It is the lure of "easy money". The answer to otherwise stupid things, is many times "money."
And almost daily, don't we see self help articles talking about making cards a business, or side-hussle? I haven't seen many ads about collecting for the fun of it. It's always the money aspect. Don't get me wrong, a lot of us have a good bit of money into the cards, but at the end of the day, it's still fun to collect the old, vintage guys. Except on this forum, and a few other places, one wouldn't know it's a hobby rather than only a business.
The card below beats "shiny" every day for me (but probably not for most of the very young collectors).
Quote:
Originally Posted by marcmandel
I'll start by saying, that if there was any misperception, I am a lifelong collector of vintage baseball product and love my collection and chasing my lifelong grails. I buy cards that are good stores of value and tend to be those cards chased by some of the more sophisticated buyers as they have taught me and I've enjoyed learning from, and in some ways, following their lead.
This doesn't necessarily imply I only buy "expensive cards" and in truth, I have a few big-boy cards and a few more that are far more moderate.
I see the younger guys daytrading in modern and ultramodern (mostly basketball, some football, etc.) and I see some of them rolling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their PC (Remember SashaT of YouTube Fame?) only to be left with pennies now. In many ways, they did this to themselves and stood vigilant as values sank faster than the Titanic.
I think they've lost their minds in what they bought and more so, how much they spent for what they bought.
Why in God's name would I not buy a wonderful Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and see their value preserved and not waste time with the usual day trading? There is real (not manufactured) scarcity of the old and non-shiny stuff and as we all learn in college freshman economics, basic supply and demand will always dictate value and pricing. The modern stuff is vulnerable and susceptible to manufactured price increases coupled with the whiplash of real-world collapses.
I worry that kids who burn a crap-ton of cash on modern shiny stuff in the hope of making long-term returns are simply delusional.
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