Does the stock market affect card prices?
 

Watching the stock market the last few weeks has been a bit frightening. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the price of cards during a downturn in the market. Do/would people quit collecting and maybe even start selling in a bear market?

I certainly hope so!! Would love to upgrade a number of Mantle's on the cheap haha.

I can only speak for myself, but I haven't stopped collecting, just slowed down quite a bit.

In addition to the stock market, I happen to work for an oil and gas engineering company and our industry looks very gloomy for the next year or so. I'm on a project that wraps up in early Spring, but I don't know if I'll have a job after that. There are no new projects coming in. So that, along with the stock market downturn, has put a damper on my spending lately.

I think I remember seeing some sort of index for the top 20 modern football cards somewhere (sportscollectorsdaily.com, I believe). It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the stock market (or other market indexes/indicators) and the sports card markets. Anything done would need some sort of selection, whether it's the football card index or something else, but whatever the result, it would be very interesting.

Wish I had the math skills to figure it all out!

I wasn't really collecting then but I believe values in general went down during the last recession. I would expect the same during a major market correction. I would not expect card values to go up and down with temporary fluctuations in the stock market. If they do I will certainly be looking to add a few cards. I imagine there are people who collect and trade and would consider selling their collection of they lost too much in the market.

The market must be completely bullish right now, because Dean's Cards just keeps raising their prices even higher. :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the thoughts. Looks like today could be a rough market day too. With my own enthusiasm for spending on cards dwindling with each down market day/week I wondered how many like hobbyists felt the same way.

... and the time to sort through the data. I think there are value bubbles for some cards and/or era of cards, for various reasons, and more or less steady inclines for others...just a hunch really.

Harbinger?
 

An old cartoon saved from a late 1980's magazine (Reagan-Bush era market crash):

funny cartoon..

basically the stock market losing billions of dollars cant be good for the hobby....can say if its bad or not..but no way going to convince me that its good...

especially if goes down another 20 percent...I just bought collectors universe (PSA company) on friday..i figure ill go down with the hobby literally if the market goes down more.

I believe high end hall of fame rookies will retain their value and could still go up if the market goes down.
In the past high end hall of fame rookies retained their values when the stock market went down.

I say none because how many times has the stock market gone down since 1980?
The good sports cards will always have value. I don`t see the stock market affecting Babe Ruth, or Michael Jordan rookie card market.

right 'the good sportscards' we had this discussion before...how many exactly is that......there are going to be the cards on the fringe that some think are 'good sports cards' and but most others think they aren't that will get hammered since only 'the good sports' cards will always have value..

that's the key...its still not good for the hobby when only the 'good sports cards' have value since 99.9% of cards out there aren't 'good sports cards' including most of my collection :(

A Guru
 

Thank goodness we finally have one on board, Welcome

stock market getting destroyed again..

I do think the big big cards will always have those rich people. high grade mantle/wager etc...but for the guys that make 100k-500k etc....good lucky getting them to pay 15k on a card if they are down 40% in the savings in the market etc. until the market rebounds.

1952byntoncollector I totally agree with you. Market recessions greatly effects the middle working class vintage collector. Along with investors highly tied to the oil industry during this decline in crude. To me slabbed vintage cards of big name stars, especially rookies, and rare scarce cards graded 7 and above (PSA/SGC) are commodities that will continue to rise. Their will always be a heavy hitter to grab them up at any cost. I however could foresee a downturn in mid level to lower graded cards. Idk great discussion either way :-)

I think the market put in its bottom today... Up from here. So let the buying continue! :)

My research for my boxing card book indicates that card markets tend to lag the stock market by about a year. Specifically, the market for boxing cards stayed reasonable until about mid-2009, when it started dropping, and it dropped until fall 2010, when it bottomed out. The rebound similarly has lagged the market. That said, I think the better correlation as to all but the really expensive cards is the labor market and possibly the real estate market. When employment is strong and real estate is rising--as is the case over the last year or two--cards do well. Classic lower-end luxury goods.

One strategy to consider if you don't want to spend big on cards: modern. There are some beautiful sets from 1984 on from which you can get HOFers for less than a cup of coffee. And also the Topps heritage issues and tribute issues. They might not increase in value but you can collect and enjoy them guilt-free.

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Another one: 1970s. I'm a kid of the 1970s, so my heart is with the good old Topps issues from the era. You can collect all but the top RCs on the very cheap, especially if you are good with nice looking 5-7 level cards. Even 8-9 from the late 1970s are really cheap right now.

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