It probably will not shock you to read that newer releases of hockey cards are the hottest on eBay in terms of both number of sales and number of listings. That might be generally apparent, but I have attempted to actually measure the difference in action for cards relative to when they were released. I captured data from eBay searches on January 5, 2021 for each of the last 64 hockey seasons and noted how many hockey card listings of any type had sold in the previous three months and how many listings were currently available.* Here are the number of listings that sold in the previous three months for each season (click to enlarge for all charts):
And here are the active listings:
The dominance of the very newest cards, especially when it comes to successful sales, is even more pronounced than I had anticipated. The 2020-21 collecting season is still quite young but sales were already nearly twice as plentiful as 2018-19 cards. And while 2019-20 is still squarely in the lead for number of sales, the rate at which 19-20 listings are getting sold pales in comparison to 2020-21: 2019-20 completed sales are 55% of the active listings, while 2020-21 has sold 118% compared to active listings.
The recency effect drops off dramatically when you get to those ancient 2018-19 cards, which sold only a third as many cards as 2019-20 despite a nearly equal supply being available. The number of sales then gradually tails off through 2013-14. Sales and listings then both plateau at similar levels from 2012-13 all the way to 1990-91. (2004-05 looks odd due to the NHL lockout and subsequent lack of cards released.)
Available cards then take a steep nose-dive in 1989-90 and then stay in the same ballpark going back to 1970-71. Then in the ’60s and ’50s, there are not many cards available, and the ones that do get listed have a high likelihood of selling.
Here is a different way of looking at the same data:
All these numbers jive with my experience both selling and buying cards. The closer to a set’s release, the more success I’ve had moving my own listings and finding the cards I want to buy for my own collection. For example, I decided around a year ago to focus on collecting every version of Henrik Lundqvist O-Pee-Chee cards going back to 2008-09, and I’ve kept a close on eye on those listings ever since. I still need plenty of cards up until 2017-18, but 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 have been completed or nearly completed quickly. 2020-21 was the first year that I was really on top of the hunt immediately at the set’s release, and I had all of those cards taken care of in a few weeks. On the selling side, I’ve had comparable numbers of 2015-16 and 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee base cards available on SportLots, and have sold 42 and 867 cards respectively.
It is ironic that a hobby with a strong element of nostalgia is hyper-focused on whatever is shiny and new! At the same time, it makes sense that there are scores of potential buyers at a set’s release since no one has any in their collection yet. And it stands to reason that many new cards quickly funnel their way to personal collections to stay for the long haul.
*The search terms I used on eBay followed this format for each season: (2020-21,20-21,2020/21,20/21). Results were filtered to only include listings in the Sports Trading Cards–Ice Hockey Cards category. There is sure to be some static in the results, such as sellers listing in the wrong category, not listing the season or listing it incorrectly, reprints being counted for the year of the original card and not the reprint, etc.
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