Hey Big Spender

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

[SethY]

I don't get your point.

[Leon]

Mr. elite type card collector,

Even though your original post reeks of elitism there could be a decent debate or conversation concerning the topic. However, maybe "we" could also include the more moderate budgets from say $50 a month to $500 a month too. Maybe that won't be as newsworthy though? I would only say that it is my guess that most, but certainly not all, people's card budgets change over time. best regards

[glchen]

I think a lot of these buyers may be dealers or flippers who are only looking to sell their winnings from the auction houses...

[barrysloate]

How could you possibly know the breakdown of who spends how much in this hobby? I would guess those are just wild estimates.

[Ejm1]

I don't think there is any person in the hobby more driven by cash than yankee51. Congrats, you've turned collecting into an advanced finance problem, keep it up and watch the bottom fall out because of the soul sucking bean counters.

[vintagecpa]

The numbers appear to be reasonable. My best guess is there aren't that many people that spend over $1 million per year on cards. However, there are a large number of people that aren't rich, but are willing to spend big money on a once-in-a-lifetime purchase if the right card or lot ever becomes available. You can never underestimate this group of people.

Barry

Whilst we understand and respect your knowledge, you have not been active in the ultra high market for many years. With all due respect, we think you underestimate the accuracy of our observations..

1) Sales totals for all the auctions are published.
2) With simple math, one can assess the % of items that fall into each of the categories.
3) By constantly surveying auction houses, advanced wealthy collectors, and with 30 years of private contacts, we have a pretty clear picture of who controls the bucks.

As for the gentleman, who indicated all we care about is money

1) we are advanced collectors, and except one personal emergency, we don't sell

2) The compounded growth of our ultra elite collection is grown more than 15% a year over the past 24 years

3) We would think that only place the bottom fell out was your foot which was clearly stuck in your mouth when you made the aforementioned comment.

Our major point is that a select few collectors, less than 250 ,are the market for the ultra rare, expensive, high grade materials. It is these items that attract publicity and drive traffic to the most important auction. Remember that the average lot in the recent REA auction sold for over$ 5,000. That is would certainly eliminate Leon's group of $50 and $500 a month collectors.

We appreciate your interest and look forward to an aggressive buying season in 2011-2012

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

[Cat]

We appreciate your interest and look forward to an aggressive buying season in 2011-2012

Lacking sophistication and uber-wealth, the "buying season" is apparently based on some sort of fiscal year that I am unaware of....HELP!

[aljurgela]

I believe that Bruce's approximation may be a pretty good one, or at least as good as one could get at this point.... and I am not sure how we would use this data, unless I was an auction house trying to invite the "right" people to a closed high end auction...

But I would add one point... I think that the purchasers of high end material (and probably all collectors regardless of level) should be pretty volatile in dollars spent because they tend to look for certain items and when they become available, they pounce on them making sure that they have "dry powder" for the day that they become available... at least that is my take. So my hypothesis is that some people may spend $100k one year, $10k the next, then $50k, then $200k... it really is a funtion of what is available.

If you believe my hypothesis and apply it to Bruce's numbers, then there would likely have to be more collectors. I would guess that there are about 5 collectors who spend $1 million or more a year.... but I am far less experienced in this "industry" than Bruce or others.

[David Atkatz]

Originally Posted by vintagecpa

The numbers appear to be reasonable.

The "numbers" are totally arbitrary, and absolutely meaningless. Made up of whole cloth, they represent nothing more than Bruce's snobbish biases.

David

We certainly would like to see your numbers- you are quick to accuse, but never offer anything but sarcastic comments.

We suppose that the next thing that you are going to state is that President Obama's economic policies are well received by the American public.

We certainly did not publish these numbers randomly. Furthermore, we see nothing wrong with talking about the high end of the market. You, yourself own a plethora of high-end Yankee material..

The question raised about items that appear in multiple auctions or items that are not really sold, despite the auction house stating to the contrary, is one we do not believe anyone can answer.

Our conclusion is that the large baseball auction house market is about $100M (re-sales and false sales aside) 15% of the value comes from items selling in $5000+ range. Our best estimate was there are 200 collectors who spend $25,000 or more 50 collectors who spend $100,000 or more and 5-7 collectors who spend a million dollars or more. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hope you are well.

Bruce

[mighty bombjack]

Having followed the majority of the larger auction houses' offerings over the past couple of years for the items I collect, I can say that I've seen a significant amount of the same items pop up more than once. That is to say, there may be people spending 50,000+ a year, but they are selling as well, probably quite often buying and selling in the same auction. Collecting is a hobby, but so is flipping.

[atx840]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

I've got a Wonka and Rob D which are the two biggies from the A hole set.

Sadly Ted's study shows 95% of all Wonkas are miscut.

[Wite3]

Miscut is fine but the pin hole is worse.