The fear of many collectors is the flooding of new types of parallels into products, not only does it make the true colors harder to hit but the alternative renditions of colors tend to sell for far less. An alternative pattern parallel which this article will be focused on is referencing a waves, disco, choice, lava, speckle, shimmer, bubbles, and ice cards. However could it be that people are not upset about the additions of these alternative pattern parallels flooding the market but rather that they are not liked by the masses for uninspiring lazy designs?

My hypothesis is that peoples issue whether they know it or not is with patterns having horrid to mediocre designs, NOT there being too many of them. This is in comparison to the counterpart of the true color parallels, based upon the markets reaction (sales prices).

The true color rivals all is what we are told, and it is/has been accepted as a fact in the card collecting + investing community. You will take a true color over a wave or disco any day of the week. As seen below, the prices in a card with the same numbering, grade, and color is drastic just because the pattern is different.

Except for one alternative parallel, that being Topps Sapphire and Panini Ice parallels. That is by far the best looking of the alternative designs & the sales of cards reflect that, in some case outselling the true colors. Which none of the alternative pattern parallels do for any product.

(old sales dates on some is so I could find ones that sold in a close time frame)

From Luka to Paolo with players like Tatum, Cade, Mitchell, Trae, and many more not shown while doing research in-between the blue ice (lowest # ice) sells consistently for more than their true color counterparts for Prizm.

The same can be said for contenders ice autographs and sapphire golds for some of the best and brightest players across all sports. While this is all my opinion on how the design's of patterns look but the sales reflect this.

So what do you think? Too many pattern parallels or just not enough good ones?