A new breed of whale

[Yankeefan51]

We have been avid collectors of rare, high grade condition baseball cards and memorabilia (not balls, bats, uniforms or autographs) for 35 years. The focus of our efforts has enabled us to undertake transactions with many a plethora of collectors who spent large amounts of money on their hobby. We have witnessed more than a dozen whales ($1 million a year for two+ years) come ago.

It is evident that a new "whale" has entered our little ocean. He or she has an eye for greatness and a pocket filled with cash.

The dramatic rise in the best Negro League items, evidenced by the Merkin Collection (Hake) and selected other auctions suggests that our new whale is not going to be stopped by high prices. We have bid against him in six auctions, and we have only one two of fourteen lots.

We are attempting to learn more about the new big fish in town.


Your comments are always welcomed.


Bruce
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com
America's Toughest Want List

[bcbgcbrcb]

Bruce:

Your record is better than mine, 0-for-7 last night and 0-for-14 since the start of these rediculous prices several months ago. I certainly can't compete although I was close as the underbidder on 3 of the items last night (Crawfords photo, Willie Foster photo & X-Mas Card, not too far behind on the Punch - Mendez either), as we all know, close only counts in horseshoes. I doubt that bidding another increment or two higher would have changed anything except to drive up the final sale prices.

Also, not sure if it was a bad scan or what, but the exposure on the Chicago American Giants postcard that went for $15K seemed to be really off. Did anyone else notice this?

[glchen]

Is it known that this is a new collector that has entered the market and not an old whale (a la, someone like Olbermann or Don Spence) expanding his collection to new areas?

[egbeachley]

I would see this as an opportunity to sell high and then when the whale inevitably leaves, and prices go down, repurchase similar items for less.

[Matt]

I think we had this thread already a month ago.


It is evident that a new "whale" has entered our little ocean. He or she has an eye for greatness and a pocket filled with cash.


Why do you presume there is only 1? Could be 3 or 4 new players.

[wonkaticket]

Why is it that when cards go for more than certain folks assume they will go for, it’s chalked up to “whales” or some other silly title as the cause for a price increase?

Can’t it simply be that the market is bearing an increase in a category and the prices are reflecting just that an increase?

I used to be able to get all sorts of things for way below what I pay today for certain things sometimes that’s just the nature of the beast. While I think a few folks can have an effect on prices in a market they can’t be totally responsible for all market swings.

I also think a lot of folk speculate about this stuff because many of these items have passed them by and they are looking for an excuse or something to make them feel better about losing. Bottom line I stopped caring about certain items long ago because they have simply passed me by.

I don’t put a lot of thought or think that if a few folks fell out of any mix I’m snagging T206 Wagner’s in VG for a 100k again. If there are a few guys keeping me from having my Wagner at an affordable price to me please let me know who they are….

You know in Philly as the ol’ Italians say hey accidents happen all the time… (Sorry spent the weekend watching the Godfather trilogy again).

Cheers,

John

P.S. Bruce your list keeps asking for this card quite a few have gone off FYI.

http://www.goodwinandco.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=18542

[barrysloate]

There certainly could be more than one collector going after the Negro League stuff. Look, it's a marketplace, and there are people willing to spend a lot of money to get the best material. It's always been like that and always will be. If you want the best stuff you have to be prepared to pay up for it.

[triwak]

I just hate the timing aspect of this. Was sorta hoping to "complete" my HOF set in the next year or two, and I'm only lacking 4-5 Negro Leaguers. They appear to be out of reach for the time being. Aw well, patience...:rolleyes:

[Preece1]

I don't see any new "whales", I just think the "deals" that could be had on the negro league material are gone now that 1) more people have become interested in the amazing negro league players, and 2) people are finally starting to realize how rare this material is compared to like major league material. Take the Mendez Puch card in the Hakes auction; a great hall of famer where there are only two copies of his rookie card in existence, one with a backing and the one without that was just auctioned off. Given this level of rarity, was < $30K out of market? Another example is the Crawford Josh Gibson photo from 1928. This item beats by 3 years any other photo of Josh Gibson and it also went for under $30K. Are these items, and like bids out of market given the relative scarcity?

[aljurgela]

I won the Punch Mendez and the Billiken Charleston and a couple other items, but I am much more of a dolphin than a whale and already have an extensive negro league/cuban card collection - not a new entrant. I was extremely surprised at some of the strength of some of the pricing (punch padron and chicho)... but the cards, for all of the talk, are still quite reasonabley priced, IMO. As someone else mentioned, when there are only two "rookie" cards of Mendez, is $30k really that high? My sense is that if we did a poll, we would find many distinct winners of the carrs and I am still of the opinion that most of the cuban issues from 1909 to 1928 are undervalued. Just my two cents.

I think that the story is different with the the strength in the photos/postcards. I believe this to be mainly due to a new entrant. On the photos, I have serious doubt if anyone had a legitimate shot of winning any photo of quality these days. It seems that any photo around the historical pricing is immediately bid up beyond the historical pricing by 20% before the acution really starts.

On the other hand, I have seen nothing close to the quality of the Willie Foster photograph nor the importance of the Josh Gibson Crawfords photo. You could certainly make a case that these pieces went low, but I am not as comfortable placing value on photographs when compared to cards. I was the underbidder on the CAG postcard and was very nervous of my bid, but when I was immediately outbid it was clear to me that it did not matter what I bid on the postcard, I was going to lose.

Bottom line to me... if you like the cards, you still have a shot.... if you want photos... you may have to wait. I am seriously thinking of listing the photos that I have...

[wonkaticket]

Patrick very well said I agree 100%.

Al congrats on the amazing items and kudos to you.

Cheers,

John

[aljurgela]

Thanks John. I am excited about getting the cards and I think that your take on the value side of the equation is right. You just can't get this stuff for what you used to. If you did a search of all the great negro league stuff that sold in the 1998-2005 range you would be shocked at how much prices have risen....

But if we look at baseball cards as stocks (which by the way, I think is a dangerous way to look at any hobby), we may want to consider the "market cap" of certain players.

For those not from a finance background, the market cap is defined as the number of shares times the value of those shares. This is one way to compare companies and quickly can make a company with a $500/share price look "cheap" when compared to a $5/share company (along with other analytics like PE/growth, etc).

Of course there are "desirability" issues that make things more complex (collectors would prefer one issue over another) and card grading that make this analysis even more difficult... but the pretense is basically... "how much would ALL of the cards of X player cost to accumulate". This can be estimated, at least in an order of magnitude basis. Let's take the Mendez - who appears on more issues than any other NL HOFer from the era as an example - I will slightly overestimate the average "valuation" NL (and underestimate a modern star) prices to make a point (parenthesis are the number of graded copies as of today):

1910 Punch (2): 1 at 30k, 1 at 70k = 100k
1923-24 Billiken (9): 9 at 10k = 90k
1923-24 Nacionales (9): 9 at 8k = 72k
1923-24 Tomas Guitierrez (4): at 4 at 12.5k = 50k
1924-25 Aguilitas (8): 8 at 5k = 40k

Total value of all graded Mendez cards: < $400k
% of Mendez cards that are graded: 66%
Total value of Jose Mendez cards: $600k


This implies that the value of all the Mendez cards in existence would be roughly $600k. Is this high, is this low? It only matters as it compares to other players of the same caliber. Who would be a similar point of comparison? Why don't we pick Satchel Paige (as he has a dearth of cards issued during his playing time):

1948 Leaf: (SGC 40 –can’t find this actual # PSA 118 – 150 estimate): 150 at 5k = $750k
1953 Topps: (SGC 334, PSA 1,657 – 1,991 – 2000 estimate): 2000 at 200 = $400k

Total value of Satchel Paige graded cards: $1,150k
% of Paige cards that are graded: 80% - rough market cap $1.4 million

The next part of the analysis is: the relative valuation 1.4/.6mm. Was Satchel Paige more than “twice” the pitcher that Mendez was? I am not sure, but it does not seem unreasonable. Is Satchel undervalued? Is Mendez overvalued? These are relative decisions and will be highly dependent on your own assumptions.

Of course, these are all opinions and can only be best seen under a more thorough analysis using the metrics that individuals deem as appropriate.
When you try this with any comparable HOFers (Pop Lloyd to Wagner, Charleston to Mays), you may arrive at the conclusion that many cards are undervalued of the NLers, as I have. Then again, you may not.

Good luck.

[bcbgcbrcb]

IMHO, the biggest bargain on the other hand in Hake's was the 1943 Roy Campanella Mexican League RPPC, I would have expected that one to go for 3-4 X the ending price of just over $1K.

[Matt]

Al - congrats on the Billiken Charleston - I was the underbidder. Given the trimming, I was expecting it to go under where it did.

Your market cap angle is interesting; certainly a different way to look at things. Of course, to your question at the end - "Was Satchel Paige more than “twice” the pitcher that Mendez was?" presumes that the quality of the player is the driver for discrepancy in market cap; obviously things like how many people collect a given issue also feed heavily into the demand for a player - no doubt there are more 1948 Leaf and 1953 Topps set collectors then there are Punch/Billiken/Aguilitas collectors, so the pool of total dollars available for Paige is certainly going to be much higher then it is for Mendez.

[e107collector]

Hi Al, congrats on the pickup's. Very nice cards.

Do you or any other board member know how many Punch Cobb and Eddie Plank cards there are?

I think there are 2 Cobb's, but I never saw a Plank before. Can someone post a pic?

Thanks,
Tony

[wonkaticket]

Al, well said and really good points I enjoyed that post!

Cheers,

John

[atx840]

Plank second group, second in.

[aljurgela]

Matt,

I actually have the belief that this card is not trimmed, but it is hard to know until I get it in hand, so I might have SGC look at it again with many other copies of the Billikens that they have graded. The image in much better than the one that I currently have and the SGC 60 that I traded away last year.

On the "market cap idea"... of course, this is just a general discussion and your analysis on the Leaf and the 1953 Topps is the right one. If people prefer these sets, this will cloud the analysis.... as will card grading .... as will the assumptions of what percentages of cards from an issue are graded vs not.... as will the quality of the card stock (if there is just one beater of one player of equal stature and just one nice copy of the comparable player from the same issue, we would incorrectly assess those cards as equally valuable based on the number of available copies).... at the end, we end up where we began....

Value is relative and subject to interpretation. And the intrepretation of myself (and at least a few other collectors) is that the negro league stuff is rare and has room on the upside, even at these high prices.

Another interesting conversation is where do people go after they have completed their Leaf and 1953 Topps sets? These rare issues - especially the phtographic Punch, Billikens and Aguilitas are amazing. Every time I bring out one of these to people who have never seen them the reaction is the same: "Wow, that's so cool". It is. For many years the 1948 Leaf Paige was my dream card and when I got it, I said "now what?" I think these cards blow away any of the other stuff I used to collect.

This is just my take.

[benchod]

Hi Al,
congrats on the Mendez and Charleston.
The image on that Charleston is fantastic

[Matt]

Matt,

I actually have the belief that this card is not trimmed, but it is hard to know until I get it in hand, so I might have SGC look at it again with many other copies of the Billikens that they have graded. The image in much better than the one that I currently have and the SGC 60 that I traded away last year.


No doubt it has a strong image, but the whole bottom border is missing - compare it with other Billikens.

http://www.hakes.com/product_images/14/100553/001_big.jpghttp://www.legendaryauctions.com/LotImages/54/85055a_lg.jpeg
http://www.legendaryauctions.com/LotImages/21/18991_lg.jpeghttp://www.hakes.com/product_images/14/100556/001_big.jpg

[wonkaticket]

http://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn3/junkforumimages/39489a%20copy.jpghttp://photos.imageevent.com/piojohn3/junkforumimages/websize/leisure-suit-larry-magna-cum-laude-20041004025837271%20copy.jpg

[cozmokramer]

Bruce:

Your record is better than mine, 0-for-7 last night and 0-for-14 since the start of these rediculous prices several months ago. I certainly can't compete although I was close as the underbidder on 3 of the items last night (Crawfords photo, Willie Foster photo & X-Mas Card, not too far behind on the Punch - Mendez either), as we all know, close only counts in horseshoes. I doubt that bidding another increment or two higher would have changed anything except to drive up the final sale prices.

Also, not sure if it was a bad scan or what, but the exposure on the Chicago American Giants postcard that went for $15K seemed to be really off. Did anyone else notice this?

Phil - did you say that close only counts in horseshoes? I believe that it close would count with hand grenades as well...

[bcbgcbrcb]

You're right, I knew there was another comparison that I left out.

[mannybb24]

I think what Al is trying to say is that the Charleston was factory cut that way and not actually trimmed.
I have seen many Billikens and Al has seen many more, and they do come in various shapes and sizes.

Damn Al, how come our conversations are never this in depth as your posts are here, you're a freakin genius! LOL

Unfortunately I was also shut out of Hakes this go around but a little birdie told me there is so much more to the Merkin Collection, Hakes could stretch this process out for the next several years.
So I would not whine about not getting anything now--just think, you'll have even more money to spend in their next auction.

Congrats again to Al and to anyone else that came away with something from Hakes.

[usernamealreadytaken]

Why does the pirate have his hand in his pants?

[Preece1]

At the end of the day Bruce, I think this post has shown that there are no new whales and the main items here went to collectors that have been in the hobby for a while. The Mendez went to Al, I took the Crawford photo of Gibson, and the other items that brought big dollars also went to collectors that haven't jumped in yet here and I won't out them, but they are long time Negro League collectors.

[aljurgela]

Sorry Steve... you understand correctly... I meant that I believe that the Charleston is factory cut and not really trimmed. At least that is my hypothesis. Let's see. Regardless the image is fantastic.

The more that I hear from different collectors who bid in Hakes... I believe that Patrick is right... there was a pretty wide spreading of the peanut butter here... lots of different winners.

This seems to indicate that this section of market is moving up as it has a pretty broad base of support...