As best as we can tell there are a dozen companies which run a total of 35 auctions a year. If one is to believe the prices realized reported from these auctions, they produce around $100 million in sales.

A further assumption is that the unduplicated mailing list of the 12 firms is about 25,000 people.

Let's assume that 50% of the sales are for either non-baseball, post 1960 baseball and misc items not relevant to the advanced collector.

Let's also assume of the relevant baseball items, about 70% are under $2000.

That means 15% of the items sold are at least $2000 and the mean price is $5000. Whilst the $2000+ items represent only 15% of the lots sold, we would guess they represent 33% of the overall revenue.

If this is the case than we are looking at pool of $33,000,000. Based on some extensive research and many hours speaking with dealers and auction houses, we estimate that there are about 500 people who spend at least $10,000 a year (in high value items) 200 who spend $50,000 a year or more and 100 folks who spend $100,000 a year or more. To the best our knowledge there are 10 collectors who spend in excess of a million dollars a year.

Whilst the market for the most treasured items is relatively small it appears that the population of knowledgeable, sophisticated wealthy collectors remains strong despite the precipitous drop in prices for more common items.

What do you think?


Bruce Dorskind
America's Toughest Want List
bdorskind@dorskindgroup.com