OT:Auction sales hit record $15 billion as young, wealthy collectors enter the market
 

CNBC story on major auction companies and their lucrative 2021 sales

Not necessarily sports/vintage cards related, but it shows the overall collectibles market


"Christie’s on Monday reported total sales of $7.1 billion for 2021, the highest total in five years. Sotheby’s earlier reported total sales of $7.3 billion, its best showing in the company’s 277-year history, and Phillips said its sales rose to $1.2 billion this year, also a company record.

“Every single category is outperforming,” said Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of Christie’s."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/20/auct...ollectors.html

Very true I agree with this article.

Sad part is most could care less about the card it’s about the number grade on the slab. Altered so what it’s in a Holder. The percentage of people who care about the card are shrinking and shirking. It’s an investment asset class. I don’t think it’s bad for the hobby, we have all benefited from it. I said it a few weeks on a post the only thing that could stop this market is if crytop crashes which I don’t think it will. It’s going up.

Tell me again how this is in any way a hobby.

You said it yourself, it's an investment asset class.

I am in the insignificant minority. I do care about the cards. Only the cards. I'll create an investment portfolio some other way.

It’s a hobby of the rich. They money they’re spending on cards is peanuts to them.

I tend to agree with you both. And I am a collector and I do care about the cards and long term I do also care about it as a potential investment portfolio. Because I can both enjoy my hobby while having an investment portfolio.

Additionally many "collectors" and hobbyist fund their collections and upgrades on the flipping of their existing cards are cards that they intentionally buy to flip for this fund source.

I'm with you. I'd happily welcome all cards permanently costing a small fraction of what they do today; I'd love them just as much, and be able to own and enjoy more.

I'm not drawn to a card because of its potential future value— yet that is the primary reason behind most card purchases I see today on social media (which is admittedly societal poison), especially outside the very collector-centric cyber halls of Net54.

What I find sadly amusing is that we see guys on social media trumpeting high prices, but if you love cards and collecting, the value of cards you love and never want to sell is totally moot. That's money a collector never wants to see, because he never wants to sell. So the high prices only have one actual effect in reality on a collector, namely we have to shell out way more cash to acquire anything new. Or we have to sell pieces when we add a new one. So I don't see how rising prices are good for a collector who is not obscenely wealthy. Now if someone is super wealthy, of course it's to their advantage that everything desirable rises to a level where only they can afford it. To them the cash is nothing and they can just scoop everything up.

We all collect and see things differently. At 48 I've been collecting for four decades now. As much as I love the history and the cards/memorabilia of this hobby, I also personally look at anything that I put thousands and thousands of dollars into as an investment. I'm also in the camp that everything I own has a price; because in the end it's all just "stuff', as much as I love it.

I have a difficult time looking at my cardboard as an asset class. If it gets uber-stupid, I'll be cashing out and finding something else to do for a hobby.

For now, I guess the trick will be to figure out what's going to sky rocket next and try to stay ahead of the curve. Any guesses on what's next?

When you see the BST offering one Bitcoin for a VG '33 Goudey Ruth, we'll know N54 has been infiltrated... :p

Go back a few years and read all the alarmist posts about how the hobby was likely to decline for failure to attract younger collectors. Maybe this is not such a bad thing.

I think it is a terrible thing. My opinion, what the hell do we care if our stuff is worth money to our heirs after we croak? What matters is the fun we have while we're alive. A decline in the hobby would make us have more money and more cards.

Also, the prices nowadays force many of us to have to think about our cards as investments. I just wish I didn't have to view the things I like through that prism.

I see baseball cards as a device for turning money into fun. I want low prices, not high ones.

There is only one sector to blame for the crazy stupid influx of money into this hobby and that is the card manufactures. It reminds me a lot of the early 90s with overproduction that they all did.

Now the overproduction comes in chase cards and SPs, SSPs, SSSSSSPs and so on and so on. It seems that the next shiny product is all the rage until the next shiny product comes out. So in all of this nonsense, what happens to the base cards? Do base cards actually even exist anymore? Do the new investors throw them out after they rape the inserts?

I cannot even fathom buying a box of new cards anymore. First off, I am not gonna spend upwards of hundreds of dollars on maybe 8 packs of cards with the off hand chance of getting some supercalafragalisticexpyaladocious 1 of 1 common card.

Where is the sense in that?

I also need to revise my comment I made a while ago about completing Topps sets. Initially, I was gonna collect sets until the end of Topps. But now, my run stops at 2001. 69 to 2001 is gonna be good enough for me. Then I am out of the set collecting business.

When I have to pay around a grand for an update/traded set just because of one or two cards of players that may not even get to a long and storied career, there is something very wrong in that line of thinking.

Pete,

Attracting the younger crowd for possibly all the wrong reasons is no way a good thing for infusing the hobby with new blood.

Maybe it is a generational thing too. We got in this hobby to collect, they are getting into this hobby to invest. And that is a sad commentary actually for getting new people involved in a collector hobby.

Such is life I suppose.......

Maybe I've lost my purity, but I would much prefer my cards to hold their value or appreciate than for them to decline with a dying hobby.

The younger crowd seems to be a little more focused on modern rather than vintage. The monumental increase in prices in vintage though are definitely not going unnoticed.

I do think there are plenty of younger people, like myself, who are strictly in this for Hobby Purposes. I do not know how long the current boom is sustainable for. I do think the impending lockout could shift the tide again on the hobby, especially if it dips into the regular season. Players and Owners are so far apart at the moment.

“Driving all the growth — from fine art masterpieces to collectible sneakers — was a new generation of collectors who had never before been clients of the big auction houses. Sotheby’s said 44% of its bidders this year were new to the auction house, while half of the buyers at Phillips were first-timers. At Christie’s, 35% of all buyers were new, with two-thirds entering through online sales. A third of their new buyers were millennials.”

This is the big piece from the article. The amount of new buyers and money coming into the hobby is tremendous. I love cards, but I am aware that big cards going for big money is part of the way forward. There is no going back.

James,

That makes sense. I got into the hobby for the modern collecting. Let's just overlook the part about 1967 being modern for now. ;-)


But there was never a hook for a quick buck either. Actually there was but it was on the front end trying to get money from my parents so I can run to the local store and buy more cards. No consideration ever for selling anything, just trading to get sets complete. That seems to be a lost art in many ways.

Net54 not withstanding as I do see that happen here and have been a part of that aspect too. Always nice to see someone complete a set, and even more fun helping someone reach that goal too.

I am happy to have your interest in the hobby it is fun and as you can see addicting vice. There are worse things.....

Cheers,

B. T.

I am with you. I don't think all of the recent money into the business has been particularly good. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Change in the hobby is great. Just not sure, at this point, if we are headed in the right direction entirely and if not then things will adjust.

young
 

Love it - Young and wealthy collectors !

This sometimes heard "it's just cardboard, so it's silly that it's an asset" outlook never considers the basics of why some intangible goods can be worth so much.

People obviously enjoy looking at (and owning) those goods enough to drive prices up. Art, sportscards, comic books, and many other examples. They elicit positive feelings of nostalgia, escapism, learning about history, and so much else.

A lot more to it than it just being "cardboard" or "silly cartoon drawings"

Wasn't Harry Frazee known for saying that?

Speaking of Frazee...

Some people actually care about the estate that they'll pass on to their heirs. And you act like a hobby crash doesn't have any negative effects. Very bad for dealers, and some implications for collectors as well.

Also....what a horrible thing when someone's cards have worth enough to be a material part of their assets. Such psychological torment is just unbearable.

Ditto.

I am pretty certain we all use paper to pay for things.

I concur. I have been buying and selling stocks for years in spare time, but it's not very gratifying. Collecting vintage/pre-war cards is fun and potentially a decent investment. I feel like I am having my cake and eating it too.

And I do try to help fund my investment by occasionally selling cards for a profit. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

What I fear though is that too much money will drive investment in algorithms or other market manipulation to try to find and exploit potentially undervalued cards on ebay/auction houses and then snatch them up, thereby reducing the ability to bargain hunt. My nightmare is a bot that quickly compares prices to VCP/130Point/wherever and then buy up all bargains. Wherever there is a lot of money to be had, there will be effort to exploit potential profit, and we are at the point now where there is a lot of money to be had.

I can care about my estate and my heirs, and not want or need my estate to include baseball cards. I’d also like my heirs to be self sufficient and able to provide a great life for themselves. Every dollar I’ve spent in life is a dollar I earned. I value self sufficiency and the ability to earn over inheriting money. The fact is that while higher prices mean my cards are now part of my assets, the flipside to that— which I personally find outweighs that new asset— is that higher prices mean less money in collector pockets and fewer cards in collections. As a passionate collector, I will always root for lower prices. That said, it doesn’t seem anything can slow down the competition and resultant prices; the music has stopped, so to speak, and the chairs many of us have are our collections as they now stand. New acquisitions are going to be ever pricier and thus fewer and farther between.

Yes but when you bought your 52T Mantle if I recall the approximate price range, it was probably 10 times more than it would have been a decade before (or if not that certainly a significant multiple), and many people back then likely had the very same complaint about being priced out of the market for the elite cards. This is just how many markets behave over time.

Can’t argue with that, Pete. It all stems from what prices we’ve seen in the past. Those just entering the hobby now don’t have the sting of knowing what was LOL.

Right but the flipside is you (me too) were able to get a lot of cards back then for what now seems a relative pittance.

I only buy cards that I like. I absolutely love my collection, and look through it for fun on the regular. But, if I spend thousands on a card, I'd prefer that it retain its value. I would personally rather not dump a ton of money into something that's going to go to zero. I don't think that means I can't call myself a collector.

My only financial goal with my card investments is to beat the ROI of the professional money manager my wife and I hired.

It makes me laugh hearing about all these corps and other businesses posting record breaking sales and profits. Something like 40% of all money wasn't in circulation two years ago. All markets are swole and and at peak, what comes next is where it gets interesting!

Never understood why people are concerned with the motivations of other buyers. I watch this NFT stuff with a mixture of bemused confusion and laughter, but it's not my money they are blowing investing.

I sold one card this year at a huge profit, and it probably paid for the 10-12 nice photos I bought over the years that cover my office walls. Nothing wrong with that.

Sadly when people get burned, they wont return to the hobby. Much like in the late 80s. Whether it's deserving or not is debatable