Posted By:
Jeff LichtmanJay - what if the cost of a PSA 7 T206 Cobb red background costs the proportional same amount of disposable income to a buyer as does a PSA 1 to you? Does that still make the purchase unwise? Same thing with the watch, house, car, etc.? What about the fact that T206 PSA 7s and 8s have more than doubled in value as based on ebay sales in the past two years? Still an unwise purchase?
Lee, just curious: there's a card with paper loss that graded a 6?
I think you need to appreciate what Richard wrote. We're in this little bubble spending money (sometimes lots) on cardboard. Sure it goes up in value in time but it's not exactly gold we're buying here. Some people (shudder) might think spending serious coin on baseball cards is foolish.
Regardless, I think both you and Jay need to also appreciate that when given the opportunity to own a pristine example of a vintage baseball card, nearly everyone on the planet would rather take that one than a beater. After all, the pristine example is the one that looks the same as it did when it was taken out of a wax pack or a cigarette pack at the time of purchase. It allows us to look at the card and transport ourselves back to that exact moment in time when some kid (or some baseball fan with a nicotine addiction) first gazed upon the card. While a beater may be charming, it sure as hell doesn't look it was meant to look like upon creation no matter how special to you it might be to think that some kid put it under his pillow every day for a year or crammed it into his bicycle spokes.
Jay and Lee, you guys seem to argue that money is not worth the troubles it brings. Imagine a world where having money allows you to buy all the stuff you wanted as a kid without any negative repercussions. The issues you guys raise are larger ones than just the simple question of why or why not someone would spend cash on a high graded Registry set. Regardless, I think I answered the question as to why someone would want to complete an entire graded set in my first response to this question you raised, right?