Sealed and Delivered: SCI Announces Wax Pricing on Its Market Movers Tool

In an effort to keep up with the ever-evolving needs of sophisticated collectors, Sports Card Investor is pleased to announce that sealed wax boxes from various sports across numerous years are now being monitored on SCI’s invaluable Market Movers application. 

The addition of sealed wax to the tally means a database that was already tracking more than 200,000 individual cards would be adding 100s of boxes of basketball, baseball and other sports cards to the robust roster, a pioneering move in the card-collecting space. 

“Sealed wax has been on our radar for a long time,” says Tyler Nethercott, SCI’s VP of Data and Operations. “Our primary objective has and will continue to be having the world’s most comprehensive sports card database. That starts and ends with singles, but wax is a huge part of the hobby as well and is something we are all bullish on from an investment perspective. We have been rapidly scaling our cards database in the last six months which enabled us to move on to prioritizing sealed wax and all the same great features we offer for cards.”

Nethercott is right. The timing could not be any better for a comprehensive look at wax. As the card-collecting explosion has played out over the last two years, prices for unopened boxes have also taken off. Here at the SCI office, in fact, we remember buying 2019 Prizm Basketball blasters for $59.99 at retailers in February ‘20. Those same boxes were going for $265 on eBay in August ‘21. 

For another example of the incredible journey that sealed boxes have been on lately, look no further than 2020 Noir Basketball. Back on July 2, a box of 2020 Noir Basketball sold for just over $1,300. But in the past few months, the classy-but-somewhat-underrated set has grown in popularity. On August 16, a sealed box sold for right at $2,000, roughly a 54% increase.

The Nethercott-led development team and SCI’s director of data Parker Michel have been working on the database for months. “Software development is always a balancing act between being quick to market but also set up to scale,” says Nethercott. “Essentially, we decided to build a ‘parallel Market Movers’ for sealed wax which, as you can imagine, was no small feat. We believe that having access to this data going forward will be a game changer for our members.” 

Like with the popular sports card interface, Market Movers’ sealed box layout will allow hobbyists to keep up with wax prices every day. They can also spot trends in the industry and select boxes to keep a closer eye on in their collection. Simplicity and functionality are at the heart of every move on the app. 

“As we have considered adding sealed wax, non-sports cards and even potentially other collectibles like comics or NFTs,” says Nethercott, “we wanted to make sure we were being intentional about the overall architecture of Market Movers to ensure that the user experience will be clean and easy to use as the application’s suite of offerings grows.”

Michel says the launch will be highlighted by classics (like the incomparable ’86 Fleer box) and more contemporary entries such as 2019 Bowman Chrome Baseball and 2020 Obsidian Football. You’ll also find niche products like 2018 Topps Chrome Champions League Soccer and 2021 Select UFC on Market Movers. Every week the crew will add more boxes to the system, giving collectors the tool they’ve needed to help them make well-informed buying/selling/holding decisions.

“It feels good to give our members yet another competitive advantage in the sports card market,” says Michel. This is just the beginning, though.”