If there was no Hall of Fame.....
 

Santos election to the hall of fame got me thinking... if there was no hall of fame, whose card values would be affected the most.

Pete Rose.. his cards still are highly valued, but I suppose with no Hall of Fame contraversy, his damaged reputation might actually hurt his card values

Joe Jackson.. I would think his cards might be worth less

Marginal HOFers... I would think their values would go down

Any other thoughts?

Phil Niekro and Don Sutton's cards would go down. Oh, wait, never mind.

I think a lot of the vintage and prewar HOFers who were not top stars would go down because no one would have heard of them. For example, Ray Shalk, Urban Faber, Fred Lindstrom, Travis Jackson, etc, would drop like a rock because nobody would have ever heard of them if they weren't HOFers.

And you'd see Ed Reulbach's stats and go, "Gee, this guy was great - I'll pay for his card."

Some go up, some go down
 

I also think that some of the recent minor stars like Steve Garvey, Dave Parker and Dale Murphy would bump up. Guys like me who grew up remembering how great these guys were in their era would more actively collect them.

Agree 100%

Burleigh Grimes, Jesse Haines, Eppa Rixey, Ted Lyons, etc.....

I think that you guys are right about the marginal HOF'ers collectibles value dropping if there was no Hall, that's pretty much a certainty.

Supply and demand.. One a player gets into the Hall, his card instantly becomes desirable to a much larger crowd. Supply stays the same/demand goes up.

There's different types of collectors...Set collectors, team collectors, player collectors, star collectors, hof collectors....so on and so on... Currently a player like Garvey is typically only collected by set collectors, Dodgers collectors, star collectors, and other Garvey fans outside of those categories...Hypothetically, pretending all categories of collectors were on even footing. If he were to make the Hall, his collectability would go up by 25%, and I'd say it's safe to assume his value would follow accordingly..

This theory goes out the window with guys like Hodges...Many, many people expect him to get in someday, so he is already speculatively collected by many HOF collectors. Therefore, if he were to get in, his price wouldn't be effected in terms of percentage of value increase by as much..

And percentages may go up with a small market player who unexpectedly get the nod.. Theoretically, let's pretend that Albert Belle or Larry Walker get in someday(I know, just roll with it), the demand for their items would possibly double..

For you OJ collectors... what would a Bid McPhee N172 be worth if he wasn't in the HOF?

But if there was no Hall of Fame, what would we debate? Politics? The thought gives me a headache ...

agreed

From listening to sports radio today, we would all just discuss the BCS, which gives me a bigger headache