Most over-valued card
 

What in your opinion is the most over-valued baseball card?

Every e105 Mello Mint I do / try to buy.

1952 Topps #311.

Any Mike Trout, Harper, or Bryant rookie card.

52 Mantle
 

It seems like everyone who does not have that card has that opinion :)

EVERY post war PSA 8 thru 10 centered Rookie card at this time

Unless I owned one of course

1952 Mantle
 

I bid on that Wood card in the early stages.................Then it took off....Just forget it. I bailed

I'll go with Jordan's rookie.

I still think the 52 Topps Mantle will keep going up, quite a bit from current levels. If I had enough money I would be buying more.

There are a couple of rookies that have recently went nuts that I think will come back down.

No way! :D

I think the current, Rose RC is a bit much, but that's just my opinion.

1993 Finest Refractors!

All PSA 9 and 10s.

All T206 "errors".......

That sounds like sour grapes. To me that's a pretty sane price for a great player with very few cards in fantastic condition.

I have a 1939 Play Ball graded set around 60% complete averaging about 5.5 and I'm worried I'll never get the Williams now even if I go to my absolute bottom on the card which would be a 3. 3-4 months ago that wasn't an issue.

I would have to say the 1952 topps #1 Andy pafko. I know it's the #1 card in the set and hard to find in nice shape but $5000 for an ok player.

[QUOTE=Aquarian Sports Cards;1555991]That sounds like sour grapes. To me that's a pretty sane price for a great player with very few cards in fantastic condition.

Agree with this 100%. It's his only portrait and his most beautiful card. His T207 could rival it but just isn't very pleasing the eye. Supply and demand.

Logic completely dictates it would be the double printed 1952 topps Mantle.

Not even the true rookie and should be valued in the same range as the 51 bowman. Yes, those that have them will say no, but there is nothing but hype supporting those values and that is most certainly not a foundation of stone to hold up investment.

Not prewar, but certainly Vintage, the Reggie rookie has always been a tough sell.

Ten Million Obak (got one for sale?)

I think the price on high graded Rose RC's are out of hand. there are a lot of em out there compared to some of the other rarer cards that bring big $$$ but $150,000??? that's nuts

[QUOTE=LukeLyon;1555995]Sold for 4 X SMR....... But yeah I know the story

+1 There's a PSA 10 coming up on HA
gonna be crazy!!

it's gonna be the card that breaks the high grade bubble IMO, it's gonna go for some crazy price like $750k or a million and the entire house of cards will collapse.

[QUOTE=Billy5858;1556004]VCP Data for 1911 M116 Wood, PSA 7:

Latest Auction Prices for: PSA 7 - Average Price: $1,925.00

Listing Type: Show:
Date Auction Link Seller Buyer Bids Price Extra
6/27/16 eBay Auction | Image nanite76 a***s 18 $1,925.00
3/29/15 Love of the Game Image 7 $2,280.00
8/24/14 Memory Lane Image 21 $3,659.09

For PSA 6:

Latest Auction Prices for: PSA 6 - Average Price: $2,875.00

Listing Type: Show:
Date Auction Link Seller Buyer Bids Price Extra
2/2/13 eBay Image wvshoebox y***k BIN $2,875.00
11/13/11 eBay Image just_collect o***o 2 $2,499.99
12/16/07 eBay Image davidbvintage cards711 2 $2,551.00



I agree with the sour grapes assessment. The price seems low given previous sales.

[QUOTE=pokerplyr80;1556011]
Yeah that's the "story" I'm talking about.
SMR is pretty much useless for some cards now
Days. I don't subscribe to VCP so never see that
Type of info. Looks like the 1950.00 was a great
Price. Still not diggin the Sour Grapes use though.
More like REALLY disappointed :-)

Most of the BINs on eBay

[QUOTE=pokerplyr80;1556011]I bought the one from Love of the Game in 2015 for $2280 and I was thrilled to get it. I had been hunting that card for many years for my collection and I considered $2280 to be a bargain...still do.

That card is extremely tough, and has always sold for a LOT more than what I paid, let alone the deal someone got at $1925.

Overpriced? Sorry, but that is not supportable at all except for wishful thinking.

Now '52 Topps Mantles...that is a joke. There are boatloads of them. This postwar madness - a clear bubble - will burst harder than Upper Deck rookies (I guess nobody learned from that...if people even remember). It won't take that long.

Cheers,
Blair

I'm surprised how many people are picking the 52 Mantle, the most iconic card in the hobby. It's not one of the cards that has tripled in value in a month with rumors of market manipulation. Historically in any grade it has shown a consistent increase in value from year to year. It's the best card, of the most popular player, from the most famous team in history. Not to mention it's the best card from the first Topps set, one of the two most popular and widely collected sets in our hobby. The card has a lot going for it. Yes there are a lot of them compared to most expensive cards. But demand is far greater than supply in any grade. All hype? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes I am biased as I own one, and my collection is focused on Mantle cards. But I believe if you polled knowledgeable collectors which one card has the most long term investment potential the 52 Mantle would win by a landslide.

Those waiting for the 52 Topps Mantle to be worth less in any grade will be sitting a long while with their bitterness. Decades and decades of history support its status within the baseball card hobby.

Some good answers.

I agree with the 52 topps Mantle because its not a rookie card. The 51 Bowman should be worth more.

Someone mentioned the Jordan rookie but that is a basketball card lol.. I disagree if you mean the 84 star because that's his rookie and Jordan has worldwide popularity. The 86 Fleer is way overvalued in my opinion because its not a rookie card.

My vote goes to the 71 topps Munson. I understand the guy was popular among Yankee fans and Yankee fans are everywhere, but non-rookie/non hall of fame card makes this the most over valued post war card in my opinion.

I would agree on Harper and Bryant. They have a long way to go before they prove they're going to be consistently great players.

But Trout? The guy is in his sixth season (well, fifth full season). The last four, he's either won an MVP, or been MVP runner up. He was Rookie of the Year, he's been a four-time All Star, and has won four Silver Sluggers. He has a career 42.5 WAR, and he's not even 25 yet. He's hit 156 home runs, stolen 123 bases, has a lifetime .306 AVG, and is slashing .399 OBP/.560 SLG/.959 OPS after 3,212 plate appearances. His 169 OPS + is eighth highest all-time for players with over 3,000 plate appearances.

Trout is a superstar, and his cards really aren't overvalued considering what he's done.

http://i.imgur.com/hudM9iG.png
Best $99 I ever spent on my hobby.

Again, respectfully, I have to disagree. Strongly. And I don't own the card.

Mantle is one of the ten greatest offensive players in the annals of Major League Baseball. He was the star for the most successful professional franchise in American sports history, in the biggest metropolitan area in America, at a time when television was exploding, and that team was still winning World Championships. Every kid in America wanted to be the Mick. Fathers named their kids after him. Women threw themselves at him. The Commerce Comet was ripped, charming, if not a little soft spoken initially, and looked like a movie star.

Take all those factors, and then consider that the biggest baseball card company of them all, Topps, made its major set debut in 1952. The 1952 Topps set is to vintage what the T206 set is to pre-war. And Mantle's card was the set's lynchpin.

Oh, and it was short-printed.

Mantle was an iconic figure and his 52T legendary for the hobby, but there are 2000 graded and over 11000 rumored to be printed...11k!!! If a 7 Mantle goes for 225-250k, then the Ruth RC in a PSA 7 coming in Heritage should be 750k, with probably 75-80 Ruth's graded(some crossed). Clemente's RC is insane too, how can a PSA 8 which was 12k two years ago now go for what a Ruth PSA 4 goes for, 150k!!!! I'm a pre-war guy and have a Ruth, with no interest in the Mantle, so I'm a little biased, but I'm trying to be logical. I'm just astounded that the post war cards that are in tremendous supply are going for these INSANE prices. Can't imagine there are that many more who don't have one already going to bid up cards with populations in the thousands for years to come. Great for the hobby if it happens!

That would depend on your perspective.

The high series sheet did have a lower print run, however there are three double printed cards on that sheet: mantle, J. robinson and bobby Thomson.

I still stand by it, there simply are hundreds of more difficult cards to own and several even of Mick. The Dice Game card should be worth twice the 52 by logic. The 52 is a hype machine because of its draw to non collectors that buy them as investments and investors are a fickle crowd.

Yes, it has always held value and should for that icon reason, not for rarity. But 10s of thousands I will not scoff at. hundreds of thousands? Ridiculous.

Any "modern" rookie card.

The current prices for Clemente make him my answer .

Rare back 06's. I personally care mostly about the front of the card, as in who is on it. Why a common with a rare back should bring 4-5 figures, I do not know.

Just curious as to why?

That base Trout Chrome card I posted-there are less than 2,000 of them in existence-1,695 if Topps has stayed consistent with the number of base chrome autos that were issued in 2004 (and it should be consistent; all the other numbers remain constant but blue, which has increased from /150 to /250). The refractor auto has a printing of /500. The blue refractor auto is limited to /250. The gold is /50, the orange is /25, the red is /5, and there's a /1 superfractor out there. That means, in total, there are about 2,526 autographed true Mike Trout rookie cards with his certified auto.

For how popular he is, that's a pretty short print run for all of baseball fans and collectors to fight over.

The non-autographed cards don't typically command anywhere near that kind of a price. For instance, this Bryce Harper is considered one of his most desirable non-auto releases. A Beckett 9.5/10 goes for under $300, last I checked. An ungraded one goes for under $100, unless it's dead centered.

http://net54baseball.com/picture.php...ictureid=15477

This one was selling for around $1,200 earlier this season with Harper's hot start. It's dropped back down to about $8-900, and this is an exceptionally high grade card with all 9.5 subs.

http://net54baseball.com/picture.php...ictureid=15317

If that's what you like to collect, more power to you, but listing print runs of modern inserts just proves that they are manufactured rarity.

I guess it doesn't make a difference how a card got rare, but I've never been a fan of the "artificial" rarity of the modern cards. Printing a card to intentionally make it rare to me is like the Franklin Mint intentionally only making a few of a given crappy collector plate. Sure it's rare, but....

EDIT: What Daryl said....

and there is a very high likelihood that most copies will remain in pristine...as new condition.

When something is manufactured to be scarce, rare or collectible it sort of takes the shine off of the collecting to me. For those that collect the manufactured rarities, good luck!! You will need it.

52 Mantle
 

Since I collect Topps and Bowman sets I find myself indifferent to the issue of whether his first Bowman card should be worth more than his first Topps card. But as a person who adds variations to my sets the Mantle ( along with the two other DP high numbers, Robinson and Thompson), added a good deal of expense to my 52 set build

The 3 DP variants do not have a great deal of hobby recognition, but the Mantle has both back ( stitches on ball on back run right or left) and front differences ( the most noticeable being the top line of stars is wavy or straight and the end of the e in the auto is full or truncated). I don't think the Registry lists the two versions in it's master list, but the SCD Standard Catalog does.

I assume, but do not know if both versions exist in the hobby in approximately equal numbers. Nor have I heard that one or the other carries any premium. But for variation set guys, the Topps Mantle is a dilemma...whether overvalued or not :)

You should make that picture your new avatar.

If I'm not mistaken you just insinuated we're not knowledgeable collectors. Is that correct?

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Player: Mickey Mantle
Elo Rank: #16
WAR Rank: #21
JAWS: #4 (CF)
Card: 1952 Topps
Rookie: No
Age of card: 64
PSA Population: 1358
Last auction price: $17,100

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1952-Topps-M...p2047675.l2557

Player: Eddie Collins
Elo Rank: #8
WAR Rank: #13
JAWS: #2 (2B)
Card: W600
Rookie: Yes
Age of card: 110
PSA Population: 0
Last auction price: $531

http://www.goodwinandco.com/1902-11-...-lot28084.aspx

'68 Ryan Rookie.
It was valued at $25 until the mid 80s and took off with the Card Boom of the late 80s. Its a very common card also.

OPS+ Collins 142 Mantle 172
Championships Collins 4 Mantle 7

Without a doubt!

Chick Gandil Obak
Chick Gandil C46
Roger Peckinpaugh D311


Pretty expensive key cards of guys who weren't very good from sets full of guys who weren't very good.

Championships:
Frank Crosetti 8
Ty Cobb 0

BINGO.
Don't understand and will never understand the "Back-game" with T-206's.

Having said that I have a lennox and a CB with common players on the front.

I've always thought that I need to cash those in for some star players...

When you're showing your cards off.... a t206 with Oscar Stanage and a lennox back.... doesn't quite play as well as a Red Cobb portrait or a Mickey Mantle etc. etc.

People have been saying 1952 mantle
 

People have been saying 1952 mantle since I started collecting in 1980 they were wrong then and wrong now. There is far to much demand for that card from even people that don't own any baseball cards for it to be that one just like it's not the Honus. I'd honestly go with Psa 9. 1968 topps Nolan Ryan right now. Or possibly rose or even my favorite player Stargell. The leaps they have taken in the last month are unprecedented and don't look sustainable.

For the prospect autos I buy, the "how many of them are being printed" is the last thing on my mind. I could care less if there are 100 of them printed, or 1,000. I enjoy prospecting. I've always enjoyed learning about up-and-coming players, and these offer the opportunity to get one of their first cards with a certified autograph.

I think the Pete Rose rookie card in 8 or above is overvalued. Just too much supply. I like Pete Rose, and believe he should be in the HOF, but you can't tell me that he's even in the Top 20 of best baseball players ever. That floating head 4-1 rookie card isn't even a nice image of him on a card either.

I can understand why some vintage postwar RC's have a greater "multiplier effect" than many prewar greats like Ruth or Cobb. Then reason is that many collectors stick with only Topps cards. For others, it can be very difficult to determine what the correct rookie card is for a prewar player. For Ruth, there different back variations for the M101-5 and M101-4. And some publications (Beckett, I believe) don't even consider that his rookie card but say something like the 1933 Goudey is Ruth's rookie card due to national distribution. That can confuse many collectors. For Cobb, it's even harder to pin down what his "best" rookie card could be.

I always understood the DP listed next to Mantle, Jackie and Thomson to mean Double Print.

DP and SP
 

Raymond--see Justin's post #35. It was a DP card on the sheet but given it was a late summer run and the ocean dumping legend, there may have been fewer sheets for that series

Every PSA 7, 8, 9 and 10 card.

I have no idea why buyers have allowed themselves to be duped by the sellers/dealers (who have a vested interest) into believing pristine looking cards are worth more money.

Either you have a 52 Mantle or you don't. It's a binary event. Having the "best looking 52 Mantle" (whatever that means to 2,000 different people) shouldn't command a premium of many multiples - if the market behaved rationally.

No one here would pay $10,000 for a "better" sandwich than the one that cost $15. Yet folks willingly over pay this for cardboard every single day.

But I'm glad all these people buy all these overpriced cards - because if they didn't, I wouldn't be able to have a collection in the first place.

i think each and every card mentioned is a qualified candidate, especially the "manufactured rare" cards.

of course, 98% of us will probably be eating our words in the next couple years.

only time will tell.


i did go back and search this forum using key words like:

"top of the market"
"prices"
"insane prices"

and in just about every year* there were threads about what cards were realizing, folks posting it had to be a complete sham or simply utter disbelief.

and most of those prices would be no-brainers and absolute steals now.

dmitri young prices equal an exemplary proving ground.


* not as many during the 07-08 years for obvious reasons.

well, since everyone is going with the whole "manufactured rare" argument, I suppose we can add

33 Goudey Lajoie
R300 Ivy Andrews
US Caramel Lindstrom

And pretty much any other prize winner card.

Sorry, if it applies to one era it must apply to all.


And nobody has mentioned the Wagner yet? Not really hard to get, just hard to afford, just like the 52 Mantle.

Of course, all of those will continue to appreciate reasonably well.

So it all depends on how one figures "overvalued"
To me the Lajoie etc are cards that are probably appropriately valued.
The Wagner and Mantle are worth what they are not because of the card itself, but purely because of demand. What would a T206 common be worth if there were only around 60 known? There's a lot of front back combinations that are much tougher and will never be worth anywhere near what the Wagner is. Likewise, there are twice as many 52 Mantles as any other high number (Except the other two doubleprints) In fact, probably more than double since stars got saved more often. And again, none of the commons or even stars in the high numbers will ever get close.

So I consider them "overvalued" and have for a long time.

Steve B

Not to be a jerk, but a sandwich isn't a collectible. Condition has ALWAYS mattered in EVERY collectible market, coins, antiques, stamps, Tonka Trucks, whatever. While you may have a point to make about infinitesimal differences between 9's and 10's, calling 1952 Mantle ownership a binary event is a little out of touch with, well, the entire rest of the world.

I am about to go collect either some hot wings or Chinese food. I won't collect it for long most likely :)....(that made me laugh)

Collectible food
 

You guys who think food is not a collectible need to pay closer attention to what you are eating

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrTc...hGRvrw9kPhOMY-
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A86.J...cHMcKWWrsKjzg-

Leon- regrettably, we are 'collecting' from the same places...and I see my collection every morning in the mirror- UGH!

CONDITION really DOES matter. :rolleyes:

those would be intestinal differences, not infinitesimal ones...

Actually that's not correct. I am amazed at the knowledge many members possess on this site, and have learned a lot since I joined reading various threads and having discussions with several of these members.

I simply stated that I believe if one were able to poll a large group of knowledgeable collectors the 52 Mantle would come out on top as the card with the most long term investment potential. It sounds like this is a debate that has been going on for years. As another member pointed out people were saying the card was over valued 30 years ago. It has appreciated quite a bit since then, and I believe it will do so again over the next 30 years.

The T206 Wagner is not his rookie, not the rarest prewar card, and it's not even the rarest Wagner card. Here's a link to a Wagner RC for sale on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/JOHN-HANS-HO...QAAMXQL99ScwiB

Total PSA population of 9. I have never seen a thread or post arguing that this card should sell for more than the t206 because it's his true RC, or because it's more rare.

anything with a ghost image/printers scrap

I actually disagree with this to some extent, in regards to the value of manufactured rarities (appeal is a different story). I think the early years of artificial scarcity will not only hold their value but increase tremendously. I'm specifically talking about cards manufactured from ~1996-2000. There were loads of innovations during this period, and it was a time when pulling a sequentially numbered card was near impossible (there would usually be a main set and a parallel set and that was it). Ultimately the card companies went too far with the concept and started serial numbering everything. If everything is sequentially numbered, then nothing is.

In addition to being scarce, these cards also feature players you can't find on vintage cards. I love Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, but I grew up watching Griffey. If I want his best card, I look to the ones that are the scarcest, whether or not that scarcity is artificial doesn't really bother me too much, as long as the item is truly unique. The 1997 SPx Force autograph is one of my favorite cards in my collection, and I appreciate knowing exactly how many were made and which one I own. And as much as I love the aesthetics of my vintage collection, there's something I love about the ridiculous "in-your-face" 90's design. Maybe just because it reminds me of the aesthetics I grew up in...

I think this will apply a lot more to the basketball cards from that era though than baseball. Like Mantle did for baseball cards, Jordan heralded the modern era of card collecting and cards from his era will always carry value. I also think basketball benefits from a strong international market (particularly from China/SE Asia). I think there will be a time when low serial numbered Jordan cards from the 90s appear on the covers of auction magazines right next to the t206 Wagner. And if you look at auction results, it's not that far off I don't think.

But who knows, I could be totally wrong. I actually hope I'm wrong and the late-90s bubble will burst. I'd love to be able to afford all the cards from my childhood again...

You stated exactly why it is priced the way it is. It isn't because of who he is, but because of where this card belongs, the #1 card in the set of the most iconic set in the world.
Personally, I am surprised higher graded copies don't sell for more, and no, I do not own one.
http://www.ebay.com/gds/1952-Topps-B...2638733/g.html

I was also going to mention that one. Referring to the one I posted that sold for over $30,000 but thought mentioning the current, Rose RC was enough.

Great idea!

Thanks :)

My other nominee:
http://smalltraditions.com/1986-topp...r-lot2473.aspx

Sooooooooooooooooo much nicer than this card:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3835-1986-To...gAAOSwlV9WTrzv

Holy crap that is the funniest thing I've ever seen. You'd think by 2013 people would understand lo pops because nobody has bothered to grade the damn things lol.

Pop on Sandberg is now up to 6, but there's only 4 Andre Dawson in PSA 10, must be worth a grand right?

I'm not saying that this card value is going to drop anytime soon. It is, without a doubt, one of THE iconic cards in the hobby. However, saying that, I still have trouble with the thinking that this card (or cards like this), will always continue to go up in value.

First, people also once upon a time thought that real estate could never drop in value because people had to live somewhere. However, that has now been thoroughly disproven even with the rebound in housing prices. I know this isn't the best analogy, but more aimed at the thinking that card prices for these iconic cards will never drop.

Also, demand for these cards has to come from somewhere. I could have missed them, but I still haven't seen many articles saying there is a rebound in kids collecting baseball cards. I have two boys, ages 5 & 7 (almost). Even though I am an avid collector, they have ZERO interest in cards. I've never seen anyone in their school collect cards. At Target, I see ZERO kids in the baseball card aisle (and in some ways, shocked they still sell them there). Joe Orlando's column in the latest SMR magazine notwithstanding, I've never seen or heard anyone in "real" life randomly talking about cards since I was in middle school nearly 30 years ago. (not including these boards, ebay, or card conventions)

I know there are a lot of folks from my generation who collected cards as a kid, who now have disposable income, who are now spending it on cards to buy a lot of cards they couldn't even think of affording as kids and expanding into other areas. However, it also makes me think that a lot of the folks buying cards these days are purely investors and not even collector/investor. And for investors, if they think the value of a stock has peaked out, they'll drop it like yesterday's Yahoo stock.

People
 

People have been grading 1986 topps stars for about 10 years now because 10scarevrelatively difficult. I agree the price is absurd but you are wrong if you think nobody was submitting them.

I'm going with the 52 Topps Mantle also. As a choice, in PSA8's for about the same dough you could have:
51 Bowman Mantle
51 Bowman Mays
52 Bowman Mantle
52 Bowman Mays
53 Topps Mantle
53 Topps Mays

And still have money left to buy a house!

Some would still pick the 52 Mick? Thought it was funny reading Brent's post from PWCC, he still thinks that card is undervalued. For sure, he gets a huge commission on that sale! (nothing against him, I buy from him).

I looked at the pops, a couple hundred of most HOF'ers. Considering that conservative estimates are 6 -10 MILLION of each card, I stand by my assertion. Nobody, relatively speaking, is grading these.

Stand by it all you want you are wrong
 

several hundred for cards that book at a less than a dollar is a lot. Never said people were submitting all of them and if you've ever looked at the issue for 9-20 quality it's less than 1 in 10 cards. People aren't subbing these at 8 level on purpose heck they aren't even shooting for 9 they only want the 10