T205 Question

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Posted By: Tom Botticelli

I was just wondering if somone can help me understand why the SMR continues to show that this set is on the rise when I don't see that much demand and the prices that you can pick these cards up, minus the true rarities, are extremely reasonable. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks...Tom B

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Posted By: Joe P.

This T205 stock is strictly for collectors.
The price is right, and aside from a few toughies plus the Hobi no stats & Drum card, this beautiful stock is a steal.
It's not an active stock, one that you could capitalize on right away, it's a steady stock.

If you're looking for some quick monetary action, my advise is to stay away from it.

Leave it to the collectors, they're needs are simplistic and easy to please.

Your advisor from Lynch Merryl
Joe P.

PS.
Does anyone have a Hobi no stats, or Drum card just laying around?

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Posted By: Pcelli60

I agree with Joe P. T205 is strictly a ' vintage collector ' thing. I am a T205 buyer on line and at NYC area shows. There is no lack of quality graded and ungraded cards. Its still popular as an alternative to T206.

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Posted By: Brian H (misunderestimated)

As someone who regularly buys (upgrades) and then sells T205s I think the SMR is still generally a bit low on ost of the cards -- especially in PSA 6 or higher.
Alot of the dealers who sell high grade T205s are asking a lot over SMR and not getting it but still I think SMR is a bit low on the set as a whole....

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Yes the set as a whole is undervalued. Prices are generally lower than list too..Lots of good cards out there in the 4-6 range.You can get a nice looking PSA3 Jennings for 55-65. Am I going to get that from an unfamiliar dealer at a show?

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Posted By: warshawlaw

as I've commented on in the past. Although in its defense, the excessive prices it had on many sets are now proving to be accurate, albeit years after the jacked up prices first were published. What is the old stock market saying: "Never wrong, only early"?

But seriously, looking at the trend you are referencing leads me to strongly question the analysis or the motivations of the SMR staff. IHMO, in this day and age of increasingly transparent data, there is no excuse for a book that is purportedly updated regularly to still be consistently off when it comes to a specific issue. Since I or anyone else of average intelligence can readily obtain pricing data from real world sales on ebay, the SMR staff's data gathering operation is faulty or the numbers are fudged. Either way, I do not put much stock in the SMR.

Assuming that no one is acting in bad faith to intentionally manipulate the prices of the SMR, my suspicion, and it is merely a suspicion, is that dealer ask prices reported to the SMR folks by their cadre of friendly dealers play a much larger role in pricing decisions than do actual sales results gathered from ebay and similar public sources and that the pricing philosophy at the SMR could be termed "sticky downward". For you non-econ majors, this means that their pricing philosophy is to raise prices readily but turn a blind eye towards general downward trends. I, being a trained cynic, believe that it is politically difficult for editorial staffs at any publication that relies on touting investments, let alone price guides like the SMR that both tout investments and serve as public relation tools for their other corporate services, to accurately report long-term or broad downward price trends because they tend to tick off readers and drive away customers. As the financial magazines have repeatedly proven, if you report enough bad results for a long enough time, people dread the mag and stop purchasing it.

You have the ebay data and can run searches to generate real time and realistic market information, so my advice is to not worry about the SMR or any other book that does not straightforwardly present actual results and concentrate instead on the actual results that can be mined from ebay's database if you need a specific price on an item. That's what I do.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

As we all know, slabbed examples of prewar sets simply do not exist at every grade for every card for every set. The SMR extrapolates from known cases to develop prices for other cards. PSA used to publicly disclaim this practice of using made up prices, until Dennis Purdy and I caught them doing it and went after them for doing it in VCBC.

The problem with extrapolation is that Babe Ruth isn't Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson isn't Christy Mathewson. Just because a PSA 5 Ty Cobb sells for $1,000 does not mean that a Babe Ruth from the same set would sell for $1,500 if it ever existed and was sold. It is pure SWAG ("standard wild-assed guess") methodology. If the card doesn't exist in PSA form, or has not transacted, PSA should not be reporting on it, yet that is precisely what the SMR does. Now, once PSA makes up a number for a non-existent card, it has no reason to drop that fake number just because a real number on a different card falls. It is pure fantasy to begin with, and the garbage that is in the SMR was published with stock prices instead of with card prices, the SEC would be all over them (well, theoretically would be; the regulators have been a bit comatose over the last four years...).

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Honestly I only read it for the articles!! The rest is indeed adult fantasy..

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Posted By: Joe P.

Pcelli - Are these SMR magazines obtainable at checkout counters?

Maybe I should rethink my tobacco card collecting approach?

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Posted By: Bob

Great to talk about and terrific for the "slabs are beautiful" crowd, but check out the SMRs, for instance, on the E94 cards and then try to buy one on ebay in that condition for that price. Good luck. Also the T207 SMRs are waaaaay out of whack. That part of their "study" of selling and buying prices of T207s belongs at Disney World. Collectors of the T207 set know better, much better.

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Right in the money Bob!

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Posted By: Marc S.

but there aren't really any good ones out there, IMHO.

As with most vintage issues, the best indiactor is talking to other dealers and collectors who specialize in the set, and watching Ebay, and the major auction houses. Of particular note - keep track of how much one bidder can/does influence the final hammer price, if at all possible

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Posted By: Jerry

I furnished, via Mastro, my documentation of every ebay and auction house sale for the past two years, that I had compiled. I even cross-referenced it with the pop report. It was forwarded to Joe Orlando. Basically, most of my info was disregarded and I'm pretty disgusted with PSA, especially their incompetent (in my opinion) grading of the set. The SMR is close on about 50% of the set, with much greater variation (too low on many of the high end cards, too high on some of the lower end cards). There are numerous mistakes, e.g. listing Doc Adkins, one of the tougher minor leaguers, as a common major leaguer. Many, many other discrepancies.

SMR is an example of "let the buyer beware".

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Posted By: Pcelli60

Its a blue chip and steady as a golden edged rock. And its a hey day for those who collect it...But the variations in grading and pricing really do make a joke of the SMR. I came back to the hobby in 00' after a 15 year absense and cant believe whats happened...But still I collect more slabs than not on line, due to fraud. Graded cards are a reality I can deal with. But the stunning lack of consistency is pretty obvious. My pet peeve is the variations on a graded 4..Feel bad for you T207 folks...