Great topic. I'm in active pursuit for my T206 HOF type set right now and sold off some others to help fund it. So far those funds are sitting largely untapped b/c of two reasons.

1. Some of the prices for even VG examples are ridiculous and I'll wait it out.

2. More than anything, there just isn't a lot of options for what I'm looking for. I could do Ebay (but I won't). I almost exclusively use Net54 for my transactions. I trust the people and I'd rather help out a fellow forum member than some anonymous jerkwad on Ebay (although I know many of you sell on Ebay and are NOT jerkwads :D).

I'm not in a big rush and will wait for the right opp, but it does lead to overpaying when you cant scratch that itch as often as you like.

I hope you are all doing well and staying safe and healthy!

Regards,

Bill

I've been thinking along similar lines, Jerry. I am looking to add to my collection with cards of marquee players whose cards are (1) raw or slabbed by the 'wrong' TPG, (2) graded just below the 'right grade' but present better than the grade assigned, and (3) if in the 'wrong' holders are offered at a discount to the equivalent cards from the 'right' TPGs. I did that during the last run-up and wasn't stung much at all when the pump and dump scheme ended. Now those cards are worth well above what I paid. 'Course they're not for sale because they would punch a helluva hole in my collection. Guess my daughter will inherit some nice cards some day...

PSA & overall market
 

Thank you for bringing up grading....as a new collector back after 30 years (posted above), I have done my homework on the big-3. I have not had anything slabbed yet, but will eventually. I believe the "PSA premium" is artificial and won't last in the long run. Too inconsistent and biased, which is the basic task that I pay a grader to perform. As a collector who likely won't sell, I am going another direction. I think that over time other providers will prove to be better at the job, and the premium will fade.

On the card market in general, I do not think the recent influx of buyers is as fickle as assumed. I believe most are like me, who are now back in the hobby for the long-term. For this reason, I think the prices on key cards will be sustainable. But of course, any economic shock will still have an impact.

You sound like a good candidate to try the new Grading Company, CCG. I am pretty much in the same boat, and have the same feelings as you towards PSA. I will not give them a dime.

Once they establish a bit of a reputation, this one might be worth a try...

https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.co...ding-division/

I’m just the opposite. I won’t buy anything vintage that’s not in a psa holder. And if given a choice prefer cards in the updated hologram holders which means it’s most likely recently graded. From what I’ve seen PSA is just so much stricter now vs SGC and when comparing same grade examples it’s no comparison.

[QUOTE=Wid_Conroy;2010861]Thank you for bringing up grading....as a new collector back after 30 years (posted above), I have done my homework on the big-3. I have not had anything slabbed yet, but will eventually. I believe the "PSA premium" is artificial and won't last in the long run. Too inconsistent and biased, which is the basic task that I pay a grader to perform. As a collector who likely won't sell, I am going another direction. I think that over time other providers will prove to be better at the job, and the premium will fade.

There are thousands of examples like this but this one seems especially apropos to this thread:
A few months ago a T206 Magie graded 1.5 by SGC sold at auction for $5600. Tonight a Magie graded PSA 1.5 (MC) went for $9000. Maybe the PSA card was especially attractive for the grade, but I have to think the "PSA premium" was a factor.

Just bought my first five-figure card.

Psa
 

Thank you. To clarify my earlier comment about grading, I need to clarify buying a graded card vs sending in a raw card.... If a card is slabbed PSA and is price right, I would buy it. But if I am going to pay someone to grade my card, I want the same grade regardless of whether its Randy Johnson or Randy Ready. Unfortunately, PSA has provenly failed in this regard. So I would not send a star card that might be a true 10, only to have it randomly called a 9.....I'd have zero faith in the accuracy, so what am I paying for? But if it's an existing card slabbed, I can judge whether or not I think it's a good buy for the price.

There is no reason to grade any card unless you are thinking of selling. Save your money and use it to buy more cards. On the other hand, I wouldn't buy anything over 100.00 that wasn't graded and would look to buy primarily graded cards.

Does it live in Canada? Did you buy it at Niagra Falls?

Pics, man, pics! :)

Cross-posted! https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...=1#post2011229

question for everyone...
 

Thank you. Curious the logic on not buying raw cards > $100... is it because of authenticity concerns? or is that you do not trust the condition with your eye?

I've bought a few cards from Ebay over $100. Mainly from 1 seller (large well-known) who I do not believe will knowingly pass along a fake. And, from what I have read on this site, their grading is fairly representative of reality. I am happy with everything I have received so far... I would not buy a Gretzky or Jordan rookie or other major counterfeit targets, but I generally am comfortable with most cards within my budget.

Should I be more worried?

I am a Lebron James and Derek Jeter collector. If his career continues the way it is heading. I expect his cards to sky rocket even more. Jeter getting into the Hall of Fame should also sky rocket. There is money out there. My take on this.

FWIW, there is a thread in the basketball section discussing the run-up and now apparently downturn on hoops cards. Looks to me like whoever was pumping is now dumping.

not hesitant but it does now price me out of buying some cards for a collector with just a limited amount to spend on the hobby

Seems to me that the Hall should be pretty well baked into Jeter prices at this point, but who knows.

This is whats scary about the social media age for the hobby. I’m not complaining because I know it has helped fuel the run-up, but all it takes is one bearish tweet from a guy like Gary V to sink the market 30%+.

Except for pre 1941, baseball HOFers, I would be selling fast and scared as hell to buy. I think people are going to get crushed. I think all these high prices are the result of pumped up prices (some fake sales) and the influx of a ton of new and inexperienced investors. That is a recipe for disaster. I would be shorting the hell out of all of these cards if I could. This reminds me of the tech stock bubble burst.

I'm buying. Every so often there is this same thread with some other benchmark used as the example. Then there is the discussion about whether or not the cards have hit their peak.

I bought this Ruth for $500 on eBay. At the time, that might have sounded pretty high for such a low grade card. My advice is to always pay up when you have it:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9e1608f2c0.jpg

Got a few Ryan Leaf and Trent Richardson rookie autos sitting around, just waiting to time the market right...

lol

I don't know how I feel about this. I agree that baseball HOFers and pre-1941 are rock solid for the long-term - it is where most of my current collection is. And yes, the prices that modern cards are going for now are clearly being pumped. However, legendary rookies (jordan, gretzky, jim brown, chamberlain, russell) which have been pumped to an extent, are worth a debate. Is their recent run-up truly speculation or is it recognition of the value in non-vintage baseball? Baseball has been the king for so long but maybe there is room for other sports? I have no right answer for this. No card should go up 10x in a year (just like no stock should), so some decline makes sense. But I feel better in the long run about vintage non-baseball rookies. I'd rather own a vintage rookie than a Kawhi Leonard (or a Josh Allen rookie). I agree that modern is a scary place, but I am still thinking about some of the vintage bubbles and whether or not that is legit.

I would compare a lot of the modern cards to the tech bubble. The tech bubble was created by wild assumptions. Buying a Giannis rookie is similar to the tech bubble; you are assuming he is a legend with multiple rings. If he fails to live up to the hype you will be holding the bag.

The other thing to mention is that the overall popularity of sports cards has grown significantly. And while some will come and go there are a lot of folks here to stay. Social media has made card collecting cool again; however, most people here don't have an instagram so they can't see that (For a while, myself included). There are other apps such as discord that make discussing cards cool as well.

I haven't bought anything to speak of lately as I try to get my head around a new pricing level. I would be scared to death to try to hold a Tatis for long-term appreciation, though I think he is a very solid player.

There is certainly a combination of everything, and I do not see it stopping anything soon. I have stopped buying a little and have focused on lower end items to sell at flea markets. We already had a lot in storage, so this summer we added onto it. I will get back to the better stuff soon (buying and selling) just too much uncertainty right now and I cannot setup at indoor shows.

and yes, prices are very high! but did not stop me from buying T206 cards last week

Everyone made some really good points and I enjoyed reading.

Thanks Jimmy

A year ago the prices on the top vintage basketball guys were ridiculously low. The top five pre-1986 mainstream NBA cards are probably the 1957 Topps Bill Russell, the 1961 Topps Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain, and the 1969 Topps Lew Alcindor. All were dirt cheap. All could be had in presentable lower grades for a few thousand dollars, total. However, the price jumps in the last several months were ridiculous and they have already started reversing. I don't think they will fall to prior levels but we already see 40% off the top prices. Wouldn't surprise me to see the cards end up at a multiple of where they were at the start but far below their peaks.

Can you imagine paying 40-60k for a Jasson Domingez card?
He hasn't even played a real minor league game yet.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

i buy vintage its like fine wine ..the new stuff i flip so fast you have to.

Some really great stuff posted....

The point about not knowing if a sale is real or not really does not pertain to the vintage material for the most part. At VCP we see a lot of it in the modern material for a card that does not have a recorded sale so the seller tries to set a standard with a fake BIN sale, then lists the same card in a regular auction which generally sells for about 1/3 of the fake sale. At least on our site it is blatantly obvious what is being done because you can see that they are the same card in the same case and listed 10 days later. Of course we catch these and delete the fake price. We are in the process of putting in some new software to catch these as they happen so we can get the old ones deleted as the new listing is put up so that there is no record of the fake sale on VCP to sway a potential buyer.

Basketball was the craziest section by far and away and in the past week or two I have seen it start to cool down.

There is a lot of money that just came into this hobby, I talked to a new member of VCP to help him set up his My Collection and since this July he has bought over $3 mil in card.....CRAZY. He started off with modern basketball but quickly got into vintage baseball buying PSA 8 Goudey Ruths, etc

We are experiencing a different time and we will see how this all shakes out in the next year or so....I do believe things should start to level off but not crash.

Exactly the same on my end - It appears that I have the "patience of Job" - I am long past buying the 1st thing that pops up - a "war chest" is a good thing.

Great post Bobby. VCP is an absolutely critical tool for any collector (I literally just re-upped my gold membership last night), and it’s good to know that you continue upgrading the tool’s technology.

The bit about the recent investor who started off modern but then turned to vintage is interesting and instructive. I think it indicates (certainly does not determine), that ultimately, vintage baseball is king and the natural tendency for new collectors is to start modern, or with the guys they know/grew up with, but then to “take a ride backwards down the number line” to the vintage stuff. (Phish reference).

I knew there was something I liked about you Ryan :D

I buy a mix of it all in baseball. In 21st century cards,, I'm only buying established stars, and packs at MSRP. I'm not going to feed the flippers or obsess over PSA 10s (no graded cards for me). If I can get a few hot rookies for $5 or under, sure. I'm not paying big prices for 18 year olds. Too many sure things weren't. Collect what you enjoy, and don't try to invest long-term.

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Great point.

I've been in the market for a 1957 Topps Unitas RC in the PSA/SGC 7 range, and noticed that their auctions prices have practically doubled in less than 6-8 months. Approx $1200 to $2400+

Is this "new money"? Were they originally very undervalued? Will these soften 20-25% or so?

I'm very curious.

I am sure that some of the runs on marquee cards were manipulated by clever shillers and touts. Those gains won't hold. Many of the other price increases are genuine and will hold to some extent. For those here who aren't hobby old farts, just remember that this is not the first time prices have surged and fallen back. There were eras (late 1970s, early 1990s, mid 2000s) where prices on vintage and established stars went up then down. Usually the 'down' does not fall all the way back to the previous lows and stay there. Absent a black swan event, anyone looking for a 2010-era pricing structure on vintage cards to emerge and hold is likely to be disappointed.

What is different now than in say 1989 is data flow. Owing to social media and eBay, the speed of the rises and falls has increased, as has the prompt widespread understanding that something is going on. Pre-'net you could take advantage of all sorts of information deficits, like buying Yankees in Los Angeles and selling them in New York; now anyone can just look up the item online and get an idea of what it is worth in seconds.

One other factor that will stabilize prices is that people often will hold a card as it declines rather than sell into a price decline because they do not want to admit to the loss; as long as they hold the card they can tell themselves that it may make money eventually. Dealers do this too. I've had repeated conversations with other collectors about how some dealers frustratingly will keep cards at overpriced levels for years in their eBay stores rather than take a smaller gain and move on to the next deal. Excluding extreme rarities where it can make sense to hold out for a huge payday from a collector who wants the item and cannot find it elsewhere, a rational seller would liquidate stale inventory and reinvest the proceeds in new inventory, because moving money in and out of deals is more lucrative in the long run than tying it up in slow moving inventory that earns nothing as it sits.

I think the only place where there is a 'bubble' is the high end modern cards, Trout, etc. those are people with too much money and nothing better to do. that behavior seems similar to stock market behavior.

I don't see the same issue for most other cards. There are a lot of new collectors drawn back to the hobby who did not have money 30 years ago to buy expensive cards.. I think they are here to stay. Why shouldn't a Jordan rookie go for $25k?

For me, I don't see much risk paying $300 for a reasonable Hank Aaron that was $200 a year ago. Same with Mantle, Mays, HOfers, etc. I'll never sell. So I'll keep buying.

Too Buy
 

The temptation to sell was too strong for me I unloaded my basketball rookies Alcindor, Chamberlin and West and glad I did I can't see them going up any more. I am already seeing them going back down. I think this is the only time I have ever come out ahead in the card market.

"I think the only place where there is a 'bubble' is the high end modern cards, Trout, etc."

"The temptation to sell was too strong for me I unloaded my basketball rookies Alcindor, Chamberlin and West and glad I did I can't see them going up any more. I am already seeing them going back down."

The latter is being proven by the evidence. I sold a bunch of stuff into the rising market and am waiting for the downdraft to go a bit lower to replace them. Way I see it is that someone rented my cards for a little while.

Love to see these long time basketball collectors sell into the upswing and make big bucks! You guys deserve it. Basketball was under appreciated for a long time (save Jordan RC's). Just bought my first basketball card couple weeks back. Wish I had started years ago.

Not sure this is evidence of anything other than rising prices - does not make it a bubble. I do not think the collectors who jumped in because of COVID are leaving. I never bought a basketball or hockey card in my life until June. Given, I am not buying any bball/hockey north of $100, but I am not going to leave collecting when we get a vaccine. I think most of the new money in the hobby is coming from people like me. The people paying $100s of thousands for Trouts are a different breed - they are traders, and will be on to the next thing at some point.

I completely agree with this sentiment. Every Cobb, Gehrig, Ruth, Mays, Mantle, etc. I ever bought I "paid too much for", and everyone of them looks like a steal now. Except that Frank Campos black star.

"Anyone hesitant to buy now?"
I hope not because I am listing another 90 T206's on the bay this month. :D

Well yeah, actually it does. Prices going up very fast then falling is literally the definition of a price bubble inflating and deflating.

A bubble on certain cards and increased interest are not mutually exclusive. I think a price bubble actually attracts new collectors. I hope people stay with other sports cards. Heck, as a young collector I always collected baseball, football, basketball and hockey cards. It wasn't until my adult years that it started to get too expensive to keep it up. I've gone back to it the last decade or so, I just stay away from slabs for all but the most expensive cards.

Basketball is an especially interesting one to get into because there were so few sets from 1950-1970. It is 'doable' for a new collector.

yes of course, but they have not deflated. Thats my point. for the reasons i stated, I don't think 70s basketball is the same as Trout, etc.., the buyers are real and are here to stay. As of now there is no evidence this is a bubble, just rising prices. Happy you sold your cards at a really high price, but assuming you are able to buy them back at half the price is simply speculation.

Stating that "the buyers are real and are here to stay" with no evidence whatsoever to verify such a claim, is speculation as well...

No, actually it is fact. Look at the thread in the basketball card section where several of us have been tracking prices on various cards. Major card after card is down substantially from the high prices of a month or two ago. The 1961 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain IA PSA 7 had three sales in August over $2,000 and a peak sale at nearly $3200. If I'd dumped my PSA 7 in August I could now repurchase it around $1200-$1500. In my book a 50% decline in a month after a quadrupling of prices in a few months is a deflating bubble. But let's toss out the $3200 sale as an outlier and go with the two $2;000+ sales from August. Still a 25%-40% drop after a steep rise (the card was a $400 card in April). The Dr. J RC went up to about $10,000 in PSA 8 and is now back down into the $4Ks. The thread cites card after card like that. Now, was basketball undervalued? Sure. But that doesn't diminish what we are seeing in the auction results.

then i stand corrected. had no idea prices have fallen by 50% in those cards. First I have heard of it, was not mentioned previously.

There are some good guys in the basketball section; might wanna check in over there.

It's a very interesting time. If basketball is on the downturn of its bubble, looks like soccer may be at its peak. Pele, Messi, Ronaldo cards are 10X or more of prices at the beginning of the year. Like all of this spike, you can't be sure what sales/auctions are actually paid for but a $10k to $120k jump in a few months is tough to miss. Gotta imagine those prices retract very soon as well.

Well, since I started this thread, I thought I would share my own experience. While I am hesitant to buy now, I have made a couple of purchases. Thanks to BST I picked up a nice low grade Red Cobb and mid grade 58 Mantle. I’d be interested in purchasing a low grade Ruth 144...only problem is I can’t find one for sale :)

And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this thread. Thanks to all for the responses.

Adam

Ryan, T206 is selling quite well right now as witnessed by the frenzy of prices paid for 5's & HOF's in recent auctions. Is T206 safe from any bursting bubble in the card market? I've never seen T206 prices drop. I'm hoping, at worst, that if there is a correction in the card market, this great set is not affected much, if at all.