Lebron Silver prizm craze??

[tjforce]

Been waiting to post my thoughts on this...

Compared to other cards in the market, the appreciation in LeBron silvers makes a ton of sense, and quite frankly, I've been waiting for it to happen.

Prizm is the Topps Chrome of this decade.

Disregarding rookie year, Lebron TC refractors seem to go in the range of $150-$300, with the exception of 2009, which is a $500 card.

We know the 2009 has 500 copies made, the only other year we know is 2007 with a run of 999.

I think its fair to say that the unnumbered years probably have a print run between 800-1500.

The consensus print run on 2012 Prizm Silver is 180. 2013 about 350. 2015 and 2016 around 1500. I don't recall what 2014 is, but my guess would be somewhere between 2013-2015, tilting towards the lower end of that range.

Through 2016, Prizm Silvers were as or more limited than TC refractors through 2008.

To me, it makes perfect sense that the prices are in the $100+ range for 2014-2016.

As for the 2013, raw copies still seem underpriced when you consider that the print run is still less than that of 2009 TC refractor.

Now the 2012, this a beast of it's own.

With a print run of 180, it's more rare than any Silver/base refractor out there by a wide margin. On top of that, it's starting to become an iconic card for this era.

When you take a look back at some of the MJ's from the 90's with low print runs that were from sought after sets, you can see the price potential here. $500 seems like a steal when this is the card everyone wants of the player everyone wants.

[Coug46n2]

I only have two Lebrons, a Topps BGS 9.5 RC and this one.

[CurryMeHome]

I bought a 2013 silver prizm Lebron early last year for around 8 bucks, must be worth at least 5 times that now.

[pejc300]

Originally Posted by CurryMeHome

I bought a 2013 silver prizm Lebron early last year for around 8 bucks, must be worth at least 5 times that now.

Um, you might want to check prices...

[jw8]

Originally Posted by CurryMeHome

I bought a 2013 silver prizm Lebron early last year for around 8 bucks, must be worth at least 5 times that now.

I'll give you $50 for it

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

[RogerGodahell]

Originally Posted by tjforce

Been waiting to post my thoughts on this...

Compared to other cards in the market, the appreciation in LeBron silvers makes a ton of sense, and quite frankly, I've been waiting for it to happen.

Prizm is the Topps Chrome of this decade.

Disregarding rookie year, Lebron TC refractors seem to go in the range of $150-$300, with the exception of 2009, which is a $500 card.

We know the 2009 has 500 copies made, the only other year we know is 2007 with a run of 999.

I think its fair to say that the unnumbered years probably have a print run between 800-1500.

The consensus print run on 2012 Prizm Silver is 180. 2013 about 350. 2015 and 2016 around 1500. I don't recall what 2014 is, but my guess would be somewhere between 2013-2015, tilting towards the lower end of that range.

Through 2016, Prizm Silvers were as or more limited than TC refractors through 2008.

To me, it makes perfect sense that the prices are in the $100+ range for 2014-2016.

As for the 2013, raw copies still seem underpriced when you consider that the print run is still less than that of 2009 TC refractor.

Now the 2012, this a beast of it's own.

With a print run of 180, it's more rare than any Silver/base refractor out there by a wide margin. On top of that, it's starting to become an iconic card for this era.

When you take a look back at some of the MJ's from the 90's with low print runs that were from sought after sets, you can see the price potential here. $500 seems like a steal when this is the card everyone wants of the player everyone wants.

Is that including retail or just hobby? The reason i ask is because the print run for this years Optic silver holo's in hobby are 600 but retail is unknown. Im guessing 1000 or so total between the two. Just wondering if retail was factored into these numbers for Prizm?

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by RogerGodahell

Is that including retail or just hobby? The reason i ask is because the print run for this years Optic silver holo's in hobby are 600 but retail is unknown. Im guessing 1000 or so total between the two. Just wondering if retail was factored into these numbers for Prizm?

From everything I've read, that number is all in print run.

If I'm correct these were only two per box back then and the overall base print run was much shorter.

[JMarchand1981]

Originally Posted by RogerGodahell

Is that including retail or just hobby? The reason i ask is because the print run for this years Optic silver holo's in hobby are 600 but retail is unknown. Im guessing 1000 or so total between the two. Just wondering if retail was factored into these numbers for Prizm?

Were silvers in retail in 12-13? Iirc and I may not, greens were retail. Silver and gold in hobby. Again, I was busting the hobby for the golds so my retail memory isn't great.

[goldkobe]

Originally Posted by tjforce

From everything I've read, that number is all in print run.

If I'm correct these were only two per box back then and the overall base print run was much shorter.

Does the 2012 silver 180 print run include all the different silvers, like mvp, us team etc? Or every version has 180?

Thank you

[Tarheelsfan2012]

Originally Posted by JMarchand1981

Were silvers in retail in 12-13? Iirc and I may not, greens were retail. Silver and gold in hobby. Again, I was busting the hobby for the golds so my retail memory isn't great.

See this is what I keep trying to remember. If they were in retail they wasn't a lot of them. I wish they took them out of retail since there's Prizms you can get.

[mr10pin]

Originally Posted by JMarchand1981

Were silvers in retail in 12-13? Iirc and I may not, greens were retail. Silver and gold in hobby. Again, I was busting the hobby for the golds so my retail memory isn't great.

Green only in retail...no silvers. Busted a case and half of retail when I built the Green set.

[JMarchand1981]

Originally Posted by Tarheelsfan2012

See this is what I keep trying to remember. If they were in retail they wasn't a lot of them. I wish they took them out of retail since there's Prizms you can get.

As an aside, since prizm silvers are all the rage, my kobe auto is now worth $200 according to an in person offer I received. Very generous as the rationale was that a standard kobe auto is $100 all day. Because the market for silvers is crazy, the offer was $200.

[JMarchand1981]

Originally Posted by mr10pin

Green only in retail...no silvers. Busted a case and half of retail when I built the Green set.

Ah ha! My memory serves me correctly.

[pejc300]

It's not often I get a steal at the LCS. Today, I got lucky. Paid $16 total for both of these:

[RogerGodahell]

Originally Posted by mr10pin

Green only in retail...no silvers. Busted a case and half of retail when I built the Green set.

That makes sense then why it's easier to figure out the print run.

[CurryMeHome]

Originally Posted by pejc300

Um, you might want to check prices...

I couldnt find any sold silver 2013-2014 , ballpark figure for value?

[dany85]

imho it is totally crazy about the recent spike in silver prizms...and i'd be curious to get other perspectives on what is driving demand.

from my limited perspective, i agree with folks that since 2012, prizm has been the topps chrome comparable. but, during that time, prizm has crafted a 'rainbow' of parallels, which i think has the effect of diluting their own value as more and more variations of the parallels are released each year. the recurring common stock of value, however, seems to be the silver. as the amount of variations expand, people are betting on the long term value of the silver.

on a quasi-related topic, i do wonder too whether we are experiencing another shift in the premium chrome product from prizm to optic this year, and whether this is having anything to do with the spike in the prizm sales. i don't want to start a debate on whether prizm or optic is better, but is this year's lbj optic holo outselling the prizm silver because of the lakers uniform? print run? or something else...and, (this is a little conspiracy theory-ee) to what extent does panini intentionally try to create ambiguity around the premium chrome product by designing this years optic to look almost identical to much beloved past topps chrome product, while running the presses with prizm? i'd think panini would prefer a market with diverging camps gobbling up both so they can sell more product.

[pejc300]

Originally Posted by CurryMeHome

I couldnt find any sold silver 2013-2014 , ballpark figure for value?

PSA 10 just did $1,000. Raw have been around $150, but that is before the craze, so my guess would be $300+

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by dany85

imho it is totally crazy about the recent spike in silver prizms...and i'd be curious to get other perspectives on what is driving demand.

from my limited perspective, i agree with folks that since 2012, prizm has been the topps chrome comparable. but, during that time, prizm has crafted a 'rainbow' of parallels, which i think has the effect of diluting their own value as more and more variations of the parallels are released each year. the recurring common stock of value, however, seems to be the silver. as the amount of variations expand, people are betting on the long term value of the silver.

on a quasi-related topic, i do wonder too whether we are experiencing another shift in the premium chrome product from prizm to optic this year, and whether this is having anything to do with the spike in the prizm sales. i don't want to start a debate on whether prizm or optic is better, but is this year's lbj optic holo outselling the prizm silver because of the lakers uniform? print run? or something else...and, (this is a little conspiracy theory-ee) to what extent does panini intentionally try to create ambiguity around the premium chrome product by designing this years optic to look almost identical to much beloved past topps chrome product, while running the presses with prizm? i'd think panini would prefer a market with diverging camps gobbling up both so they can sell more product.

I've been saying it for about 2 years now, people don't care if the Green, or Ruby, or whatever is more limited.

Collectors want the Silver, and this is what you're seeing.

[Cookies]

Originally Posted by goldkobe

Does the 2012 silver 180 print run include all the different silvers, like mvp, us team etc? Or every version has 180?

Thank you

I’ve read somewhere on blowout in the past that there were likely fewer Prizms/refractors for the inserts in 2012, but I don’t have patience to try to find that thread. I also don’t remember if there was any math proof to that or just speculation. If anyone wants to go digging I’d be interested to know more about this as well.

[KhalDrogo]

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=446293

One of the reasons why I am not a big fan of Panini is because they don’t publish the hit rates of their inserts. But if they think they can keep it secret, they are wrong. I calculated them myself

For everyone who wants to know how many boxes you theoretically need to buy to hit a Gold Prizm and for everyone who wants to know how many copies there are of the Prizm Refractors…


Just a quick word on how I calculated all this:
I collected basic data of almost 1000 2012-13 Panini Prizm Hobby box breaks which I found on various websites. Don't worry, it sounds like a lot of work, but it wasn't. Eventually I decided to base my calculations mainly on the data of case breaks, because the data of the separate box breaks was too much influenced by the fact that people, not surprisingly, were more likely to post their break if they had hit a big card, in this case a Gold Prizm.
Eventually, I could use 48 Prizm case breaks to do my calculations.

I will not go into deep detail here about the calculations, but if anyone is interested, just let me know.


TOTAL PRODUCTION
All calculations that I did, mainly based on the insert rate of the Gold Prizms and Autograph Prizms in the 48 case breaks, point towards a production of 1500 cases, 18000 boxes or 360000 packs of 2012-13 Panini Prizm Hobby.

GOLD PRIZMS /10
400 different Gold Prizm cards (300 base, 38 Finalists, 25 MVP, 25 Downtown Bound and 12 USA Basketball), so 4000 Gold Prizm cards in total. On average 2.67 Gold Prizms per case or a hit rate of 1:90 packs.

The 300 Base Gold Prizms come on average exactly 2 per case, at a hit rate of 1:120 packs.
The 100 Insert Gold Prizms come 0.67 per case, at a hit rate of 1:360 packs.
Finalists Prizms 1:947 packs.
MVP Prizms & Downtown Bound Prizms 1:1440 packs.
USA Basketball Prizms 1:3000 packs.

AUTOGRAPH PRIZMS /25
It turns out that Autograph Prizms are not only inserted in the Hobby boxes, but also in the Retail boxes. My data showed that every case held about 1.067 AU Prizms, or a hit rate of 1:225 packs, whereas the hit rate would have been 1:144 packs (or 1.67 per case) if all 2500 Autograph Prizm cards (100*25) would have been inserted in the Hobby boxes.
This would roughly mean that 1600 of the 2500 AU Prizms are inserted in Hobby and 900 are reserved for Retail.

BASE PRIZMS
As you know, the Prizms or Refractors in this product do not have a serial number.
Interestingly, almost every box of 2012-13 Panini Prizm contains exactly 3 Base Prizms. About 1 box out of 10 has 2 or 4 Base Prizms, but this equals out in the end. Base Prizm therefore has a hit rate of 1:6.7 packs.
This also means that there are 180 Prizms copies of every Base card!

INSERT SETS PRIZMS
This was hard to calculate because the data set was very limited. Therefore I can only give an indication of the rates for the 4 sets of Insert Prizms together (MVP, Downtown Bound, USA Basketball and Finalists). Insert Prizms have a hit rate of 1:60 packs (or 1:3 boxes) and that would mean that the Prizm Insert cards are limited to 60!

GREEN PRIZMS
Yeah, I would also like to know how many copies of the Green Prizms are out there. Unfortunately it is not possible to calculate this. There are no cards with a serial number in the 2012-13 Panini Prizm Retail boxes, so it is impossible to calculate how many boxes are produced (or will be produced!).
Just for your reference: it seems that there are 3-3.5 Green Prizms per box. That would mean a hit rate of 1:7-1:8 retail packs.
For the same reason it is not possible to calculate the total number of produced Base, Autograph and Insert sets.

Thanks for the read! Let me know if there are more numbers you would like to know.

Edit: info on Autograph Prizms /25 updated

[CurryMeHome]

Originally Posted by pejc300

PSA 10 just did $1,000. Raw have been around $150, but that is before the craze, so my guess would be $300+

Damn, crazy how this kind of thing can happen so fast. Just shows you never really know what card is next to go supernova on the market.

[Cookies]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=446293

Nice find! Thanks for doing that. So, am I reading this correctly that there are only about 60 silver Prizms of each 2012 insert? That seems so low.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by Cookies

Nice find! Thanks for doing that. So, am I reading this correctly that there are only about 60 silver Prizms of each 2012 insert? That seems so low.

His math seemed pretty good. Sounds low, but look through PWCC’s database and see just how infrequently these cards come up.

[Arianny_Fan]

So this is 1 out 60 printed? Bought this a year ago for $200. Wises purchase by me ever. Lol! Bought it because I loved the idea that it has Lebron in a USA jersey and I think it is his first refractor with him in a USA jersey.

I still dont get why Lebron silver prizms have shot up in value. I myself prefer topps/bowman chrome refractors/xfractors over Panini. To each his own I guess.

USA prizms refractor by Basketball Fiend, on Flickr