Posted By:
honus3415The Price Guide is a thing of the past. Try as anyone might to come up with a solution which would reflect accurate values, no solution exists.
The influx of buyers (those with more money than they know what to do with) into the vintage card market will forever skew any reasonable pricing figures that could be compiled.
You and I both know people, who's "immediate desire" to satisfy their lust for objects is not hindered by any price tag, or at least any price tag that your average collectors would deem excessive. These people are used to "instant gratification" and money is the means to that temporary fix. The inflated prices are a result of their false sense of love for the hobby. Who will be the next Mr X and become bored with the hobby their spending is destroying?
As long as there are buyers in the market place with no incentive or cap on their spending, there will be purchase prices well above what is logical and reasonable to the marketplace. What an item may be truely worth can no longer be judged by it's sale value. I would compare this to baseball players in a marketplace with no salary cap. Should the Steinbrenners exit the marketplace, what would happen to salaries?
Two major factors have lead to this present situation, card grading and internet sales. No longer does a "collector" need to know diddly about the hobby (the cards are graded and identified), nor do they have to dedicate any serious time compiling a collection (one can just hit the enter key on a keyboard and packages start piling up on their doorstep).
And as Yogi Berra once thought....If it weren't for the people with money, nothing would cost anything.
The true QUALITY of a collection is determined by the hours each person spends creating and enjoying it, not by the dollars spent on it before it is secured in the vault.