With the offseason upon us in Huddle, we are starting to see bolder patterns of releasing cards, especially lower count inserts and marathons that look to have EXTREME value overall. I have been curious to see how they perform, and so far, they are working out very well on the secondary market trade economy.

With low count Marathons like Limited or Signature Series, things tend to be high profile and visible for a long period of time. For a chase set, im not sure that is the case. SWCT has had some very low variants released in certain sets, and only a small portion of them remain insanely valuable after the fact. Im not going to say they are worthless by any means, as low count cards are always valuable. Im saying they arent AS valuable as they were.

I categorize chase sets as releases that are only available for a shorter period of time, like a week or a few weeks. In some cases, the value of the crazy rare inserts remains high, as its clear that the popularity of the set will remain in the trade consciousness of the community. Sets like Nightbrothers come to mind.

Other sets dont have the longevity to maintain a huge value, and low parallels might drop off quickly after the set is complete. Huddle’s High Tek is a great example of this, despite how much I love that set. People seem to be uninterested in the 10 and 25 count versions of the top guys at the value a card of that count should be worth, and im not entirely sure why?

The release of Topps Mood lately is an interesting case, because it has 1/1 parallels along side the rare variants. Huddle did 1/1 gold legend signatures earlier in the offseason, and those really havent held up as much as I expected they would. Im intrigued to see the long term value of the set piece cards, knowing that the super rare Cam Newton signatures are selling for over 100 bucks a pop (a rarity in Huddle).

As a whole, I like when Variants are used to offer something added to the chase, and in a super premium set scenario, it can make buying packs and bundles more profitable in the long run. At the same time, I dont like when variants are used to extend out a program without consideration for added content, especially if little to nothing is changed in the card’s design. This could also be a reason why some low count chase set parallels dont hold well, especially if users dont see the reason to acquire the card in addition to others they also have.

When you think about the reason for participation that most users have, there are always very interesting ways that people consider value. If you can pick out the sets that people are clamoring for and will continue to clamor for, it becomes a chase to stock your collection with cards you know will hold value for a long period of time.