Does this article paint an accurate picture of what lies ahead for collectibles?
 

someday! question is...when?

No, because
 

No one really knows but:

1.). Most of the expensive cards are already in the hands of the top 10% - they don’t rely upon the 90% for valuation support.
2.). Relative scarcity: vintage cards remaining roughy same scarcity while dollars are becoming less scarce (Fed printing Trillions and looking to create new numbers after the word trillion). So inflation should help scarce assets.

Now, that said, if there could be a demand shock then rather than it coming from lack of funds from the <10%, I think it could come from people not collecting cards anymore due to sports becoming less popular going forward.

I am already hearing that leaders of the progressive wing of the democratic party plan to place an exorbitant tax on individuals' assets. This is in addition to dramatically increased income taxes.

It has not been disclosed how they will uncover and determine the value of your assets, but I imagine lots of people will be trying to hide their respective net worth, and keep their assets as stealth as possible.

Regardless, personal property is a major entity that they're targeting. This will become much more apparent in the near future.

future
 

This article makes a lot of obvious points. The pool for yacht sales has always been small. The pool to buy a Cobb Green T206 has always been huge. I'm not seeing the correlation.

There are whale cards of course, but I enjoy the hobby because I (as a person with limited means) still have access to most of the cards I want to buy even with the limited funds I have. I just settle for lesser grades. There isn't really an equivalent of buy the card not the holder when it comes to mega yachts.

Those people and their donors are in the top .1%, they are going to have plenty of loopholes to exclude themselves and their cronies from their laws that they will enact on everyone else.

Several European countries imposed but later abandoned the wealth tax, in part because it was so difficult to determine someone's genuine wealth. At the same time, there may well be a strong desire in some circles to level things. It has happened before.

Joe Tinker found this out the hard way. When he retired he became a multimillionaire through Florida real-estate and lost it all in the 1929 Crash.

It has always been a part of economic recovery. We are doomed if we don't overtax the rich. History is supposed to teach you things. During the 50s and early 60s the top bracket income tax rate was over 90% and the stock market, economy, and middle class all boomed. If you're a boomer, you grew up in your childhood home because of this tax. Now those boomers are in government. You're supposed to learn from what worked.

You honestly believe that NP, EW, and all of the other muitimillionaire politicians are going to pass laws that takes THEIR WEALTH and the wealth of their billionaire donors? Wake up.

Wealth Tax
 

Wealth like real estate holdings, bank accounts, stock portfolios....will be easy to locate and tax. Locating my Mantle stash will take some doing on their part.

It will take some time to locate, however they will get you when you sell to turn that Mantle Stash into Returns.

I always say it's never a Gain on your Asset Until You Sell it for a profit, it's also never a loss until you sell it for a loss. Cash is King Always has been Always Will Be.

Well, shit, people, if you are not declaring your profits on your sales you are already committing tax fraud.

Can we leave the politics out of this discussion--just assume that we hate you and you hate us and will never agree on tax policy--and maybe we can discuss a serious issue raised in the OP as to the future of collecting rather than degenerating into a off-topic fight? There's plenty of bandwidth for political trash-talking elsewhere.

Agreed. I just don't see how any of the stuff written in this article can be applied to sports cards.

When it comes to collectibles, If you are an investor, stay in the top 10% of whatever you want to invest in. Buy the best 10% of cards, coins, comic books, teacups, whatever. The best 10% pretty much always goes up in value over time. Also, buy physically small items that are easy to store and move around. As the cost of shipping goes up, the value of big items tends to go down.

If you are a collector, buy the other 90%. It does not really go up much or go down much, but will give you collecting enjoyment. When you go to sell, you won't make much, but you won't loose much either.

"I am already hearing..."--pretty conclusive, huh? You do realize that the bulk of our enormous national debt was piled up by Republican administrations, don't you? Some people like stuff but just don't want to pay for it.

Well said.

Everyone should be careful of talking politics please. The thread will be locked if it goes that route. This subject can be talked about with out the political bias, I hope. :)

Me too.

Exactly, well said Adam.

As for the article, the author lost me when he said :

"As we know, in a neighborhood of 100 homes currently valued at $1 million each, when a desperate seller accepts $500,000, the value of the other 99 homes immediately drops to $500,000."

Not true.

I wasn't opining on whether such a tax is good or bad. Just speculating that many will inevitably attempt to hide assets if/when that day comes. If you don't mind being taxed on personal assets, then it's all good. If you do mind, then I suppose it's bad. I personally see the merits of both sides.

Hopefully they'll base it on what I paid.... Otherwise I'm in huge trouble.

I found that article pretty vacuous and uncompelling. A lot of heat, not much light.

I bet the author is a real gas to hang out with; what’s his name, Chicken Little?

Exactly. If I sell my PSA 5 Green Cobb for $200, does that mean every other PSA 5 Green Cobb is now worth $200?

Let's run a little experiment. You sell me that green Cobb for $200 and then we can observe how it impacts other PSA 5 green Cobbs. [emoji1787][emoji23]

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I think the author connected dots that aren't even dots. Anything is possible but there would have to be a massive series of negative events to make what the author is saying even a remote possibility. So while interesting, it doesn't seem a likely outcome for much of what he/she is saying.

But...if anyone thinks there's merit to the article and wants to sell me some higher end stuff for 10% of March 2020 prices, I'm likely in....:)

Because of Leon, I am gonna bite my tongue on this one. But I want to say something sooooooooooooo bad to this.

LOL!! I am in the market for a decent Sport Kings Ruth for around $500.

The ignore button has worked wonders for me.

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Just say the national debt was 10 trillion at the end of 2008 and 19.6 trillion at the end of 2016.

The first premise of the article is not only that a very few people are very, very wealthy but also the vast majority of people come into the current crisis in a state of near poverty. “Most of you,” he says, “are aware that the bottom 90% own very little other than their labor (tradeable only in full employment) and modest amounts of home equity that are highly vulnerable to a collapse of the housing bubble.” The second premise is that the corona virus lockdown will result in lasting, widespread unemployment for millions in the service industries, and massive failures of small, start-up businesses, especially in the tech industry. The third premise is that the stock market will tumble, and the wealthy will feel poorer, and more vulnerable. The handful of people who buy luxury items will scale back on their purchases, and the value of “bubble-era” assets like vintage cars, vacation homes, etc. will fall at an accelerating pace. The fourth, implicit, premise is that the recent health of the economy, and the fabulous wealth of the very rich, was only a bubble, and thus was not natural or tenable.

Is all this valid? I think that the first premise overstates the relative poverty of the average American household. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of such a household is $97,300. That may not sound like much, but it is more than Marx thought the average proletarian in the US would have by this stage of world history. The second premise? If the economy recovers gradually, then people gradually return to work, and the stock market doesn't collapse. Of course, if it crashes, then even the wealthy might start pinching pennies when it comes to yachts and Mantle cards. There are a lot of economists who think that the market has been too hopeful about a quick economic recovery, but not very many whom I’ve been reading are as gloomy as the author of this piece. So, I doubt it's accuracy. But time will tell.

The article overstates a lot of stuff, and there is one thing which separates cards from most of the asset classes of the wealthy he uses as examples, which is that the cost of holding onto cards is zero.

If the wealthy need cash its more likely to be the yacht or second home that gets sold, since they pay taxes and maintenance, etc on them. Cards can just sit in a safe for free.

politics shmolitics
 

Good.

I wish others had done the same rather than slam people that think one way or another.

I feel snookered for even having clicked on that “article.” Just further proof the internet is a cesspool of alleged information. Won’t even bother to pick it apart, other than to say those who could afford high end assets in the first place are not going to sell because someone who stretched too far had to sell.

Just leave it alone. No politics please.

And no, If I sell a million dollar house for 500k, the others around me don't drop. They stay the same and I am in adiot for selling so low. Common sense.

I agree Doug "$1,000,000 to $500,000" Goodman.

He sounds like a kid who has absolutely nothing and is jealous. He hopes everybody loses everything, so he can buy a million dollar house for 500K.

As a homeowner, I am always more than happy when the values go down. It lowers my property taxes. I fight in arbitration every year or 2 to lower them. If I used that argument, they would laugh me right out of there. I have an 8-0 record with the Property Tax Board over 15 year too saving thousands!

Exactly, I'll sell one of my classic cars, gold coins or 100 dollar bill collection before my cards. They sit for Free!!!!

DON'T BRING ME DOWN! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuiMQPc5aKA

So much of what the author says is wrong or skewed to his world view. For example, the top 10% is not a small group. In the US it is 33 million people. Only a tiny percentage are currently involved in collectibles. You could easily grow this pot, even in difficult economic times.
My only takeaway from the article is that the author is not in the top 10%, economical or as a writer.

That's a great point. He talks as if 0.01% has all the assests. I think he's more of a provocateur than an economist . I also think that one of his most important claims is that a very strong stock market is unnatural and untenable. He thinks that as the recent bubble burst, the whole economy is crumbling, and collectibles will be worthless. We might fall into a lasting depression, of course. But for the last 200 years, the US economy has recovered from its downturns, the stock market has, over time, averaged 6-7 % gains, and Mantle cards have increased in value. I am not selling. everything

As many have pointed out, the article has many major flaws. To me, it is kind of headache inducing. He talks about percentage of Americans, then percentage of households, then percentage of American adults. Three very different metrics. Pick a metric and stick with it.

He also talks about "the top 10% feel poorer and less confident about future gains, and thus less enthused about borrowing and spending." How wealthy are you if your assets are obtained with borrowed money? And, who borrows money to buy baseball cards?

Taxing individual assets is nothing new. It has been going on for ages. Ever since I bought a house I have been paying a "wealth" tax. It goes to county and city coffers. Even though it is listed as a fixed tax rate, it really runs from low to truly exorbitant. If you own your house outright, it is a smaller percentage of your "wealth." If you have a mortgage, it is a larger percentage of your "wealth" since your wealth does not include the entire value of the house (it will depend on the equity you have in the house). If you rent the house you live in, the tax rate is exorbitant. You are paying the tax through your rent and therefore you are paying the tax based on no equity in the house, i.e., "wealth."

It's written by a fictional character. There's also a site manifesto. Why are we even wasting our time lol.

Correct me if I'm wrong, does that article indicate that there's a great possibility that when this economic house of cards finally collapses, then collectibles (such as sports cards and crap) will come crashing down also? If so, I can't wait!!! Only thing is what about hyper inflation? Does that come into play at all? Does that lesser "value" of a dollar mean that we'll be paying fewer or more dollars for deflated collectibles? There's a LOT of money sitting out there and it's not all in the stock market...

Because we're all knuckleheads that like to waste our time! :p

and because we were asked a question, and so we try to answer it.

Only if you sell it on Ebay with a BIN of $20,000 and accept best offers! :)

If you are insuring your collection or collectibles the value is already set.