It could very well be. All it takes is one dealer with the card I need looking to deal. Many like you say above will still be high and greedy but if one has the card I need and is will to take a good amount of cash at a reasonable level I’m thrilled. I’ll never have this chance in REA or Heritable for the card I want. Fingers crossed

Depends on the card and seller of course. If you are looking for something that is not a Goudey or other sexy well known “Investment grade” piece you stand a much better chance. In any event, the hunt for ones white
Whale(s) is one of the coolest most fun aspects of the hobby. And nowhere is that search more fun than the National. Good luck.

Thanks Steve !!

Was this Syms? Man I havent thought about them in a decade!

Yep, pretty sure it was them.

Syms Discount Clothing : “Where an educated consumer is our best buyer.”

I bought my first tie at a Syms Discount Mens Store in Northern Virginia.

Ha. I got that a little off. But same sentiment. Thought it was for a mattress store.

In Texas that exact slogan was used for many years by Men's Warehouse... (according to Google it was in fact Sy Syms)

https://www.menswearhouse.com/

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There is a fascinating two part podcast series on the art market from Freakanomics. I highly recommend giving it a listen.

I do not have much in the market but when Wall St starts to correct I change my card spending habits because I know most people will get nervous and change their habits. In the bigger picture with gas remaining high, interest rates going up and inflation staring us in the face, I think we will see prices drop (continue to drop) on the cards which are bought by the average collector. At the very least demand will suffer. The cost of living is way up and cards do not feed you when you are hungry. The extremely wealthy collector/investor might pull back a bit but I could still see record prices being paid for elite type material.

On the other hand let's look to March of 2020. DJIA went from almost 30K to roughly 19K and did not recover until Dec 2020. During that time we were all locked down being told Covid would kill us all and card values went up. Further the hobby got the attention of lots of new people who jumped in with both feet. Yes the feds were tossing money at people and many found themselves unable to travel, entertain, etc but I am not sure how much of that influenced prices or to what degree it was a factor.

Then again, clearly some not particularly rare or especially high-graded cards can still go for inexplicably high prices at auction: https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=106007

Is that paper loss or paper adhesion below "collector" on the back? You can see the red on the front too, on the border at that spot.

Yes a lot of key cards are 40-60% off their highs. My point was that 80% is quite an exaggeration for most. And comparing current levels to the top of a mania's very short-lived bubble prices is always going to make "down x% from the high" look awful, despite how it's the norm for what happens during and after any huge boom.

Like I mentioned before, except for late '80s hoops, the card market has stabilized pretty well for the last year (at price levels that average around 150-200% above where they were before the pandemic).

That is not "crumpled", and yes it is strong market action overall since the pandemic began.

The Lemieux rookie that you brought up (as an example of things supposedly falling apart in general) is actually a good snapshot of what's right in the marketplace. The OPC in PSA 7 was 200 before the pandemic, 1500 for a very short time during the early '21 peak, and has stayed at 700 for the past year. If you see that performance as a problem, then you're not being realistic about how well any market can usually do in the long run.

And again, I am not saying that everything will be fine from here. Things could collapse in the world of cards, Wall Street, or elsewhere (obviously a lot of economic risks out there at the moment). TBH, the current housing market reminds me of the irrational highs from around 2005. But it hasn't happened yet. And if someone can so easily prognosticate about that going forward, then more power to them!

So at what point does our hobby market correct, if it does? Maybe another 20% drop in the stock market? I have seen my savings go down a good bit lately.... fortunately I have very little, relative to other resources, in the market.
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Leon my take is this is we have two different markets in the vintage card industry

1. White Collar Big Ticket Items in REA, Memory Lane, Heritage ect. My belief is the bigger items in those auctions are controlled by white collar investors. Many of the cards I’ve noticed over the past two and a half years have played musical chairs from one house to the next in a relatively quick time frame 2-4 months.
To me these investors are less affected by inflation and a stock market downturn.

2. Blue Collar Middle and Lower Grade Private Collectors at In Person BST or direct eBay sales have corrected and will only go lower especially on the lower grade pieces. It’s my belief that the high inflation affecting the normal blue collar middle class guy is hindering their buying.

The Rick Get Richer, The Poor Get Poorer, And the Middle Class Pays May More and Buys Less and Less Discretionary items…

Actually, I found that in the recession the cheap stuff remained a steady seller. People need to feed their cardboard habits.

Whether you are a collector, investor, dealer or speculator, I think it is human nature difficult to accept a loss on a card and many will hold on, hoping for a rebound and refusing to lower their prices.
Also, I feel there will be far less trading of high value modern, now so popular at shows. Nobody wants to be the last holding the bag.

From an article posted today, Elon Musk recommends buying physical things in this environment. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-...180112580.html

As I posted earlier in this thread, the market was never more in peril (in recent times) than in March 2020 when the whole world shut down. DJIA dropped to 19K and took the rest of the year to come back. Things might not look great short term but look at what cards and other tangibles did when the DJIA took a massive hit. The DJIA is no where close to 19K however that is far from the only measure of a strong or weak economy.

And sure it does not feel good when the stock market is down, even if you have no money in it, because enough people do who start spending differently, but this too shall pass. If you are long cards and long the stock market you are gonna be just fine.

Long the right cards. I wouldn't be holding those 2019 Prizms.

Talked to a longtime collector this morning. With the bear market we are in, he is worrying less and less about buying cards and more about putting money in investments.

I am interested to see if the stock market decreases reflect in the card community, especially this summer. Might be some deals out there.

hi dont tell that to the folks going to the national lol

I Remember over the Past few Years Many Had Sellers Remorse. Now from what I’m seeing more and more having Buyers Remorse, especially on those modern Jordans, Henderson Rookies, and Jeter Sp's. A lot of modern is tied to Crypto and you know where that is....fallen angel.

Although IMO way over inflated in AH's over the past two years, the growth so quickly at such levels just did not make sense, Centered High End Graded Quality, Ruth, Cobb, Jackie, Mantle, and Mays always seem to hold.
Collectors never want to sell these that's why the go down the least in bad times and rise the most in good times.

I feel that, with the rise in interest rates, many speculators who have used their bank LOC's and overdrafts to buy high value cards may be over leveraged and are starting to feel pain.

rare vintage still seems strong
 

In the last 2 weeks I have received strong offers on 2 of my most valuable cards. I did not sell, I can't (or won't be able to afford to) replace them.

I did not even list them for sale.

The new stuff is getting spanked. When I was a kid and I'd open a pack of '80 Topps I'd be thrilled to get a George Brett, Rod Carew, or Nolan Ryan because, get this... they'd be worth a whole 50 cents! Maybe Nolan was a buck. Now new cards sell for 6 or 7 figures, reminds me of the dot com stocks some 20 years ago. BE CAREFUL

For a strong enough price I will not only sell any card I have, I will carry it to your car for you.

Man this will be one interesting National if the market keeps its downward trajectory. Will the hobby be back to pre covid bubble prices? Will prices sink even lower, erasing gains over the last 5+ years?

If Adam is right and the card market lags 9-12 months behind, it will be very hard to figure out what prices to both buy and sell. There will be lots of price frothiness in the marketplace. I think as a buyer you have to try and buy with an outward price projection of that 9-12 month lag time to try and price in the downward trend. As a seller you hope the quality and or rarity of your item is enough to get you something as close to bubble pricing as possible.

I think both stock market and card prices have quite a ways to go down before stabilizing.

There are now definite buying opportunities. I sense a lot of “panic”. I can’t tell you how many collectors are now doing the following:

Retooling/refocusing their collection
Getting out of the hobby
Selling below comps
Selling collections to move into other investments

Definitely an opportunity now and probably in the near future.

The problem is the good stuff is going to go deep under....the people that have it won’t sell in this upcoming, notice I said upcoming, we haven’t gotten there yet market. They will have in their minds that it was worth x amount in mid 2020-early 2022 mentality. I can see the vintage market as slightly lower but mostly stagnate with little to no change over the next few years. The past two years of growth were ridiculous and unsustainable to continue.

Hold on tight.

It’s never as good as it seems and it’s never as bad as it seems.

It’s gonna vary. Some stuff is gonna crater (overproduced modern). Last place I'd want to be right now is holding a stack of shiny crap basketball. Ditto all of the mainstream postwar PSA 7-8 level cards. I'm selling off everything marginal at that level except for the guys I really collect (Aaron, Koufax, Ryan, etc.) or the cards i got when I was a kid. At the depth of the last go-round I was picking up that sort of stuff for as low as $1.99 a card, slabbed. Made really nice profits turning those out during the bubble.

Some stuff won’t budge. A T206 Wagner isn’t gonna fall because the market for it is like the art market: people with so much money that inflation and recession are just gnat bites. Absolute rarities too. A card with a handful of examples will be a hold and you will be able to name your price. As always. I have never been squeamish about those kinds of cards because I know that there are buyers.

The squeeze will be in the middle. Abundant stuff will take a hit. Even the good stuff. I'd guess that a 40%-60% decline is in store for most mainstream cards that are basically demand driven. Personally, I am looking forward to a nice, fat decline on some cards. 1959 Topps Bob Gibson, you will be mine again!

The other thing that won't be affected--that will in fact do well--are cheap vintage cards. The dollar boxes. Collectors need their fixes. During the last one the dollar boxes were where all the action was at the shows.

The real question for me is what is a long term keeper. I think a well curated collection emphasizing top players and rare cards will be a great performer as long as you’ve gotten in well below the peak. Even a marquee card is a bad buy at the wrong price. The question is whether I want to play the arbitrage game with a card by selling it now and hoping to repurchase it after the decline. I am disinclined to do that with cards I always dreamt of owning: to finally get one that presents nicely, I am happy to own it for a decade or more. If it goes up a bunch in ten years, fantastic. I can seem really prescient and smart. If it doesn't, I can play with it until I am food for worms. Either works for me. Owning a great card isn't like taking a position in a stock. I can't play with 100 shares of Tesla but I can sure as hell play with my cards:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...ize/img228.jpg

Great post. On the sell and hope to purchase later dilemma. It’s tough because eBay/PayPal fees and/or taxes eat up with a big chunk.

A PWCC premier auction just closed. In it were two cards that sold a year prior. These are the same exact cards being sold again (not just same grade, but exact same cards)

One was a 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson, PSA 8. It sold in REA’s spring 2021 auction for $384,000 and the exact same card just sold in PWCC’s auction for $276,000.

Meanwhile, a t206 Magie error, PSA 2 sold in Heritage in May of 2021 for $20,400, and the exact same card just sold in PWCC for $24,000, a record for the grade

The Jackie is down 28% in a year and the Magie error (again same exact cards) is up 17.5% over the same period.

I understand it’s only one example, but it is interesting considering both are major cards, both were sold in major AH in spring 2021 and both were sold by same AH a few days ago with very different results.

Thoughts?

Great Post
I made a post about this on Facebook Yesterday here is my take on it 👍

The Tale of The Past Two Years to Where are We are at now. 1952 Topps PSA 8 Jackie Robinson this beautiful Example Sold 4/18/2021 in REA for $384,000. Just over a year ago. Yesterday PWCC Premier Auction Ended with the Same Exact Card, selling for $276,000. Was it a good buy a year ago at that price ? I’m not sure. It is my opinion this is the best PSA 8 of recent past 5 years to come to auction, I think the investor tried to bump the card, PSA didn’t bump it but I thought it had a shot.

Where have all the PWCC Pumping Fanboys Gone ? Is the fanboy vault crowd gone?

I wonder if Heritage Goldin PWCC are you still taking Bitcoin’s?

The Big Money Investment Guys Are Definitely Concerned and Paying Attention to the current state of the US Economy and Card Market.
If only the investor would have held a few more years it’s my option this is a great long term investment and this would have easily sold for more in a strong market.

Just my take great card.

Fascinating articles and podcasts breaking out right now (Fortune, NYT, etc.) about the everything bubble bursting. In a nutshell, in that analysis, for most of the past 14 years, monetary policy in the U.S. and internationally has been consistently setting interest rates low and letting money flow to commercial banks by buying up assets and stocks. That spurred economic growth in the face of several economic crises but also led to multiple economic bubbles—from housing to crypto to VC-backed subsidies for things like cheap Uber prices—existing at once. Now, all those bubbles are popping as banks tighten their policies and stop the free flow of cash. At the same time, the cost of goods that are at the core of upper middle class life--medical care, elder care, education and housing--have gone up at rates far in excess of the traditional rate of inflation and far in excess of wage and income growth for the vast majority. There has also been a camouflaging of inflation in two respects: (1) outsourcing the actual costs of 'cheap' consumer goods to other countries or the commons (environment), and (2) asset value growth. If you buy a t-shirt made in China for $1.99 but it is made from cotton harvested by slave-like labor and grown in a way that wrecks the environment in China, you don't experience those costs but they are real. In our bailiwick, if the cost of a 1952 Mays goes from $600 to $4,000 in a year or two, that cripples the ability of an average collector to buy it...aka inflation. But we see the inflation of investment assets as growth...if we re on the ownership side of the equation.

One other issue that has been researched and is being raised with regard to crypto and stock like AMC (and modern cards are similar) is that the market is being driven by younger, less sophisticated, less wealthy people. They are making big bets on these assets with little experience or knowledge because they want "in" on the game. That is a recipe for a crippling downturn when these people start losing. Someone deriving a substantial part of their wealth or income busting and flipping (or selling ancillary services and goods to those people), they are gonna bleed out fast when things lock up or drop and they have to sell into it.

What it says to me is that the frothy card market is a dead man walking, especially for modern, postwar and mainstream stuff. I'm waiting on further mainstream big ticket stuff until 12-18 months from now, which is when I think it will bottom out.

Tomorrow's REA close should be interesting as a bit of a test of where we are with the middle class of the hobby. Only a few cards in there are major auction-type items. The rest are exactly the sort of items that should start to decline when the bubble starts to deflate. The auction in August should tell us even more.

Nothing surprises me anymore
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I don't think you can draw valuable conclusions from PWCC results. If they are actual sales at all, the fact is that many collectors will not transact with PWCC. That said, I do think we had a peak on many postwar cards last year and that since then is when prewar hitched its ride in the price rocket. I think that ride is leveling off as to mainstream prewar cards. Rare stuff, that always sets its own levels.

PWCC is the last place I would look for meaningful auction data. As pointed out, REA ending will give an idea of where a couple sectors of the market are. It is no shock that demand is suffering so I expect most commodity cards to be lower. Prices adjusting and demand being lower are both expected in an atmosphere that we are in.

All markets are fluid but usually the best time to sell is the worst time to buy.

Interest rates +++++
 

If interest rates hit 15-20 percent again, if you have any variable rates debt, a bunch of credit card debt the banks are exuberant, they will make a lot of money (if they don't have a record amount of fore-closures) If you cant pay most or whole balances due, your screwed.

I think late 4th quarter or early next year the fed will reverse course and stop or slightly cut a small amount. I don’t see inflation this high lasting longer then late summer early fall. There is a very good chance of a Soft landing imo.

Heck, if T bills hit 6%-7% again I am going to punch a large amount into them and hold for the long haul.

What are your credentials, Johnny? I hope your humble opinion is accurate. However, a recent poll showed that most (~ 70%) top economists are predicting a recession within the next 18 months.

Top economists have successfully predicted 15 of the last 9 recessions.

This anecdotal evidence could be indicative of the underlying market: that prewar is fairing better than post war.

However, I would say a better test would be two items of similar value head to head, Once you get into mid 6 figures on a card, the market is so much thinner, one day/year/card can totally be different than the next depending on who is bidding. I think the more liquid 4 and 5 figure market is more telling of the card market in general terms.