[ls7plus]

Value is a factor of the ratio of both supply and demand. With a truly huge demand, even a readily available card like the '52 Topps Mantle will bring huge prices, at least as long as demand from wealthier buyers keeps growing (IMHO, the smart collectors are selling, not buying, at the current price levels). Just for me personally, I'd rather have a very rare Mantle (my '55 Exhibit Postcard back, for example?) than a '52 Topps any day, if I had to choose one to keep. But cards like Ty Cobb's rarest rookies (1907 Dietsche Fielding Pose; 1907 Wolverine News Portrait; 1907 Seamless Steel Tubing) will keep going up and up, while the '52 Topps Mantle has been and will be cyclical, because although the demand is less for the Cobbs, the supply is microscopic compared to the Mantle. It is the ratio of supply to demand (and the rather unquantifiable quality of the demand--whales vs paupers) that rules value. The 1907 Seamless Steel Cobb with Cobb written content which went for $80K plus not too long ago is, to me, a far better investment than what you would get for that amount in a '52 Topps Mantle.

On the other hand, should you plunk down that amount on a PSA 10 '93 SP Jeter, be prepared to lose most of your $$$ in the next 1-2 decades. At some point, demand has to be based on a solid, firm foundation, rather than hype, mist, smoke and illusion (not to mention a mere plastic holder and paper slip bearing a certain number), and there are literally thousands and thousands of this card in very high grades (with little substance to distinguish between the numbers on those slips). Plus. a 115 OPS+ is, at very best, a marginal HOF'er. That mark puts him about 3% better than Alan Trammel offensively (111 OPS+), and Trammel was the better fielder. Jeter was a compiler, whose signature hit was a fisted blooper to right field. Compare that to Mantle's blast against the facade at old Yankee Stadium, or his reputed 565 footer over the left field scoreboard at Griffith Park in Washington against the Senators!

Just my opinion, based on a thorough study of what other collectibles such as coins and cars have done over the last 2 and one-half decades, and the history of what values were and what has happened to them in these areas for decades and decades before that. There is a reason why a '71 Hemi 'Cuda convertible and a 1967 L-88 Corvette are worth in the 2-4 million dollar range all day long--They are each perhaps the most significant example of their breed, and each was made in quantities of 20 or less.


Best of luck to you in your collecting,

Larry