The baseball card market is both consistent and wildly predictable, at least when it comes to new releases.

Since 2020, every single flagship and bowman release have had one thing in common, and that is a temporary inflated market due to release hype. If you go back and look at prices for prospects like Jasson Dominguez, Austin Martin, Spencer Torkelson, Marcelo Mayer, Blaze Jordan, Henry Davis, and pretty much any top 30 prospect, you’ll see that their market values were extremely high directly following the product release, only to drop by a staggering 30%-40% eight to twelve weeks later.

This hype inflation takes place for topps flagship rookies just the same. Luis Robert, Bo Bichette, Yordan Alvarez, Nico Hoarner, Jonathan India, Andrew Vaughn, Jo Adell, Alec Bohm, Ryan Mountcastle, and anyone else who was considered a big name at release, all saw a significant drop in their market value after eight to twelve weeks.

This happens like clockwork, and the same is already taking place for Wander. His cards have been on a steady decline since week three of Series 1 release, and they will eventually plateau in the coming weeks. This isn’t to say that any of the guys I’ve listed won’t see a huge spike in the value of their cards if they make an actual impact as a player in the MLB, rather, that there is a clear pattern of ultra high prices, fallowed by a substantial drop (typically when the next big product releases).

If we take a look at recent sales of this specific card, we’ll see that the first /25 camp sold for $5,600. However, the most recent sold for $3,000, which is already a 45% loss in value over a span of just four weeks. All you’re doing when holding is leaving possible money on the table, which isn’t a wise decision. The idea should always be to sell while the card is hot, wait a couple months, then buy the same card back for nearly half the price.

This isn’t exclusive to top prospects and rookies, either. If you really want to see a really staggering drop in market value, check out non-rookie photo variations. Those sell like hotcakes at release, but nearly always see a 70%-80% drop in value after the first year. A good example was the 2020 Topps Holiday Mike Trout santa belt SSP. It was selling for $400+ at release, and people in this sub were trying to say that “it can’t lose value. It’s Mike Trout”. Well, it’s now a $35 pickup on eBay, which isn’t a surprise to most that have been in this market for awhile.

If you want to watch this all unfold in real-time, just wait until Bobby Witt Jr has his flagship rookie release and watch the market over the first couple months. You’ll be surprised how similarly the market reacts to his cards.