Analysis of PWCC Vintage Auction 10/13/19
 

The vintage portion of PWCC's October auction ended last night. I did not bid. However, there were a few cards that I was otherwise interested in, and I did follow the auction to see where final bidding on those cards ended up. Below is a list of cards that I followed in last night's PWCC auction that were also in an earlier/previous and recent PWCC auction OR were recently sold in other auctions/places. The cards listed below compare last night's result to the previous sale of the same exact card.

I am sure there are many other cards auctioned last night that were previously and recently auctioned by PWCC or another auction house; and I followed a few other cards that were not recently and previously sold before last night (e.g., T206 Red Cobb PSA 7 and T206 Wajo Pitching PSA 5). However, the list below is only of cards that I followed (and fit my collection) and were also recently sold by PWCC or elsewhere. I state this because, although I certainly have an opinion on this matter, I have not gone looking for cards to make a point.

Below I list the card I was following, then last night's sales price compared to what the card sold for before that and the date (and by what auction house/media). At the bottom, are pictures of each card listed with the price, as shown on VCP.

What are your thoughts about the results listed below? And please do not let this thread devolve into a series of angry rants about how everyone (or me) is crooked, everyone (or me) is dumb, etc.

PWCC & PWCC Sales

T206 Mathewson White Cap, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $1,934.99
PWCC - 8/11/19: $2,228.00 (13.15% reduction)

T206 Cobb Green Portrait, SGC 4
PWCC - 10/13/19: $11,356
PWCC - 1/13/19: $13,099 (13.3% reduction)

T206 Lajoie Portrait, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $2,376
PWCC - 11/7/18: $2,606 (8.82% reduction)

T206 Waddell Portrait, PSA 6
PWCC - 10/13/19: $2,176
PWCC - 7/8/18: $2,964 (26.59% reduction)

E93 Cobb, PSA 3
PWCC - 10/13/19: $3,739
PWCC - 10/14/18: $3,518 (6.28% increase)

E120 Ruth, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $14,336
PWCC - 2/5/18: $14,771 (2.95% reduction)

PWCC and Other AH Sales

T206 Walsh Portrait, PSA 8
PWCC - 10/13/19: $8,300
Heritage - 9/20/18: $9,600 (13.54% reduction)

E105 Young, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $2,827
Ebay BIN - 3/22/18: $3,250 (13% reduction)

Looks like PWCC on the decline. Good thing we have BlackJadedWolf to show us the way.

Need way more than 8 cards to draw any conclusions.

I always appreciate someone using real data to spark discussion as opposed to just another emotional rant. That said, I think some of the decline from this limited set could be explained by time of year. In the past few years I’ve tracked cards, it appears there’s a little dip in prices as we get into Q4. That might account for a few of those percentage points.

Addition of sales tax and FBI involvement sparking fear of shill bids probably are in play

All things equal, a decline should be expected for the same card being sold a short time after prior sale. The winning bidder is no longer a bidder (theoretically).

these are my thoughts as well.

I do love a good data driven post with pictures though!

I think this is a big part of it.

Did the first buyers think they were just getting a good deal? I’m assuming they were intending to flip.

This, and newly enacted sales tax probably account for most of those declines.

As Peter said, it's way too small a sample size to draw any meaningful conclusions. If it continues in this direction through 2020, and a greater array of cards exhibit similar reductions, then you have some far better evidence.

IMO the best way to track PWCC’s influence would be total sales volume by auction / quarter year and track MOM, YOY, etc. Adjust for the new tax impact and you’d have a decent proxy for the wider market.

The question is when do they came up for sale with PWCC yet again.

Maybe quite quickly if it’s the same buyer protecting his interests.

What’s the overall opinion on a card like the psa 8 walsh? Not a big name like some of the others and recently sold last year would you expect a decline in this particular instant or did the winning bidder really get a good price for this card ?

Are you that winning bidder?

Of course the only one from this list to go up was the only one I bid on. Had it stayed 5 or 10% under its previous sale I would picked it up.

I will take the other side here as other than the Waddell Portrait the prices were fine (but I do agree with the sample size comment above). Being from NJ on average I have been paying ~8.8% above my final price (including shipping). Hence if we apply that to the lots you listed several (listed below) are over or at what they sold for recently.


T206 Lajoie Portrait, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $2,376
PWCC - 11/7/18: $2,606 (8.82% reduction)

E93 Cobb, PSA 3
PWCC - 10/13/19: $3,739
PWCC - 10/14/18: $3,518 (6.28% increase)

E120 Ruth, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $14,336
PWCC - 2/5/18: $14,771 (2.95% reduction)

Meanwhile some of the others are barely down (less than 6%) which is where I would expect them to be from a card that was recently sold.

PWCC & PWCC Sales

T206 Mathewson White Cap, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $1,934.99
PWCC - 8/11/19: $2,228.00 (13.15% reduction)

T206 Cobb Green Portrait, SGC 4
PWCC - 10/13/19: $11,356
PWCC - 1/13/19: $13,099 (13.3% reduction)

T206 Walsh Portrait, PSA 8
PWCC - 10/13/19: $8,300
Heritage - 9/20/18: $9,600 (13.54% reduction)

E105 Young, PSA 5
PWCC - 10/13/19: $2,827
Ebay BIN - 3/22/18: $3,250 (13% reduction)

What if the first sale at 5-15% more was shill bid well above where it should have been to set a floor and then the second sale at that slightly lower level was a real buyer who now got a 'bargain'......

this is the likely scenario for the past 10-15 years with most auctions...imo...to the point where some hammer prices appear to be bargains when they've been artificially inflated in the first place.

Modern seems to be doing fine. At least on the high end. 200k for a Jeter card tonight.

That's the one. I remember a debate over which was more valuable, 93 sp in a 10 or that one. I guess that debate is settled.

Do the auction results of two bidders with snipes more than $50000 above the third bidder prove anything about the actual market value of the card? I would seriously question that conclusion.

I show 6 unique bidders over $100k. And this is a pop 2 modern card in a 10, with a total pop of around 30. A modern white whale. I would argue plenty was proven about the market value of the card.

Both of the final bids also do not come from bidders with inflated statistics with one seller or a large number of bid retractions.

With a card this limited it is natural for only a few to push it to its highest point and I would agree with Frank if this was a more available card with an outlier sale due to only several bidders but on a card with such a limited number printed it says everything about the value of the card.

PWCC had close to 9,000 listings a few days ago when I looked. The party has not ended and isn't going to end.

People wan't to buy cards and will go to the source of those cards. After all they are closer to a stock exchange than a true card dealer.

I know nothing about the modern market, and very little about the market for cards after 1930+/-, but with respect to the old-vintage (the stuff we talk about on net54), I believe PWCC has not been doing well of late. In my opinion, the pre-war offerings in the past three auctions have been inferior to what PWCC has previously offered, and the prices on many (not all) cards that I follow have been lower than historic. Regarding the offerings, I do believe a number of would-be-consignors have opted to hold off and/or consign elsewhere. This conclusion is based on both conversations with people and what I see being (or not being) offered in the past few auctions. Regarding prices, I believe there are several reasons for this: the sales tax argument is interesting, but it has not affected Heritage, and it has not really altered the way I buy, so based solely on those two points, I don’t think it’s a main reason. Instead, I think there is less shilling (perhaps pwcc is policing more now that they are under investigation) and I do believe less people are bidding.

Imagine bidding 202K for a 4th year Jeter card and losing.:D

i don't have specific numbers to back this up, but IMO the non-sports/cards outside the big four sports have been pretty weak lately, compared to previous PWCC auctions. PWCC used to always have some obscure non-sports stuff in every one of their auctions that I had never seen before. That really has not been the case at all the last several auctions.

That being said, I realize Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh and P.T. Barnum are a tiny drop in the bucket when bidders are dropping $200,000 on a Derek Jeter card.

If you were a company going public in need of $50,000,000, would you sell

A) 10,000,000 shares of stock for $5 a share in an IPO or

B) would you short print 25 pristine stock certificates in plastic cases impregnated with Joe Orlando’s saliva and verified by Spence and sell them for $2,000,000 each?

The players (in the market and in the Vault) may be the same, but how a short-printed modern, shiny piece of in cardboard is analogous to equity in a potentially very profitable start-up or in a Fortune 500 company for that matter eludes me,

but then again I will never be vault-worthy and my lack of understanding doesn’t bother me one iota.

While I am not nearly as old as you are Frank I feel the same!!! If this sale is legitimate it is definitely a testament to the craziness of the modern card market! And apparently these companies creating these rarities...albeit artificially apparently know what they are doing and are striking a cord with some very rich folks.

While Jeter was a great ballplayer he will rank nowhere near the all-time greats just like a lot of these other insane rookie refractor cards selling for five and six figures.

The shareholder base of an IPO is not a good comparison here but I will try and answer your question. On one hand it is nice to have a smaller number of shareholders to answer to with more skin in the game. It also will impact how shares are traded in the secondary market and make it harder to gain access so in theory this will make it easier for the share price to rise with such a limited supply of shares. It also though makes you more susceptible to price decline due to the limited liquidity and will also expose you to the issue of some shareholders not being interested because they can't come up with the amount to get in or can't buy enough in the secondary market once launched. The larger offering gives more people a chance to get in but will create much greater liquidity in the secondary market and you may end up with some very significant shareholders controlling more of the voting rights than perhaps you want and making it harder to manage the business. There is no right or wrong answer here.

Short print cards are about bragging rights. That is why they were printed this way. The goal was to create artificial scarcity and the ability for only a very few to say they own one. I certainly have 200k but I am not in a position to drop 200k on a single card as it would be too risky of a move but for someone with a massive net worth this might be the equivalent to a 2k card to them. Once a card becomes a must own the price goes up and where this goes from here is anyone's guess. For the nearly ten years I have been participating in online forums there has always been a chorus of people blasting the buyers of these cards and yet they only seem to go up. 15k was too much for a Jeter 1993 SP. 25k was unthinkable. You get the point.

I don't try and put myself in someone else's shoes when it comes to what they buy because everyone's circumstances are different. Do I think putting 200k into some of the more marquee vintage cards is smarter? Perhaps but perhaps not.

At the end of the day this modern frenzy is alive and well and while the risk profile of the purchases appears quite high so have been the rewards and this is going to keep it going.

To each his own, but the fact that a company intentionally printed only 10 or 5 or 1 of a card in an attempt to CREATE a valuable -- like the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -- means nothing to me.

The only modern cards I collect for the most part are Brock Lesnar. I just bought his "rarest" card and it is numbered to 25. I own the only PSA graded copy too. I paid $125 and $124. I am not the target audience for one of these cards either. It is fun to chase these down but under no circumstances am I paying 100 times more for this one vs. the other variations of the same card just in different colors with more made.

I'm sticking with my argument.

A shiny Jeter is not the stock exchange, it's a house of cards.

A shiny Jeter is not an asset, where's the bank to would accept it as collateral?

Pete- I'm not trying to justify (nor do I fully understand) that $200k sale price on that (obscure) card. But, to specifically address your comment above, people often forget Jeter is #6 on the all-time hits list (ahead of Wagner, Yaz, Mays, Lajoie, Ripken, etc). That seems to be forgotten...and the 5 rings certainly add to his legend. If there's 4 or 5 heads on the Yankee's Mt. Rushmore, he's on it.

Comparing cards to stocks is tough. There have been a multitude of stocks that would appear a safer investment but have have gone down substantially. You can lose on anything in life.

Would I rather put 200k into liquid financial investments? Yes.

That said the buyer might have 200 million already there and wants to handle this card and be able to say he has it.

We are actually moving in the direction of cards being used as collateral. It has been discussed on this message board.

Well, the Golden Ticket means everything to me! I would love to pull one out of those delicious-tasting chocolate bars and have the opportunity to meet Mr. Wonka!

https://dqzrr9k4bjpzk.cloudfront.net.../382148319.jpg

I see your point, but in an era of over production a few issues stand out for one reason or another. Cards that were hard to track down even back then. I remember opening 93 finest packs trying to find refractors. And 96 select certified hoping for a mirror red, blue, or gold.

I didn't collect basketball back then, but those PMG cards fall into the same category. 91 topps desert shield seem to be hot as well.

I think as guys around my age who collected as kids in the 90s and remember these cards get back into the hobby demand will only increase.

I'm not finding Net54 on any list of major lenders. If Leon is accepting cards as collateral, perhaps he can explain how that is structured.

It has been done before back in the day and in the works now for sure. We had a big discussion on it here and clearly it will not give you advance rates as high as liquid investments can. You can borrow in the range of 75% against many traded securities and I would think somewhere in the 30% to 40% range is the most anyone should consider on cards.

I am going to give you an analogy that is more appropriate here. My wife is into purses. She has seven or eight Chanel's, a bunch of Gucci's, some Yves Saint Laurent and a few others. Quite a pricey collection of purses. A purse has one function and that is to carry things but the prices of these purses are predicated on scarcity and bragging rights. You would think these would be a enough but she wants a Hermes Birkin bag. These are the most scarce of designer bags and you can't just go into a store and buy one. They have to ask you if you want one and it is hard to have that happen. Which one of these sells for the most? The Birkin naturally because it has the ultimate bragging rights. This is just how the world works. We don't make the rules. Once cards are elevated to elite hobby status symbols they can take on a mind of their own in terms of price. It is really simple.

Typical female wasting money on nonsense. :D:eek:

I'm glad your wife has enough purses to make a cash purchase of the Jeter card.:D

You're certainly entitled to your opinions.

I get the appeal of the refractors, which I think were the first cards to use that technology, but from that point of view rather than scarcity. The certified mirrors just seem a copycat to me.

https://www.malleries.com/hermes-bir...-293984-s-2907

Crazy sh*t! What grade do you think PSA would give it?

They go for much more than this in some cases.

These and a Chanel are actually bought for investment purposes in some cases.

Just like a hot car you can flip them for more than the price in the store and they do hold great residual value.

Edit: check this one out. They go for up to 150k but this is the highest sale I could find on EBAY.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hermes-Birk...wAAOSwQFJaxrLp

Do people counterfeit them?

Oh yeah. Doubtful though they are fooling anyone because they are made with very expensive material that you can't simply fake.

Some of the lower priced bags like Gucci it is much easier to fake and unless someone is versed in them they might be fooled.

A huge part of the price is brand but not all. That said the only reason there is demand is that other women know what you are carrying. Chicks really check out other chicks gear. It is kind of funny to watch. Her shoe collection is big too and it is hilarious watching other women loose it when they see some of the hard to find Valentino's she has and other brands.

Does China still exist? :D

:D:cool:If I'm checking out women, the shoes are a pretty low priority. And the handbag for that matter.

Yeah and that is why they buy them for what other chicks think. They don't come right out and say it but it really is where the motivation comes from.

Looks like something our Beagle would chew to pieces the first day it was brought home. We were car shopping last week, and found quite a few we liked for less money than this purse. :rolleyes: