E107 - Entire set

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

OK, with the latest "vg" E107 selling for $16,000+...

I have to ask whether or not it is true that Scott B. once bought the WHOLE SET from Lew Lipsett many moons ago???

And if so, then I have to ask the sales price (if anyone cares to share)?

And then... I have to get out my calculator and try to figure out what the entire set (including Wagner and Mathewson and Young) would sell for TODAY!!!

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Posted By: leon

But since we are homey's I can at least say, to the best of my knowledge, there is no known complete set. regards

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Hopefully Andy B. will share with us where it was that he picked up his beautiful Wagner and Mathewson E107's.

Maybe he got them from Scott B. and that is what I am remembering.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

A virtually complete set went in an auction in the mid-1990s for about $40K. I think Olbermann was the winner.

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Posted By: leon

but I think he got the Matty from Scott (and Scott probably wishes he had it back) and I am not sure about the Wagner. From what I remember there were about 100-150 E107's that Scott got from Lew.....for what would now be considered a steal. It's (pricing)is all ya'lls fault Hal. I had this same conversation yesterday, via email with a board member, about the folks with a relative large amount of money to spend on cards. It's really pushed a lot of us out...and I can only sympathize with folks on a real budget....With all of the lawyers, CEO's, business owners, doctors, entrepreneurs etc....it makes it real hard to collect and have a regular job..But I digress and will just say that it doesn't appear the end is in sight for escalating E107 prices.....regards

edited for spelling

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Yeah, we feel REAL sorry for those of you who have been buying cards for 20 years for $2.50 a dozen in flea markets... and are now selling those same cards to us for $13,000 a card!

In other words... there might be some people who are driven out of adding anything NEW to their collections...

but they have also had the price of their collections driven way up.

Tit for tat.

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Posted By: leon

Don't get me wrong. I am appreciative of the escalating prices on the cards that I have gotten so far. I just wish I could sell to you and bid against Lee and Jay all of the time (that was a joke).....regards

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Oh I know. I'm just joking as well!

Believe me...

don't you think I wish every night that I had started collecting VINTAGE stuff 30 years ago instead of collecting all of the modern Topps stuff??

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Posted By: Andy Baran

Hal,

There is no known E107 complete set. There are several collectors (5 that I know of) that are relatively close. Scott B bought a large grouping of E107's from Lew Lipset a few years ago. I pre-arranged to purchase several cards from that lot from him, including the Mathewson along with several cards that now reside in your collection.

I picked up the Wagner from a private "collector". It was a gentleman who had purchased the card in an estate sale in 1979 for $15. He put it in ebay, and when it didn't meet the reserve, I worked out a deal privately.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Thanks!

I guess I need for these guys to hurry up and COMPLETE their sets...

so that then maybe they will move on to something else and decide to SELL OFF their E107's after losing the thrill of the hunt.

SCOTT B. (or anyone)....

can we PLEASE see some scans of the HOF rookie cards in the set that never seem to surface??

Bender, Chance, Clarke, J. Collins, G. Davis, Kelley, Wallace??

Thanks!

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hal- Not to burst any bubbles but while there is no question vintage cards are escalating very quickly and E107 HOFers are now red hot, we are reaching the point where vintage cards are becoming so ungodly expensive that soon only a very few very wealthy people will be able to afford them. And who will they sell them to- each other? And the high prices will cause many to sell their collections and drop out, that is inevitable. That equates to more material on the marketplace and fewer collectors. What usually happens in a situation like that? Is the hobby destined to become accessible to the very rich only? Is that good or bad? I guess opinions may vary.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Don't feel bad. Barry said the same thing when Old Judge reached $45/card.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think my threshhold was a bit above $45, but point well taken. What I am seeing is a major shift in the vintage card market. Ultimately, only the rich will be able to afford the good cards, and whatever crumbs are left will be fought over by the peasants. This is not any great revelation to any of us, but an observation. No more, no less.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

And the peasants will rise up and................. How is this different from the art market or the rare coin market, etc? Isn't this just a reflection of the hobby becoming more mainstream.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It's exactly the same, with one difference: the art, coin, etc. markets have been established for a hundred years; what we are seeing with vintage baseball cards in the last year or two is something of a new phenomenon. We are in unchartered waters here. Baseball cards at these levels have no track record, so are the prices real or just a chimera? (today's $50 word)

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Barry--What we are seeing in the baseball card market is new to that market but not to collecting in general. I would think that as a hobby becomes more mainstream you see a similar set of events. For rare vintage material supply stays flat or decreases. Even a modest demand increase can really spike prices especially when some buyers may have more money than sense.

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Posted By: barrysloate

How about if high prices cause a lot of collectors to sell out because they can no longer afford to add to their collections. Couldn't supply eventually increase at an even faster pace than the demand? Not impossible.

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Posted By: Jim F

Barry, you make a solid point but very pesimistic if i can add my 2 cents. A collector is usually a collector for life. I can't think of any serious collectors that got out and stayed out. Most may sell if they see a good return on thier investment but generally the money will be spent elsewhere in the hobby economy. Some have said they are selling thier collections and do(maybe because of a need for funds in thier real life), but are more than likely to re-enter the market when they are in a better place financially. Jim

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Posted By: Jay Miller

That arguement makes sense for items that are not rare. For rare cards it is unlikely that a collector or two selling off a collection will depress prices (and if they are depressed I believe it will be for a very short term). For common material yes; for rare material no. Unless there is a significant change in the collecting world I see prices for rare cards continuing to escalate. What you are saying does not only pertain to the collecting world. With housing prices spikeing in many areas of the country people who work for some towns(police, teachers, etc) can no longer afford to live in those towns. Isn't this all just a function of the percentage differential in wages between the upper class and the lower class being wider today than at any point in history? Look at the ratio of CEO compensation to that of the average worker.

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Posted By: tbob

I don't know if collectors are going to sell out completely. I think there are several like myself who are selling duplicates of cards hoarded away or cards from sets which will never realistically be completed. They are selling now in this market so they can buy cards needed from other sets they are pursuing.
Since my job is one of those Leon would designate as a "real job" I have to buy and sell as I go along in trying to accumulate cards.

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Posted By: identify7

I certainly am no spokesperson for the peasants, but last time I heard from them - it was unusual for any of them to spend $250 or above on a card without giving it very careful consideration; from both a collection/investment logistics perspective and from a "gee, should my family tie up this money right now" assessment.

So, I do not think that an escalation in the prices for rare cards is going to necessarilly have much peasant impact, since rare cards are rare in their collections. Does anyone think that key e107s going in the $10-20K range is going to effect peasant cards anytime soon?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Is there any danger of the MODERN baseball card market becoming so worthless that they just QUIT making baseball cards at all??

This would scare me, because then the hobby might eventually die from having no new collectors join the ranks as youngsters.

I don't follow the modern stuff...

but does anyone know if the kids can still afford to buy a wax-pack...

and if any of the do?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Lots of good points while I stepped out. For Bob, I have seen plenty of people get out of the hobby, it's not right to say that people don't get out. For Jay, Picassos and Van Goghs are extremely rare, but we have seen dips in the art market. And the disparity between the very rich and poor is a sore point with me; I don't like what is happening in this country. But my own personal opinion has nothing to do with the price of E107 HOFers. And Hal, I don't think kids are buying packs of baseball cards today like they did a generation ago, but that doesn't mean they can't be collectors of vintage material when they get older and have money to spend. You don't have to be a pre-teen pack collector to graduate into fine collectibles, so it's tough to see the connection. The nostalgia element won't be there, but that's just one factor.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

is dead. The market is now a low end lottery for adults. Spend an afternoon at a local card shop (if you can find one) and you will find it very depressing. Even worse, buy a Beckett magazine and try to figure out what all those listings are. It's all a penny stock market with 50% bid-ask spreads.

My vibe is that we skip a generation and hope for a resurgence around 2050. I should complete the E107 set around then.

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Posted By: Josh K.

why am I starting to have the same feeling I did after buying all my tech stocks in the late 90s? Anyone want to buy some cisco or sun at 100+ per share?

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Posted By: Scott Elkins

is............technology. I still remember wanting to buy T206's and other old cards when I was 8 years old. However, I was limited to the flea markets around where I live. The oldest cards I could find were 1950's (though I did stumble across a few CJ's at one time that were too expensive for me then).

To this date, I still have never found a true vintage card within 150 miles of where I live. I, like many others, have now found out that we can find most any card we want on the internet (though we have to wait a while sometimes - like with the E107's).

Anyway, the internet has helped vintage card collecting mature much faster than art, stamps, coins etc. did in the past.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Richard- if you are around in 2050, please remember me fondly. And Scott, yes technology has drastically changed the landscape- there's a flea market 365 days a year. But it's still supply and demand. Right now there is a wonderful balance between a large number of sellers and an even larger pool of buyers. But that stasis tends to shift- nobody knows the future and no one can say with certainty that rare baseball cards have nowhere to go but up. I'm not saying they can't go up, I'm just saying they can go down.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

I would think that a rough proxy for the health of the modern card market is the performance of the stock of Topps. Over the last 5 years the stock has traded from roughly $7.50/share to $12. Now the stock is at $9.50, smack in the middle of the range. Not a great performance but hardly a need to put it on life support. Card shops are dead--ebay took care of that. Check out the classified section in SCD; it is almost non-existent. This may explain what I see as the slow death of the publication. However, I believe that what we are seeing has happened in other hobbies. How many kids collect coins today? Has this hurt the rare coin market? I don't believe so. Same for stamps. No kids collect art (at least not any I know) but the art market is thriveing. Who knows, maybe this is the baseball card version of tulipmania. Nothing wrong with that--just don't get stuck holding the tulip.

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Posted By: Richard

Along with the question about the rising prices of modern day packs and how that will affect new kids and new collectors getting into the collecting market, you could also draw the parallel of how many people (and kids) can afford to go to a ballgame.

The days of catching a weekend game for a few bucks are over and now a day at the ballpark can run a family of 4 easily several hundred dollars (tickets, food, souveniers, etc). Watching your favorite player 10-20 times a year is now only reserved for those with a decent amount of expendible funds. What does this mean long term for the game?

Compare this to the modern card business . . . how many kids can walk into a store and spend $100 on a pack? Truly only reserved to the "upper class"

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Net income has steadily declined over the last five years and now the company is for sale (Shorin agreed to not pass a poison pill).

Stamps sell at a fraction of the values they commanded two decades ago.

Modern art has been run up largely due to the efforts of one knucklehead hedge fund guy (the rotting shark in a fish tank for $25 million?).

Price is determined at the margin: the one card for sale, the one or two top bidders. What leads to excess is when the buyers get the impression that there will always be that cover bid. When that disappears is when every marginal holder decides to sell and prices decline. Will the current buyers at the high end ever need the money? If not, stated prices may decline, but little product will change hands.

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Posted By: Rich Klein

How many kids collect coins today? Has this hurt the rare coin market?

Jay, in reality due to brilliant marketing moves like the state quarters being released a few years at a time, there has been an increase of young people into the coin market.

That is because the introductory phase of coin collecting (of which an average person can do 40 years) is based on pocket change.

There is much more interest on lower level coins and currency than there has been in years.

Regards
Rich

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Posted By: warshawlaw

On the actual topic of this thread, while I understand that no one has a complete set has anyone ever assessed the population of these cards to determine whether there is a full set in existence? That would be an interesting bit of info for you collectors/masochists. Might inspire some earthshattering trades

As far as the card market goes, I have several random thoughts:

First of all, I don't share the same pessimism as many do w/r/t the development of future collectors. Kids do collect, they just don't collect what we collect. The days of 12 year olds (like I was) having collections rivaling adults and setting up as dealers at shows is over, just like the days of having people practically throw boxes of old cards at you to get rid of them. My 6 year old nephew and his friends all collect baseball cards but they get the cheapo packs that many of the manufacturers put out right now with no fanfare alongside the richy-rich packs with all the crapola inserted. There are a number of products out there that can give a kid a pack for a buck, retail. Most kids' allowances today allow them to buy a pack a week, at least, which is about where it was when I was a kid. As I recall it was about 25 cents for a pack and my first allowance was around that level. Upper Deck especially has been cognizant of that market and creating packs for it. Are they "worth" something? No. But the kids like them. If they like the cards and are interested and find trading them to be fun, when these kids develop a bit more maturity and sophistication, I am sure that some of them will end up at shows and interested in old cards. As long as they aren't condition bugs or chasing E107 type cards, they can have a rewarding collecting experience as kids. If they go after cards of all time greats like Aaron, Mays, Seaver, Gibson, etc., they can readily score lower grade cards from the 1970s for huge discounts at any decent show or on ebay. Remember too that THE KIDS DON'T KNOW HOW IT WAS BEFORE; to them, everything today is normal. We are the ones who are worried because we recall "how it used to be".

Second, we are so far removed from a magnates-only market that the comparison with rare art just isn't accurate. Sure, the headline cards draw amazing money, but what the vast majority of collectors are perfectly happy to collect cost a few hundred dollars. I can never even aspire to own a Van Gough or a Wagner, but I can certainly aspire to 90% of the cards out there.

Third, I think you have to look at the revolutions that card collecting has undergone over the last few decades as a progression towards and then through maturity as a hobby, not as a reason to panic about a bubble. The ACC and Sports Collectors Bible were the first two milestones towards systematization of the hobby, which is the first step in creating a base of collectors all talking the same language about the same stuff. The price guides (Beckett, CPU, etc.) took it to the next level, which was quantifying the market. Once those two forces were in place, the next step was creating a trading floor. In our case it was the many card clubs that sprung up. I was in the West Coast Card Club here in LA; we had a monthly meeting, which was held in a church basement. There were dealer tables for members who wanted them, an auction and a lot of socializing. This was followed by the non-club big shows when promotion made sense. Show development culminated in the National formation in the early 1980s. The next step was the formation of additional trading sites in the form of card stores. From these elements, a national collecting movement was formed. Since the early 1980s, the changes in the hobby have been driven by technology and marketing. The first innovation was the autograph show, which dramatically expanded the appeal of the shows, especially when you could get (as I did) a DiMaggio autograph for $12 or could shake hands with Sandy Koufax (as I also did) instead of being churned through an assembly line. It took the existence of shows and stores and hobby papers and guides and counterfeiters to get the manufacturers to begin (a) paying attention to the non-kid customers and (b) innovating like heck. Fleer and Donruss started the marketing and development fight in 1983-84; Upper Deck started the technical boom in new stuff with its 1989-91 issues. The show-store-marketing economy flourished until the late 1990s when the internet and auctions clobbered both old marketing models BY REPLACING THEM WITH NEW MODELS. That wasn't the death knell for the hobby; if anything, it has expanded even more. Slabbing boosted the price effect even further by generating a perception of fungibility and objectivity (yeah, I know... that is why I said "perception").

I am optimistic because we are no longer seen as the weird card geeks trading worthless paper in church basements. I got so much $hit for collecting as a teen that I dropped out completely from ages 15-22. Does anyone realize that the president of a major telecom company was in here yesterday talking about his recent six figure card expenditures? We've gone from a clown act to major investment over the last 30 years. Once investments develop that sort of momentum it is rare that they fall totally out of favor unless technological changes kill them off.

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Posted By: Jim F

WELL SAID!! And on a side note, how many people would not have been introduced to collecting or collecting a lot less if it wasn't for the internet? Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

Adam- You had my complete attention until you mentioned that dreaded word: "investments." Investors are a fickle bunch- they buy, and they sell. And they have no problem dumping- be it stock, businesses, art, collectibles, you name it. Investors controlling the market does not warm my heart. If I thought that were the case, I'd recommend for everybody to sell- the quicker the better. Collectors are the only ones who can keep the market stable.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Collectors with money are buying the rare stuff; Investors are buying the PSA 9s and 10s.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

chit chat between John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith........
How much is the Powerball this week?

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Posted By: identify7

And Jay Behrens is buying the lower grade stuff.

My money is with him. I see more collectors buying vintage every day - and most can best afford to put together lower grade collections. You never know, demand could affect prices.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Rich Masson is correct.

Whoever it was that paid $240,000+ for the 1914 Babe Ruth Baltimore News card did so because of how RARE it was...

NOT because it was a PSA 4 instead of a 3 or a 5.

Same is true for these E107's.


To pay RIDICULOUS prices for anything higher than a PSA 8 card is when I think you start to get into the "investment" category.

The difference between a PSA 8 card and a PSA 10 card can sometimes be VERY MINUTE... so to pay a LOT MORE for a PSA 10 when there are a LOT of 8's floating around would seem crazy. But what do I know?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

For instance, a collector can get a VERY nice perfectly-centered 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle rookie card in PSA 8 condition for $20,000. There have been about 50 of these graded by PSA and SGC, with many more certainly lurking out there.

Is it "wise" to spend an extra $130,00 just to be able to say that you own the ONLY PSA 10 example of that card???

Can that really be considered a good investment??

I say "no."

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--Is that you or someone using your handle? Aren't you the guy who has to have the highest graded card of each HOFer and who makes a point of listing the cards in that manner on your web site?

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Yes.

That is my point exactly.

I am 100% a COLLECTOR... NOT an "investor."

I am ADMITTING that to make any such purchase could ONLY be done by someone who wants to collect and "possess" and NOT someone who is truly thinking about it solely as an "investment."

How I choose to throw away my money is my business!!!

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Posted By: identify7

Investing in a card solely because of grade rarity is a risky investment imho, because you never know how many as good or better cards exist which have not been submitted for verification by a service which may know less than the card owner.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Hal--OK so let me understand. You are saying that you are an irrational collector, not a rational investor. I have no issue with that. I was just trying to reconcile your words with your actions.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

After all this time...

do you really think that anyone on this board is going to categorize me as anything BUT an IRRATIONAL COLLECTOR??



I am the poster child for "Irrational Exuberance" in our hobby!!!

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Posted By: robert a

This is an interesting thread.
We've talked a lot about the sudden movement by collectors over the last year or so to frantically buy up all of the caramels (and sometimes tobaccos...as if they are going somewhere) without a care. True E107 collectors have to be affected the most by this. Not that E107 collectors aren't prepared to spend the big bucks already for higher grade commons and hofers, but now low grade commons are pretty darn expensive.

E107s represent the pinnacle of caramel sets for hardcore collectors.
It's not that it can't be completed in my opinion, but rather that it will never be completed by someone who is starting the set right now. Those few collectors that have started on the set years ago might have a chance, but the recent trend will definitely stunt the growth of any collector's E107 additions. I think that a few collectors will sell now due to the nice prices they will receive and the cards will sit in new collections for a couple of years until the new collector decides to resell them. Of course, the type collectors might hold on to a few nicer hofers.

I have no doubt that collectors jumping on the E107 bandwagon love vintage cards, I just hope (for their own health) that they don't have any intention of trying to actually finish it.

As far as collectors go though, I've agree with the notion, "Once a collector, always a collector." There's no escape. Hopefully, folks who appear to be "getting out" are really just reloading or selling off the overpriced stuff and settling in to a new and less expensive challenge once they realize the market has ruined there hopes of completion.
robert

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Posted By: warshawlaw

everyone, or just about everyone, will consider selling. I've sold cards from my "permanent collection" when offered more than I ever expected for them.

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Posted By: Richard Masson

You're bumming me out, man. I'm an E107 newbie with stars in my eyes. Now all I want to do is go kill myself.

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Posted By: robert a

Richard.
Sorry man...but welcome to the club.
I definitely don't mean to bum anyone out though!
If you've got tons of cash, I guess anything's possible.
I learned fast that e107 is out of my league.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Wow, I disappear for a few days and I've been annoited the King of Crappy Commons I like that title. BcD, feel free to use it as often as you like

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I wouldn't worry too much about it