Yeah it just makes so much more sense for everyone, imo. Not to derail the thread topic but the only thing more controversial than choice of auction ending is a discussion on what is a rookie card and anything political.

I was pretty happy picking up the the only known example of this 1958 Hillerich & Bradsby advertisement. This originally sold in 2016 by REA for $3,900 and I was able to pick it up for less than a third of that price.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...0f7c059203.jpg


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Just eyeballing those two gehrigs, the SGC one looks way nicer to me. SGC has gotten way tougher on grading, so not sure those two cards are the best comp.

I've never even heard of SCP Auctions until I read this thread. So there's that.

Yah, one with paper loss on the front

I didn't even notice that...it looked overgraded by todays standards regardless. makes me even happier to have this at 1/15th the price!

I fully agree
 

I think there are a number of factors at work:

1) Regarding the Gehrigs - The SGC 6 is a considerably nicer "eye appeal" card - not even close to the PSA 6(imho)! More of the discerning collectors/buyers in the marketplace are starting to pay attention to the cards in the holders beyond the numbers on the holders and are willing to pay premiums sometimes large ones for clearly nicer cards. This makes a LOT of sense to me as on the best day of the week ALL grading companies are at least inconsistent.

2) burnout - I think many people have just hit sensory overload, between shows and auctions. I do this full time and there just aren't enough hours in a day to track it all! I suspect for most this is a hobby to which considerably less time is devoted - choices need to be made.

3) Auctions are not always the best indicator - auction houses like to tell consignors that an auction is going to get the best price for their items - suggesting that "all" potential buyers will see and have an opportunity to bid on their items - in most cases I strongly disagree (For certain marquee items - think SGC 9.5 52 Mantle - I do think a high profile auction with lots of publicity around a lot IS the best place to sell). For reasons above and others that have been mentioned in this thread - there is no "perfect" venue to sell every item - not every buyer looking for a particular item is looking at every auction! Stuff falls through the cracks.

4) Ticket stubs and photo differences - This ties into #2 and #3 above - I think the collector base for these types of items is, so far, considerably smaller than for "mainstream" cards. A better chance that if some of those collectors aren't looking - there is the opportunity for greater price discrepancies.

5) Ultimately it boils down to 2 overarching concepts - 1) Simple supply and demand economics - When demand outpaces supply it drives prices up, when supply outpaces demand it drives prices down. I have said it on a number of other threads - I see the high end biggest name players cards in continuously short supply relative to demand continuing to set records (I also think they are just getting warmed up). I see a little bit of a decline in the lower grade/higher supply cards due to slight softness in demand (arguably influenced by some of the larger economic impacts mentioned above). This will be the area I think has the greatest possibility of a bit further softness. I think it is a mistake to think of the "market" as a whole. I think it needs to be looked at in segments. 2) Arbitrage & inconsistency - the markets are inefficient - sometimes grossly so - there is no single place where all willing buyers can meet all willing sellers (despite what auction companies will tell you). Grading companies as much as they try to "objectify" the grading process will ALWAYS be inefficient - unlike buying a share of stock where 1 (common share) is literally "the exact same" as another. No 2 cards are exactly the same and 3rd party grader opinion notwithstanding - beauty is in the eye of the be - holder (pun intended).

Agree Howrd

Howard - great post. I think like real estate, there is no one market, but as you say different markets serving different interests. It always strikes me that people will cite some crazy ass sales of high end cards as evidence everything is soaring. It's not. A lot of segments of the market have stalled, some have gone down little, and some have dropped a lot. I also think as collectors we overestimate the number of people on the hunt for what we want. Take a really nice card like a $25,000 Ruth Goudey. At any given time there might be 20 people in total looking earnestly to acquire that. Sure, lots of people nibbling around the edges, but really ready wiling and able to pony up $25,000 tomorrow? 10? 12? 8? Less than you might think. And if 5 or 6 sold in the last two or three months or last week, you could see a lot less competition (and drops in prices) develop quickly.

Much better condition Program went for 2K less than same lesser condition one in Feb.

Feb Lelands $13,477 (Poor/Good condition)

https://auction.lelands.com/bids/bidplace?itemid=108454

Sept Memory Lane $11,395 (Very Good condition)

https://memorylaneinc.com/site/bids/...e?itemid=71998

All I know is the items I am trying to buy are not going down. An auction item sells for one bid over the second highest bidder. It could be that the differences in price is because of a lack of second bidder. On odd ball items, two bidders can drive a price up and a second auction close to the record sale could end a lot lower even though the underbidder on the first is willing to pay a lot more.

I love some of these older advertisements. Here's one I picked up off ebay 5+ years ago. I wish it was in color! https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f83622f7da.jpg

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I can't speak to some of the other oddities, but on first glance, the SGC Gehrig has MUCH better centering and that affects value more than one would think it would. It also looks brighter, but that could just be the scan or photo doctoring. Centering plays such a huge role, and I am 100% guilty of paying large premiums for centered cards regardless of the grade.

This is the argument for private sales on scarce/esoteric items. If one person is willing to pay as high as X for a particular item and no other person is willing to pay over .5X then in an auction the item will go for one increment over .5X. In a private sale the item might go for X or very close.

Interesting example
 

Thanks Steve!

While I certainly stand by my original post, I'm not sure I agree with the 33 Ruth as a good illustration. Ruth (ESPECIALLY the high demand 33 Goudey's) in my experience happens to be a card where I believe there are considerably more people ready and willing to plunk down low-mid 5 figures than any of us would believe. I have bought and sold 33 Ruth's from graded 1's - to graded 5.5's. I am picky about nice eye appeal examples, but have so far, always sold them quickly for strong prices. Now if you want to talk about the high end of the market Like graded 7's and higher in the 6 figure range, perhaps I would join you, but then again, they didn't get to 6 figure cards (with multiple sales) by just a couple of guys chasing them! BTW I do have a #144 PSA 8 on consignment if anyone is looking!

I'm curious Howard,
How close did you get to a signed complete set?

This difference is very curious to me. Quite glaring. A very similar card, for half the price, just 6 weeks later.

Assuming the winner of the REA example was bidding against actual bidders who wanted to win the card, I suppose it is entirely possible that nobody but 2 bidders were going for it once it got to 150ish?

I have not looked closely at images of the two cards so simply going off of what has been suggested here--that the cards were pretty close in condition. If they are similar examples then I would not feel great as the buyer of the REA example.

+1. I told a friend this exact same thing today. Outlier sales happen. I just wish it would be on my consignments (not specific to any AH)....
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I suspect a couple of collectors with cash to burn decided that this was their turn to get one. So they went nuts until one of them finally decided to throw in the towel. Naturally, if the underbidder ended up getting this next one, then it worked out well for him in the end.

Just as we start to question the market...these two cards remind us just how crazy things still are...

Wow, that’s awesome, I have never seen that one.


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The set break loophole to the eBay AG program appears to have closed?

I noticed that the set break loophole is gone too. I think even Greg Morris is authenticating their high value raw cards now.

What's this about set break on eBay? Don't know about it.

I bid on both-as well as the O’Hara, based on the PSA 1 sold last month. The 1.5 sold for over 7k- and I was hoping for a deal at 5k. LMFAO. There is no downturn in the market- and this week has-is-and will prove it!!

Set Break in the title still works. Appears Greg Morris has to hyphenate the two words now which makes the cards eligible for the AG program.

I bought it cuz I collect Ernie Lombardi. I already had the LS Famous Sluggers yearbook and this went with it.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...b77fd901cd.jpg

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Saw this listing that had "Set Break" in the title but also required the "Authenticity Guarantee" so I thought the loophole wasn't working.

This is a fascinating discussion.

A modest proposal: For anyone with one of those subscriptions that show realized auction values, why don't you pick 50 vintage cards (or photos that have >5 sales) - 40 HoF-ers and 10 commons from key sets and run the numbers to see the % change month to month for the last 36 months? I'm guessing someone has already done this. If so, can someone post this? Otherwise, it is all anecdotal, which includes some really compelling examples, but it is hard to extrapolate for the whole vintage market from just a few examples.

I have not, but you are right that all this proves or shows is that you cannot extrapolate from one sale in this market. I still believe my original premise it true — while there are still people pushing prices on some cards to higher levels, I think there are fewer of them competing. Less demand. So depending on timing of similar sales and other events you can see pretty dramatic fluctuations even in pre war.

And as Howard pointed out, those fluctuations are prob more dramatic on the memorabilia side. That has certainly been my experience. Memorabilia prices all over the map.

Two bell-weather t206s: Demmitt and O'Hara Stl Louis. 2 very nice examples (psa2 and psa 1.5) ended sunday night on ebay for 12.8k and 7.3k. both records i believe. t206 hotter than ever in my experience.

I can’t speak to the Lundgren but I bet the person who overbid on the Cy Young had decided a week ago that they would go after that card due to the high eye appeal. I bet they had a target bid in mind that they thought would surely win. I’d also bet that after spending 5.5 hours in bumper to bumper traffic and then soothing that frustration with some strong IPA’s and then seeing their high bid not hold up they frantically hit the next bid increment with 1 second left because they wanted something to go right yesterday. Just a guess though.

That Cy Young was bought for the aesthetics, not the number. Same way a lot of us collect or buy. I always buy the card and not the slab. It's better in the long run.
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It 100% was. Thats why I put in that last frantic bid. It's an upgrade to my current Cy Young of the same grade.

You beat me to it Jim. I couldn't believe those prices, yet was shocked to see a very nice Green Cobb 2 go for only $7,600 with no bids at all in the last few minutes. T206 PSA 5's are still going very strong too.

When I bought mine it wasn't because it's a 2.5, that's for sure. It's getting to be very cliché but more people are buying the card, it seems, nowadays.
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Little confused
 

Hi Phil,

I never worked on a signed set? Am I missing something in my post?

I don't think market is going at all, to me it seems there are so many quality items all flooding the auctions so people are waiting for the item they really want then are ponying up for it. Where as before not as many options gave people the fomo to hurry and bid since it might be a while before hits market again. The past 6 months the amount of rare items and cards up for auction has to be at a high, and for those not rare say the 33 ruth something in grades 2-5 seems to be going higher every auction. Just my opinion but probably way off

Items might be flooding the market, but in our space especially, the cards all have unique attributes so they aren't common even when there are hundreds or thousands of examples. The Goudey Ruth 144 is actually quite common. Show me one for sale that has 50/50 centering though. Those are a needle in a haystack.

Great stuff is appreciating and the mid to lower stuff is staying the same or having a slight reduction, imo...
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the end is near...?
 

As far as photographs go, the market is a mile wide and two inches deep.
There are guys who will spend more for a photo than Babe Ruth got from the Red Sox. It's just that they are pretty discriminating and there aren't many of them.

And taste, which changes over time. In our prior century, when Martha Stewart ruled, you couldn't afford brown furniture or Depression glass. Now you can't give it away. Younger people don't associate with furnishing a house that looks like something their grandmother would have owned.

Question is: Will this happen to cards; will someone be left holding the bag.
lumberjack

This is the key. I don't think most collectors quite realize the extent to which this is true. I went through every single 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson card, one-by-one on VCP, and tallied up the number of cards that were dead 50/50 centered and the number that were fairly close, but just slightly off (say 48/52 one way and 50/50 the other). There were ~1,000 sales to comb through (note, I only looked at non-creased cards, mostly VG/VG-EX or better). Out of those ~1,000, there were 9 (yes NINE) dead-centered copies and only 22 that were close. Obviously, the Jackies don't have the exact same pop report as the Mantle, but it should be a directionally accurate approximation for it since the two cards were next to each other on the sheets, both being double printed.

As you said. Finding a 52T Mantle is easy. Finding a centered one? Good luck with that.

As far as the differences in hammer price between the SGC 5 Mantle that recently sold on REA for $306k and the one that sold on Goldin the other night for $146k, I think it's actually pretty straight-forward.

The $306k example looks like a true 5 condition-wise. It is in EX condition. And, most importantly, it is dead-centered left to right with no tilt. For centering-obsessed OCDers like me, that L/R centering is often far more important than top/bottom centering. Buyers will pay a significant premium for the centering on this Mantle.

Contrast that with the $146k Mantle, and you can clearly see an evil tilt to the image, most noticeable on the left edge. Image tilt is the spawn of Satan to centering OCD collectors. It's not enough for the image to be in or near the middle of the card. The lines need to be parallel and border widths equal. Sure, the one on the right I would still expect to outsell a comparably conditioned card with a more significant shift in centering, but this isn't a card that eye-appeal guys are going to be jumping up and down for, whereas the one on the left most definitely is.

However, there's one more factor that surely played into the hammer price here. That SGC "5" on the right from Goldin is NOT an EX card. Those bottom two corners would NEVER grade at a 5 today. Not from PSA or SGC. This card was graded back in 2014, when standards were quite a bit looser (whereas the one on the left was graded in 2019). High-end vintage buyers are getting smarter. They know the one on the left is EX and the one on the right is a VG-EX card wearing an SGC 5 tuxedo. They're bidding accordingly. It's the other side of the same coin for why I keep having to "overpay" when I find cards that are under-graded.

Here they are side-by-side. You can decide for yourselves whether or not the differences are worth an extra $160k, but the centering difference is worth a lot, and the fact that one is EX while the other is VG-EX is probably worth a lot more, in my opinion.

Also, the one on the left is a Type 1 Mantle, and the one on the right is the Type 2 (and supposedly less desireable). Though I think this matters less than people argue.

Wow those bottom corners on the card on the right (the one sold by Goldin) are BAD. Goes to show that just because you put it in a new slab does not mean people are going to pay (much) more money for it. You can't polish a turd.

Damn, that really shows you just how much grading has changed since 2014. Great side-by-side comparison.

Nice…lol

Yes, Greg Morris confirmed...

Thanks for reaching out to Greg Morris to confirm. Pretty sure the "set break" loophole is gone across the board.

Ya, they have moved the goalposts on us by quite a bit. It's a shame. The crazy thing is that there are even some graders at PSA today that would put that Mantle on the right in a PSA 3 holder (though I doubt they'd be the ones who actually get to grade it, surely that would be Reza). But they are definitely there, and I've gotten some cards recently that are nicer than this Mantle in PSA 3 holders (all of which I cracked out and got grade bumps from).

I'm not sure though which standard I prefer. I suppose it's somewhat arbitrary, but the lack of consistency is a major problem. Maybe the card on the right *should* be the 5 and the one on the left *should* be a 6? I don't know, but with today's standards, the one on the left is a 5 and the one on the right is a low-end 4 at best.

Yeah, goalposts keep moving. I agree that you could make the case the one on the left (sold by REA) should be a 6, even by today's standards. Would love to see any pics you have of cards you have cracked out of PSA slabs and gotten a bump from a different TPG. I think that could be its own thread.

I'm not convinced that it was the words "set break" in the title which caused it in the first place, though it's certainly possible. I think it's plausible that cards which are sold as "variations" within a listing, like when a seller creates a "set break" listing where you select cards from a drop-down menu, could have been immune from this feature as that would require eBay to come up with a way to determine how to handle different prices for different cards within the same listing (easier said than done, programmatically - insert eBay's dev team criticisms here). Or perhaps it could have been both. I don't know. But I do know that implementing a solution on eBay's end is surely more complicated than just making an exception for listings with the term "set break" in the title.