Interesting Website re: Letters between Burdick and Carter

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Posted By: <b>Dan Bretta</b><p><a href="http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/burdickletters.html" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/burdickletters.html</a><br /><br />A fun read for those interested in the hobby pioneers.

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>Thanks for posting the link. For anyone interested in the history of our beloved hobby, before the God forsaken money, this is some great reading....best regards

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>This should be required reading for the so-called self-proclaimed "backbone of the hobby" guys who look down at their noses at guys who are in the hobby for all the right reasons.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>So Nagy was willing to pony up $150 for his Wagner against a book value of $50. See what happens when you overpay? When he was forced to sell it, he only got $450,000 for it.<br /><br />The book Orem was writing in 1961 was "Baseball 1845-1881." He had to publish it himself and it had poor distribution. But it is a classic reference book and every collector should have a copy of it. It's on ebay pretty regularly if you don't have one (should set you back about $35 or so).

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Posted By: <b>Mark L</b><p>Barry, <br />I was especially impressed by how much the card had appreciated in the first 10 years. When I first met Nagy, in 1971, he told me that someone that very day had offered to trade him a new station wagon for his Wagner. I think he also said that someone once offered him several thousand dollars for it, but he didn't think it was a serious offer.<br />

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Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>$150 for an old baseball card in 1961 was a big leap. Only someone really committed to the hobby would have taken the plunge.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Good thing he didn't trade the card for the car.<br /><br />The money the card brought today could almost get you a 1955 Mercedes 300SL with the gull wings. That's better than a station wagon!

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Posted By: <b>peter chao</b><p>Barry,<br /><br />It's not a matter of overpaying or underpaying and it's not a matter of money. It's a matter of being one step ahead of the next hot collectible. I rant and rave about it all the time.<br /><br />Just use your hobby experience and common sense. A case in point is the T206 Wagner that just sold for 2.35 million. Let's say we just saw that sale go through. I would look at the fact that it took approximately 7 yrs. for the Wagner to almost double in value.<br /><br />My next investment move would be to sell my T206 Hall of Famers, the reason for this is that most of my Hall of Famers more than doubled during the 7 year span. So instead of seeing the sale of the Wagner as a bullish sign, I would look at that as a sign to sell.<br /><br />Also, I would not at the sale of the Wagner as a sign that I should be buying T206 commons. If T206 Hall of Famers are going down then pre-war guys will be buying T206 commons.<br /><br />Barry, am I way off base here.<br /><br />Peter

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Peter- I've never been real good at predicting the ups and downs of the card market. I just buy 'em and sell 'em.<br /><br />But if you bought a Wagner for $150 and sold it 40 years later for $450,000, it looks like you did quite well.