Hobby U: How to find the value of a 1/1 card

Having already gone over how to value your sports cards in Things to Know: Using Comps to Accurately Value Your Cards, it’s worth looking at what happens when a card doesn’t have much sales history to go by. Low-numbered parallels, rare inserts, and true 1/1 fit into this group, and figuring out their value can feel a little confusing at first. In these cases, you’ll need to know what to look for to estimate the card’s worth.

Using the Same Card of a Similar Player

The first method is to compare the 1 of 1 you’re trying to price with the same card from a similar player. Then you adjust the value based on how big the difference is between the two players’ markets. For example, if I want to figure out what a 2022 Stephen Curry Nebula Prizm in a PSA 9 might be worth, I can check if a LeBron James version of the same card has sold. Once I see that sale, I can adjust the price based on the gap between his market and Stephen Curry’s.

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Which card do you prefer: 2024 Donruss Optic Caleb Williams #201 Rated Rookie Black 1/1 PSA 8 or 2024 Donruss Optic JJ McCarthy #235 Rated Rookie Black 1/1 PSA 8?

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Finding a Similar Card from the Same Player in Another Set

Another method is to find a similar 1 of 1 from the same player but from a different set. Once you have that, you can adjust the value based on how the two sets compare in the market. Using the same Stephen Curry example, if I want to estimate the value of his 2022 Nebula Prizm in a PSA 9, I can look at his 2022 Optic Nebula or his 2022 Prizm Black. I may even be able to find his 2023 Nebula Prizm. From there, I can use the price difference between those sets to help estimate what the 2022 Prizm Nebula should be worth.

Outliers

It’s important to note that there are outliers to these methods, and several factors can affect whether the comparison you’re making is actually reliable. These factors can range from when the card last sold (since a player’s market or the overall hobby may have moved up or down since that sale) to how often the card hits the market. For example, if Stephen Curry’s Optic Nebulas or LeBron’s Prizm Nebulas sell a few times a year, but Curry’s Prizm Nebula rarely changes hands, the lack of availability could make it worth much more when it finally hits the market.

Another point to keep in mind is that different sets vary in popularity, so comparing a top set like Prizm to a less popular one like Mosaic can lead to very different results. Certain poses or images can also be more popular with collectors, which can make those cards tougher to use as reliable data points. Because of this, these methods should be used as general guidelines and not as a strict rule for pricing your cards.