Holy Cow! A 1982 season basketball card set just sold for $485.00 on eBay this past Sunday. đŽI have been looking for out-of-print Strat-O-Matic basketball cards for over 20-years now on eBay and I have NEVER seen a set sell for north of $290.00. This must have been the "Holy Grail" set for whomever submitted the lone bid to win that auction. I can't come up with any other explanation for dropping that much dough on an out-of-print basketball card set.
Now, 1982 is one of the two seasons from the 80s that I do not possess, the other being the 1981 season. So, I was watching this particular auction with interest. My thought was that there is no way in hell anybody is going to make the opening bid price of $485.00. I figured that I would wait until the final day of the auction and then make on offer based upon what I think is a fair price for that set, $300.00. Imagine my surprise, and disappointment, when I saw that somebody had actually met the opening bid price. Alas, I would not be adding the 1982 season set to my collection. đ
This got me thinking about the sad state of affairs when it comes to the availability of past seasons for the Strat-O-Matic basketball board game. There are currently only fourteen seasons available from Strat-O-Matic for the basketball board game, 1999 - 2000, 2003 - 2007, and 2017 to present (after the 2023 season drops near the end of October). When the original printing of a season set sells out, that's it. Strat-O-Matic does not print any additional sets to restock the sold-out season.
That's too bad, considering that in today's day and age the ability exists to digitalize these out-of-print card sets and to either offer printed sets via print on demand, or to simply offer PDF files of those sets, which purchasers could print and cut out on their own. Instead, out-of-print of Strat-O-Matic basketball card sets are only available on the secondary market, which results in scarcity, and in turn exorbitant prices.
