Quote:
Originally Posted by Runscott
The trick is knowing which affordable items are the "good ones". Everyone knows the really big ones such as the T206 Plank or Wagner, or the Goudey Lajoie. If you aren't good at making such determinations for lower-priced cards, you better stick to studying market values.
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In the hobbies that are his primary business -Stamps and coins - there are long established and reasonably accurate price guides, and most of the production totals are known.
Stamps in average condition are readily available for about half the catalog price. I'm no longer sure about coins.
What he was talking about are the things that aren't bargains right now, but will probably be seen as bargains a few years from now.
To use couple examples from cards
Leons Ruth would always have been a bit more than others that would be called the same grade, and a dealer who graded strictly might have called it just VG. (There was some pushback for a time against stuff like VG-EX, some felt there was no middle ground, it was either VG or EX. ) I was given probably 6-7 chances to buy Goudey Ruths. All VG, all around $100. (Sadly for me I never bought one) Leons would have been a bit more even from someone who would just call it a really nice VG. So at the time if I'd bought a card like that for say 125 I'd have "overpaid" The difference now of course is much larger. And it's still worth "overpaying" for since it's very nice for VG-EX.
When I bought my few Carolina Brights backs, I "overpaid" by paying probably 3x what a common was at the time for the commons and the going rate for the Cobb. They were simply poor condition T206s with an interesting back. That's obviously changed a lot.
It's more about paying a bit more for either rarity or condition than finding a bargain.
That's a whole different exercise.
(Like the lucky people who bought Chinese stamps 15+ years ago when they could be had by the boxful for almost nothing. Who knew they'd become more capitalist and like stamps and want their rare stuff back?)
Steve B