Baseball set attendance records this year. You wouldn’t know from the old men complaining on this board though.

Jawlines
 

.. that jawline cries out for caricature


http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...CHARDS_NEW.JPG

Is this data wrong? Attendance seems to have receded over time. https://www.statista.com/statistics/...lb-since-2006/

Ha yes I remember that. Another gem he likes to say is, when there's a three ball count, "See, what you really don't wanna do if you're the pitcher is walk the batter here." Really John? Thanks for that...

exactly???? what is the purpose of the comment to this group? definitely not well recieved.

Gee, didn't we just have a thread about Wagner cards going up ?

And didn't Mantle cards get pumped up and were particularly hot during the recent boom ?

What goes up too fast has a better chance of falling when the hype is over. See what '86 Fleer Jordan's have done lately.

The argument in favor of Wagner is the scarcity. Not quite so with the Mick. I just hope T206's can hold steady-ish.

Markets go up and markets go down and sometimes they stagnate. Trees don't grow to the sky as they say on the Street.

It's funny that there are people on the board who are always crying things are about to crash to the floor, and other who can't force themselves to admit that prices have dropped on a lot of vintage.

For that lack of a better expression, it is what it is. A time of financial uncertainty for a lot of people. Enjoy what you have and chill on the sidelines for a while if need be. A financial friend told me that the average American has a surplus of $8 in their check account right now.

Hobby still an enjoyable place to spend some time and admire cool baseball stuff. I've learned in recent years to enjoy cool stuff no matter the value or the price.

Guess there a bunch of ways to measure these things.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...spike-30-years

https://www.wbsc.org/en/news/basebal...se-in-20-years

Am I an old man on the forum? I'm curious how old you think I am, and also why you would even think that's relevant to the data which is pretty easily quantified and not exactly subjective?

Overall viewership is drastically down from where it peaked in the 70s when baseball was still the most popular sport in the country. Now it's barely top three. Attendance numbers are up this year only compared to the pandemic years, and are down compared with every year from 2004 through 2017. But that's just a measure of local fanbases (plus urban population growth), not overall popularity of the sport which I would guess will be a better indicator of the collector market moving forward. That last part's just an opinion, but the overall stats on the declining popularity of baseball are just facts, like it or not.

The data I've seen shows the numbers are fairly level around 70 million tickets per season for every year since the mid to late 90s. The numbers are up this year compared with the past few pandemic years, but things have been fairly consistent year to year. But that's despite pretty significantly growing urban populations and overall population, while attendance in other sports has grown quite a bit during a comparable period. Overall viewership however is way down. World Series games drew over 30 million viewers per game in the late 70s, down to under 10 million/game this year.

Those are MLB propaganda articles bragging about record setting one-year increases relative to the pandemic years (which they don't mention). I take it you're not a data scientist in your day job?

And for the record, I wasn't predicting a drop in the card market, I was asking for folks' opinions on the extent to which overall baseball popularity (which is objectively on a downward trend when you take more than a one year view) is strongly coupled to the card market value. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on this question.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybr...vertisers/amp/

No doubt more propaganda.

The price of a '52 Mantle in "8" grade dropping doesn't affect me because that card in that condition is so far out of my collecting budget stratosphere that it means nothing.

What would be interesting to see is if this trickles down to the lower grades. If 1s and 2s are impacted by similar percentage drops, then that would be an interesting correlation. In that case, my guess would be the entire card market is dropping back. As I always mention in these threads, I couldn't care less because it's card board and not part of an "investment" portfolio (to me).

The second screen in Ryan's post are PSA 2 numbers.

My favorite quote from this article (typo is theirs, not mine) had to be “I was is unable to independently verify the totals as source data is not within the report.” :-) As a lifelong baseball fanatic, I do hope you are right and I am wrong, so honestly I’m routing for your side of this discussion! Makes me very sad to think baseball popularity is on the decline, and I’d be thrilled if the article you shared is correct. Though I have no clue (and this article doesn’t really clarify) how advertisers measure value, and if it really has anything to do with the actual popularity or engagement with the sport.

Which auction house was the last 52 topps mantle psa 8 which sold for under a million?

I don't think collectors necessarily feel the need to watch baseball so much as they appreciate it. Speaking for myself, I almost never watch MLB games anymore. I might catch an inning or two of a few playoff games here or there, but I haven't sat down to watch a full game in decades. I do watch highlights with some degree of regularity, and I do pay attention to player stats throughout the season, but that's about it. I simply don't have time to watch baseball games, and even if I did, I could find a thousand other things I'd rather be doing. However, I watch dozens of full NBA and NFL games every year. I even watch full soccer matches during the world cup. But my collection is probably ~60% baseball and ~40% basketball, with less than 1% other sports. There's just something nostalgic about baseball cards that other sports don't offer. I'll continue to collect them even if I never watch another game of baseball on TV in my entire life (a fairly high likelihood).

Goldin. Just last month.

..

Thanks for this input! I believe my situation is similar to what you describe, for me the love of the game has become more about the history and the nostalgia than it is about continuing to watch every game. Though I did watch quite a bit more this past season, and probably was part of the increase in popularity this past season referred to by the previous poster (pitch clock change, crazy buzz around Ohtani, and several other factors also had a lot to do with that bump I'd assume, will be interesting to see if it continues). But I still worry that you and I are holdovers from perhaps having had parents and grandparents who loved, and did watch baseball more than any other sport. I wonder if this nostalgia will still be there for our kids and grandkids. I very much hope it is, otherwise my collectibles will just go to waste :)

Please, let’s not over analyze this. I don’t care about the World Series if my teams aren’t playing. The two in there are not known for their national fan bases. It’s a who cares series everywhere except Dallas and Phoenix. Punch in the Yankees or Dodgers or Cubs or Red Sox instead and viewership will go right up.

The point I'm trying to make is not about single year fluctuations due to any number of specific factors (yes it's not at all surprising viewership is down for THIS particular WS given the teams). I'm referring to very pronounced decades-long trends in overall popularity, and wondering if my (middle-aged) generation's nostalgic love for this sport will go the way of the dinosaurs, or somehow be sustained by folks who collect without actually engaging with the sport more directly. I think many of you are missing the forest for the trees on this one, but that will be it for me, didn't mean to hijack the thread!

While I do think the Mantle rookie was inflated by the Covid boom, and did expect some regression, I don't think it's going to go down much more. Sure times are uncertain, between the economy, and the conflicts going on overseas, but I think this is pretty much all we see in terms of price drops. I could be wrong.

His 1952 Topps issue, is certainly not going back to pre-covid prices. Would I be surprised if one graded a PSA 1 sells for a touch more than 20K? No. But I think the days of getting one for under 15K are long gone.

While most people around here don’t think this is possible, I’m more on the side that anything is possible. Given enough economic pain and trouble, then stuff we don’t currently view as possible can suddenly become reality.

As humans, we’re just too focused on the present situation to imagine that crazy stuff could happen that greatly deviates from the current glide path. And even less likely to go onto a public chat board and suggest that it could really happen.

So don’t lose hope just yet! At the same time, hopefully you don’t feel too bummed if it never happens, or if you have to wait a long time for it to get here.

There isn't a whole new group of die hard collectors looking to add a 1952 topps mantle. It took generations to go from 1k to 5k card in low grade, it just isn't possible to go up 10x in 10 years and stay there. Soon as the flippers panic, watch out below. A psa 8 for 100-150k is still "a lot of money" less than 10 years ago

Who gives a flying f$&k

Phil - Thank you.

Second screen shot in post# 16

Quite the drop in a short period of time for PSA2 52T Mantles. I'm guessing some would like to believe that the cards sold earlier (higher $$) were just nicer examples of a "2" grade. ;)

So, what's next?

Are Ruths, Cobbs, Wagners, WoJos and Mattys dropping this much? Sorry, I don't follow these trends too closely.

I appreciate that but I do not think that current sports fandom closely correlates with collecting. I don't like most sports as a spectator, but I definitely enjoy collecting cards from those sports. For collectors like me, collecting in and of itself is an end, not an expression of fandom. I mean, I never saw Babe Ruth play but I sure appreciate his cards.

This post asked about the Drop in the 1952 Mantle..... can you imagine how the person feels who bought the 52 SGC 5 in REA for $306,000 in August 2022....ugh YIKES

It is a simple printed picture on a piece of paper. The fact it is worth more than a few cents amazes me. Not to worry some day it will be worth a few cents.:D

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

Hello, my name is Phil and I collect little pictures of dead men in uniform..

Pre-war anonymous support group:

Welcome Phil, would you like to tell your story?

Likely would never happen if a sponsor were needed…

Considering how rare it is to find a copy with this much eye appeal, I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's still feeling over the moon about the pickup.

..

It depends. It seems to me that almost every “commodity card” of these players has seen a drop since the 2021. To me, a “commodity card” is something rather common and easy to obtain - like a common back t206. Let’s say cards that have over 200 graded examples. The thing about these players, however, is they have very few commodity cards. Aside from T206, T205, and 1933 Goudey, I don’t think these players are on many (if any) issues with over 200 graded. In my experience, these players in tougher/rarer issues are generally holding value or up, rather than down, recently.

Point is- there is real scarcity here that has not (yet) outstripped the demand. Plus, there is a certain type of buyer for these cards/players, and they are rarely flippers/Johnny-come-latelies, meaning they buy to hold and fewer examples come to market. There is relative safety in these players/cards. They are less liquid, and they may not move up (or down) as quickly. They are the tortoises of cards, and I like the tortoise- he ended up beating that speedy rabbit!

All that said, one issue with these players/types of cards is that the market may get easily flooded. In the past few months, about 4-6 really pretty 1917 Ruth’s came to auction. This is a super tough card - maybe 50 graded total. It’s too many at one time and they sold cheap, in my opinion (still large numbers). Same thing is currently happening with PWCC and all the rare back t206s. I expect Wagner prices will come in some as people see the crazy hammer prices on blue wagners and more and more hit the auction block. This will not cause a crater in prices and the phenomena will be temporary, but the problem with these cards/issues is that the market can be easily flooded by a mere 3-5 examples, making them a relative/temporary commodity card for what it is

Ruth Goudeys may have dropped from an all time pandemic high but they're still at general all time highs when you consider the pre-pandemic market and what it still costs to add the card today.

The buyers of those cards certainly aren't the "New Kid in Town" :D

In general though, I agree with the sentiment. There's a scarcity when it comes to certain cards. The Mantle, while very popular, is far from scarce, when you compare it to some of the premier pre-war issues of certain players. Yes it is "The" post-war card, but you'll never find a shortage of it.

Goudey Ruths have come down some.
I paid way up for this one, but the commodity cards with great eye appeal are not going to see the drops of mediocre looking cards.

It does seem to me too that when the market gets hot, there is less of a premium given for eye appeal. The cards are moving so fast, a 7 is a 7. It probably also has something to do with new buyers in the mix who aren't as skilled at (or interested in) differentiating cards at the same grade. Conversely, in a soft market, buyers have more time to focus on the best available and will still pay up for the right card.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

I'm always on the hunt for eye appeal on a budget too:

https://live.staticflickr.com/4531/3...c091e8ba_c.jpg

I agree. I've noticed this as well. I think it may also in part be due to sellers "knowing what they have", and how difficult those cards are to find, and not being willing to budge on pricing.

I think of a commodity card as being any card that is effectively as good as cash. A card with both sufficient supply and demand. One that trades often enough that it is easy to comp and easy to predict the hammer price of the next sale.

To your other point about waves of similar cards hitting the market at the same time, this is something that the market doesn't seem to understand very well. Sure, keen observers recognize that it has some effect, but I think it brings about inefficiencies in the market that aren't well understood in general. For example, if you want to know whether a card has "hit the bottom" or not, you can get a pretty good idea by looking at the time series of the number of days between sales and plot it in a chart, then take the derivative of the slope of that curve and you can get a pretty good idea of when a card is in a bubble that is about to pop or if it's at it's floor by comparing that time series against what other cards' time series with similar pop counts look like, or by comparing it to what it otherwise looks like during "normal" times.

A huge portion of our market is made up of dealers/flippers. Much more so than most people probably realize. It's actually the lifeblood of why the auction formats generally work well in this hobby. They provide a baseline value for cards that would otherwise slip through the cracks. Many despise "flippers", but the truth is, they're a sign of a healthy market. You want them around. They're the worms in our soil. Most cards will never sell below ~70% of comps or so because an army of dealers/flippers peruse the auction sites competing for cards to flip. When a card sells for full comps or higher, it's going to an end collector (or at least an "investor").

But what happens when the market has a correction is that the end collectors stop buying for whatever reason (e.g., fear, money supply, something shinier, etc.), and the dealers begin to experience a slowdown in their cash flow. They will sustain this for some amount of time, acting as a buffer to the cardboard economy as they hold out on pricing and attempt to weather the storm, but if the disruption in demand sustains for long enough, they will be forced to cut their losses and they will also stop competing for cards to flip from the auction sites. The worms leave the soil, so-to-speak. When this happens, the backbone of the hobby (a stable buying & selling economy and "commodity cards") inevitably breaks, and collapse ensues.

How is this derived when there isn’t a large enough sample size to warrant statistical significance? M101-2 Sporting News Supplements come to mind.

Leon, I have a hard time calling your beautiful Goudey Ruth a commodity card. To me, commodities are pork bellies and soy beans.

Don't forget frozen concentrated orange juice!

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comm...rading_places/

Vcp
 

Wow the price of 52 topps mantle psa 8 has dropped by half from its high.

It wouldn't really help much with cards that only sell every couple of years or so. For something like that, I would find proxy cards and extrapolate.

In May2021 I sold my fathers Mantle that he pulled from a pack as a kid. It was our prize possession and what got me into collecting. When I was 9-12 he would take me on road trips down to the US (we live in Canada) and we would go card hunting. We eventually put together the 1952 set and when I first started to collect vintage, and those trips are some of my favourite memories of my father.

The prices went up so drastically that I figured it was time to let it go. I was able to get closer to 80k USD. It was more money than he had ever seen at one time and it was a wonderful moment handing him that cheque (it was unexpected as he had given me the card many years prior). For him it was a life changing amount, with the memories and being able to do that for him means way more to me than the cardboard...

But dang it was pretty.

https://i.imgur.com/cNpcqOl.jpg

Here is VCP for PSA 3s.

https://i.imgur.com/22fbQ3j.png

That is an amazing card and even better story. Thank you for sharing.:)

Great story, Chris. Glad it worked out for your dad that way. Who says you can’t time the market? Can’t do it any better than that, the Lord was certainly with you at that time.

Lol!!
SAPS!!!!