You might be surprised. These could end up selling for $100+ each after 1-17 have been released. There will be people who missed out and may not have even known about them. Even if they sell for $100 each you would only have $500 invested in your set. You might even do better because the lost wacky binder could be the one that is really sought after?
It's all speculation but at $100 that is only $35 over the retail value so it's not a huge markup. No one knows yet. If these sold out in a couple minutes I would probably say they would sell easily over $100 each. I just don't think a lot of people know about this yet. There are a lot of collectors that don't even look at our forum.
I'll throw one more thing out. Remember when postcards had a run of 200. Quite a few unopened packs sold initially for around $200 on ebay. The draw was people missing out on the initial order. These binders have a lower QTY.
This debate about the future value of these and their investment opportunity is really hard to predict. To Brad's points, I could see the series 1-4 binders being worth more than their (arguably high) intial selling price. There are several things they have going for them:
1). Very low quantity - 150 is a very low number for something this elaborate and difficult to manufacture.
2). Original series sticker sets have far more monetary and sentimental value than ANS sets. If you look at the cost of the binder relative to the value of the stickers inside, it's easier to justify a one-time spend of $60 for a nice presentation book.
3). Roxanne's binders from years ago still command high prices on ebay, and these look to be far nicer and include unique inserts and a sketch card.
4). The long-term collector value of original series material seems stable, unlike ANS stuff that drops like a rock a few months after its release.
5). Once these are released and start showing up on ebay, there may be a high demand if they're really nice. Then people who ordered the later sets will feel obligated to pay whatever it takes to backfill the first 4 binders in their collection.
Of course, it all depends on how well these are made and if they inserts themselves have any perceived value. It's also hard to tell if the later series binders will be worth as much, as not as many people collected series 13-16 as kids and if you were only going to buy one set, I'd think it would be 1-4. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm in it because I really like having designed binders for my card sets; not for their resale value. But at this price, you'd hope that you could at least make your money back if you wanted to sell them later.
