Panini Optic · Mid-tier auto · Great value · about a year
Optic Rated Rookie Auto is one of 75 card types scored in The Card Investor, filed under autographs.
Appreciation 78 with liquidity 82 is the combination worth looking for: room left to run, and a market deep enough that you could act on a change of mind. It's also the combination that attracts the most competition, which is usually why accessibility is the score that suffers.
Accessibility of 45 means you'll pay somewhat over the sensible number but not absurdly so. Worth watching, because this score moves faster than any of the other three.
Set against the 10 autograph card types scored here, its appreciation of 78 ranks 9th of 10, liquidity 82 ranks 2nd, accessibility 45 ranks 1st, and risk 28 is the 4th-lowest. The closest thing to it on the numbers is Contenders Rookie Ticket Auto, which scores 90 and 90 on the same two axes — if you're weighing one against the other, the difference is in the reasoning rather than the scores.
A one-year horizon means you're betting on a single body of work — one season, essentially. That's a much narrower bet than a career, and it should be sized like one.
Risk is scored 28, toward the low end of anything in the tool. Low risk in trading cards is still not low risk in any sense your bank would recognise — it means the identifiable ways for this to go wrong are fewer, not that they're absent.
Every entry gets four separate scores instead of one grade, because a single grade hides the thing you needed. Full explanation in the guide: what Kabooms, Downtowns and Color Blasts are worth.
Or browse all card types · how these scores are built