 different 1 of 1’s to the Light Blue Prizm out of 299. The total number of serial-numbered Concourse cards is 1032.
At the Premier level, once again not including the 17 unnumbered parallels which have very high print runs that we don’t even know the numbers on, the 24 serial numbered parallels, ranging from the 6 1 of 1’s to the Blue Prizm Die-Cut out of 249, result in a total number of serial numbered Premiere level cards of 856.
At the Courtside level, not including the 15 unnumbered parallels, the 19 serial numbered parallels, ranging from the 6 1 of 1’s to the Red Disco out of 49, make for a total of 203 serial numbered Courtside cards.
In total, that means, not even including the 53 different unnumbered colored parallels that we are ignoring here, that is a total of 66 different serial numbered parallels, including 18 quote unquote 1 of 1’s, for a total of 2091 serial numbered base card rookie parallels.
And that’s not even including the various insert sets, like “Phenomenon”, “Rookie Selections”, “Select Numbers”, and “Sparks” which all have their own unnumbered and numbered parallels, including 1 of 1’s, as well.
Once you add all this together, you begin to see that those serial numbers are not saying much. That serial numbered 20–21 Select LaMelo base rookie card variation, whatever number it may say on it, is a 1 of 2091. And way more than that if you consider the unnumbered color parallels.
And being that the scarcity of the small serial numbers is only a production technique of Panini to manufacture a false sense of rarity, what is it about those cards that holds long-term appeal for a collector or investor?
Maybe if it had an on-card autograph or a game-worn jersey patch it would be a different story, but without something that makes it truly unique, it is hard for me to see how any of those cards are going to hold their sometimes incredibly high-value long-term.
There’s just simply too much supply, and I don’t see how the demand a few years down the road can meet the supply in any way that would cause those cards to ever increase in value, besides perhaps a few outliers here and there of some players that exceed expectations significantly.
Check out my YouTube video on the topic here: https://youtu.be/qMWyHCGgz2A