Market Exuberance (or “If I was smart, I’d sell now…”)

[paleocards]

(Posted this on the PSA boards, but I thought there'd be interest here too...)

I track the “performance” of my “blue-chips” through eBay’s sold auctions, major auction house results and VCP. I started doing this soon after I bought and slabbed my first PSA cards in 2005, so I have over 10 years of data for some of my cards. I collect baseball HOFers in as high a grade as I can afford, and I can confidently state that I’ve never seen the baseball card market as explosive as it is now.

The recently-ended Spring auctions by some of the major houses (including REA, Mile High, Memory Lane, and Goldin) provide cases-in-point, but eBay (and not just PWCC) have provided some recent stunners as well.

Here’s some data:

REA (closed 5/1/16) auctioned 7 cards that I have in my collection in the same grade, with five of the seven hammering-down at unprecedented levels (according to my records).

1968 Topps #280 Mickey Mantle PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $1080
Previous record: $854 (PWCC “certified,” 12/10/15)
Sales tracked: 320 since 12/9/09

1933 Goudey #92 Lou Gehrig PSA 4
New record sale (w/juice): $2700
Previous record: $2133 (Huggins & Scott, 6/13/13)
Sales tracked: 42 since 1/18/12

1955 Topps #123 Sandy Koufax RC PSA 7
New record sale (w/juice): $4200
Previous record: $3561 (PWCC, 3/8/16)
Sales tracked: 313 since 11/21/07

1959 Topps #514 Bob Gibson RC PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $4500
Previous record: $2577 (PWCC, 4/12/16)
Sales tracked: 236 since 10/24/05

1955 Topps #164 Roberto Clemente RC PSA 5
New record sale (w/juice): $5100
Previous record: $3150 (PWCC “certified,” 2/8/16)
Sales tracked: 27 since 5/4/15

Mile High (closed 5/6/16) auctioned 9 cards that I have in my collection in the same grade, with four of the nine hammering-down at unprecedented levels (according to my records).

1956 Topps #292 Luis Aparicio RC PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $1020.60
Previous record: $583 (eBay BIN, 12/31/14)
Sales tracked: 84 since 1/8/09

1969 Topps #95 Johnny Bench PSA 9
New record sale (w/juice): $1827.36
Previous record: $1050 (PWCC, 3/13/14)
Sales tracked: 85 since 1/24/06

1966 Topps #50 Mickey Mantle PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $3202.80
Previous record: $1450 (eBay BIN, 4/5/16)
Sales tracked: 257 since 8/29/05

1955 Topps #123 Sandy Koufax RC PSA 7 (again!)
New record sale (w/juice): $4393.94
Previous record: $4200 (REA, 5/1/16)
Sales tracked: 315 since 11/21/07

Memory Lane (closed 5/8/16) auctioned 9 cards that I have in my collection in the same grade, with two of the nine hammering-down at unprecedented levels (according to my records).

1971 Topps #26 Bert Blyleven RC PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $684
Previous record: $650 (eBay BIN, 7/15/13)
Sales tracked: 63 since 1/14/13

1963 Topps #553 Willie Stargell RC PSA 8
New record sale (w/juice): $684
Previous record: $671 (PWCC, 11/5/14)
Sales tracked: 140 since 3/7/08

And then…another Stargell RC in 8 sold on eBay 12 days later (5/17) for $961.01!

Goldin (closed 5/8/16) auctioned 2 cards that I have in my collection in the same grade, with one of the two hammering-down at an unprecedented level (according to my records).

1949 Bowman #84 Roy Campanella RC PSA 7
New record sale (w/juice): $1037
Previous record: $949 (eBay best offer, 4/13/16)
Sales tracked: 33 since 1/14/12

And of course there’s the PSA 8 Nolan Ryan RC that’s just going ballistic:
New record sale: $8095 (eBay auction, NOT PWCC, 5/15/16)
Previous record: $5000 (PWCC, 5/12/16)
Sales tracked: 272 since 1/6/09