He posted his T206 Cobbs not too long ago and most of y'all were oohing and aahing at the flips.

I was oohing and ahhing for another reason.

Indeed.

Yes, but there was another drop in the mid 2000's of game used and auto cards. Once again due to overproduction(jersey cards and autos are a dime a dozen now). I remember people paying stupid prices for game used jersey cards now worth peanuts.

Well, your original premise is built on shaky grounds. There is a large difference between graded cards as a commodity vs oil, precious metals, hogs etc. When you buy a pound of gold or a barrel of oil you know what you are receiving. Would a barrel of oil sell for $50 if it half water? What if your gold bullion was mixed with nickel? With cards you're assuming that the flip accurately reflects the card and that a PSA 10 is superior to a 9 etc. What if the 10 was in a 9 holder and was resubmitted 20 times to get into a 10 holder? Is it now magically a superior card? 19/20 times it was judged to be a 9. Trimmed and doctored cards are another major factor. You brought up Kendricks collection. His centerpiece card is the prime example of problems with relying exclusively on a grading company's opinion.

Craig stop thinking like a collector or normal human being. The flip is now its own reality. None of that matters to the commodity trader.

The only thing I've taken from this thread is that he doesn't like people who complain that the market is manipulated because it isn't. But in the next paragraph he stated he would manipulate the market to protect an investment.

Correction he said he IS doing it.

I can tell you all this. I don't buy a 50k Namath rookie unless I am willing to buy 50 of them for that. I consider my investments before I make them. I encourage those who don't think this way to realize there are others like me out there that are willing to buy not only one card, but all of them for "X" price and control the market.
This is happening and it bugs me that no one else realizes it. I can't convince you all that this is right or wrong, but I'm telling you it's happening because I am doing it and will continue to do so.

He's got the market cornered on tiny border cobbs. It's like ...."hey, where did those borders go?"

Justin "I can definitely see the benefit in retractions to discover max bids" Cornett is back. The same guy that had 18 retractions in 6 months?

Your theory that high fees prevent shilling at AH's is laughable. You must be from Texas?

If you can use all your little tricks to pump up prices, more power to you. We all win when you win.

The "new Economy" of card collecting
 

All this talk reminds me of 1999. Anyone remember when the "new economy" Internet stocks were going to replace boring old blue chip stocks? When the market was rising exponentially, and tech stock P/Es were in the 50-100 range? Well, any card made post 1975 is a "new economy" product. The price is rising due principally due to speculation, greed and irrationality, rather than value based on economic fundamentals. The supply of Jordan rookies is nearly unlimited - how many dozens or even hundreds more will be found in dresser drawers, attics and safe deposit boxes in the next ten years? Tons. How many Gehrigs? Very, very few.
Folks, does'nt anyone recall what happened to the NASDAQ in 2002? That's where Jordan rookies are headed. The crash is coming. Oversupply craters a market. Period. Liquidity ends when the speculators run for the exits. They will, and they own the market, just like on Wall Street. They don't get screwed. It's the exuberant little guys who bite the big one.
Just a cheery thought on a Wednesday evening!

My limited understanding of economics suggests that if one person were to buy 50 Namath Rookies and thus greatly reduce supply, then the price would indeed increase, but with the increased price, demand would also decrease. If demand decreases, then the price decreases. If I can't get a Namath rookie at a price I can afford, don't I just eventually move on to Joe Montana?

Also, if supply decreases, production usually increases. So wouldn't more people who wouldn't have previously sold their Namath card now put it in the market, thus increasing supply again and causing prices to decrease. I seem to remember something about price equilibrium.

I have a headache.

Put on the boots before strolling through this thread :rolleyes:

OK, but how many PSA 6 Home Run Bakers will it take to protect your $6K investment? ;)

I think he should try to find the borders missing on the cobbs he showed. They are somewhere because they didn't get mfg that way.

Getting political here..
 

....borders ?? WE DOAN NEED NO STEENKEENG BORDERS !


...MikeGarcia

..

LOL! I saw those Cobbs, I just didn't want say anything. But since you said it, Leon, I agree. :D

I just looked at the borders again and they don't seem as small, relative to the other borders, as I had thought. That being said the green cobb looks a bit short and the red one is out of focus. But admittedly on some scans I just got sent, the borders don't look as small as I remembered them. I think when buying very high grade pre-war we have to be very careful.

baker...
 

u got me on that one... and i admitted it.

doh!

touche

Man everyone is talking about this, not always from the same vantage point tho. Id be kind of scared with all the shills and fakes. To eaxh their own tho
http://http://www.blowoutcards.com/f...a-10s-now.html

I can't get this link to work. :confused:

The stories will intersect if they have not already; obviously the high prices on certain cards create even stronger incentives to bring fakes (using the term broadly to include 9s in 10 holders etc.) to the market.

here are the cobbs...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/s8...g=w492-h873-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wa...c=w492-h873-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Wg...0=w492-h873-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wZ...4=w492-h873-no

The red one is blurry and out of focus, but I think that it's just a bad scan. The borders seem okay to me.

You have got a big set of balls posting this.

Not that you care but if you broke out your Cobbs I doubt any of the 4 would grade again.

What about this one? It's a PSA 8 too. Would it grade again if cracked out? :D

http://www.sportscollectorsdigest.co...A-8.jpg?15ec22

It all depends on who submits them.;):D

Lots of idiots. Especially the ones that admit they are trying to create and alter a market. And the ones that believe money buys intelligence.

I think the Red Cobb would.

The others...

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...631ac4f2fb.jpg

Bat on Shoulder WOULD NOT grade again.... The red is probably ok.... The bat on can't tell....

Wagner...
 

Great large scan of the Wagner. I just used a ruler with centimeter markings and millimeter fractions - and looks like the bottom width is tad wider than top width. But it is just my crude measurement, could very well be off, and I wear glasses - eyesight not the best. And who knows - the factory cuts back then weren't perfect, I assume. If you had to pick the worst corner, would be the upper right - if it were cut, one would want to address that particular corner - goes along with my measurement trial.

The original post spoke of liquidity - its a different world now with auction houses offering money up front, and eBay where you can realize $ in your bank acct. in 2 weeks of listing.

And not all cards are going up. PWCC ended a T205 Cobb PSA 6 that went over $1.k less than it did in 2006. I have been eyeing a PSA 5 Cobb M116 on eBay for $2750. - kinda thought it would be gone by now at that price, but not. Could be wrong, but most of us don't own majority of our collections with waterfront cards. Just be happy if you own a couple, enjoy the rest of your collection. Hopefully the waterfront card market rise will trickle down to what us common folk own.

Liquidity & Investing vs collecting
 

Do you seriously not recognize that Wagner?

Cobbs
 

All four of those cards look trimmed...I thought the "Flip Monkeys" knew not to buy high grade in the old style cases?

I suggest you forget the measurement trial. The trial that mattered was Mastro's and he is in jail for trimming it, saying he didn't, and pleading guilty to it (from what I recall).

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-...icle-1.1482098

Whoa, that's a very deep thought...

If you want to test your investment practices using those Cobbs, try selling them for more than 75% of what you paid to someone other than the person/persons who sold them to you, or back to yourself in an auction. It would be wise to learn not to depend solely on the "Certification" applied to the cards you are investing in. Bad certification is a very big market variable on the high end, especially in that company's holders. You aren't the first person to approach this hobby the way you are and you aren't the first to do so with the handicap of "flip dependancy". You'll get better at picking out solid investments if you do and it will be more fun as well. This is meant to be helpful*

Agreed, Adam, sort of like The Matrix

Both the BAT ON COBB and WAGNER..... both have the same upward curvature "cut/trim" to the first half of the bottom of the card if you look closely. I may not be explaining that clearly, but if you look closely they both have the same cut.

Brendan, the Wagner seems to have more of a curvature on the top of the card. The Cobb Bat On may have that same curve on the bottom of the card.

:D:D "Flip Monkey"; now that's funny

Forgive me for the digression, but I have a hobby question for the experts: does the Red Cobb portrait generally have naturally thinner east and west borders than the others? I can't remember the last time I saw a "fat-bordered" version of the Red when compared to the Bat Off, for example.

Mine seems to have normal looking borders?

Brendan, the Wagner seems to have more of a curvature on the top of the card. The Cobb Bat On may have that same curve on the bottom of the card.

Look closely on the bottom of the Wagner....left side to about midway thru his name....fairly pronounced.

I never took a close look at the Wagner. That is a terrible hack job, geez. Can't really believe that Mastro did such a bad job and that PSA still slabbed it.

I've seen plenty of Cobbs with normal borders. Tiny borders and high grades almost always equals trimmed.

I want to clarify something I said earlier. I said that cards can be good investments, but I don't mean that all cards are. I wouldn't want to put my money into high grade Jordans or high grade 50's RCs right now. Cards like the Cobbs shown are incredibly risky because a lot of them are $800 cards in holders with a high # on the plastic case.

However, if I had $100k that I wanted to invest in cards (I don't) I am confident I could get a decent return over the next 5-10 years, and I bet a lot of other collectors on this forum would be as well.

This is one of the least "fun" threads I have ever read.

I am both a collector and a bit of an investor/dealer, as I find it fun to make a bit of money on the side and it allows me to buy more cool stuff without spending "family money" (ie, my day job salary).

To each his own I suppose but I find the thought of investing in high end slabs a bit too sterile and cold, no different than investing in gold or silver (there is nothing wrong with investing in those but not nearly as much fun).

I do find the OP's admission that he is willing and ready to manipulate the market for a card and openly admitting to that a bit troublesome & makes me feel a bit squeamish at the same time. What doesn't make as much sense to me about the premise he puts forth is that if he is aggressively bidding on and winning every copy of a card that comes up for sale and then corners the market he has to be sure someone out there is taking his place in the items he later sells as we have all seen the price of certain cards go down once all the larger collectors have filled their sets out and the bidding isn't quite as spirited. I suppose he could go straight sale (no auction) but I don't see too many 50-100k cards changing hands outside of the auction format, although I'm sure they do.

This thread is a great way to make a fun hobby feel just a little less fun.

All that said, to each his own!

Plenty of folks with lots of money have inhabited and continue to inhabit the hobby. And I don't doubt that many of them were/are attuned to an investment as well as a collecting angle. But something about the in your face tone of this thread -- or I should say the OP's posts -- seems different in kind.

4-8-Cobbs
 

I think the term "Hot Potato 8's" should be an industry term for cards like those Cobbs.

OP
 

I knew from the first paragraph of the first post that I was going to be one of the dumb guys who never eventually gets it.

Something Serious, and an Attempt at Humor
 

A pet peeve of mine... I despise the arrogance of suggesting that if you disagree, you somehow don't get it.


It obviously appears the "trimmer" started getting lazy, overlaying these two cards top to bottom when performing a single task.

I have been active in stocks for 19 years and have been a full service broker for the past 12 and nothing I have ever touched or recommended has even come close to the rates of return I have experienced with cards. This hobby boggles my mind. You can take a raw card, pay a fee and literally print money. Amazing.

That said the liquidity of cards can't be compared to financial assets. There are a few cards like a 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan where anyone can list one on EBAY and achieve a near market price at anytime but that isn't the case for most cards. There is also a very high spread from the sale price to the net price that occurs from fees.

If you were to measure the performance of many of the top cards in the hobby they have crushed what a diversified portfolio consisting of stocks and bonds in the past ten years have returned and clearly many have been fantastic investments. That said cards do not pay interest or dividends and you can only win one way and that is price appreciation. This is a significant drawback that must be considered. Playing the buy high and sell higher game can certainly work but clearly buying today vs. a few months ago must be done with some caution.

For me personally I put financial savings ahead of cards as I would much rather have a large financial base that can create cash flow and only use excess cash to buy and generally sell a few things when I buy something at today's prices as it doesn't feel like a good investment to me. If someone wants to dump a large portion of their net worth into cards I don't see a problem with it if retirement is far off and they have great cash flow. That said for someone in their later years they must be ready to sell and for a lot of collectors myself included I hold my best cards for personal enjoyment and can't imagine selling them which obviously would be a problem for someone approaching retirement.

The other huge issue is buying the right cards. While it has been exciting to watch many sky rocket there are an even greater number that can't be sold for much and aren't participating in this move higher. Lately it has felt like you could throw darts at the market as star cards have been cruising higher but in reality if many want to convert their paper profits to cash the market for cards is not deep enough for a lot of people to head for the exits at the same time. When you see large price gaps in bids this suggests that if just a few people back away cards prices can fall and if those same buyers become sellers it creates even further problems.

The OP I recall was an oil trader and he should know that trading cards aren't even remotely as liquid as financial instruments. If one wants to dive really deep into this issue you could attempt to rank cards in terms of risk and segment cards with what would be considered lower beta vs. higher beta etc. That said when you see cards doubling and tripling in weeks you could throw a lot of that research out the window as the market for many cards is moving in a parabolic state and is extremely unpredictable. Because there is no way to hedge cards or bet against cards the market is more akin to an IPO when it gets listed as it can go vertical as there isn't artificial supply that can be thrown at it and the only way to make money is to go long the stock and it simply becomes a game of hot potato. If we are experiencing a hot potato game right now there will be some people that truly regret getting involved.

+1. Buy the card, not the holder. There are far too many "9's" which will compete with the "10's," with very little substantive difference between the two. Specifically, PSA has graded 2,418 "9's," 6,745 "8's," and 158 "8.5's." SGC has graded 308 "8's," 287 8.5's," 136 "9's," and 12 "10's." Taken together, the supply factor of "high grade" Jordan's looms far too large for me to take this card seriously as an investment in the long run. It's value will appreciate similarly to analogous coins in the coin market, where such items, scarce (and definitely not rare) in the highest numerical grade, but much more common in a minimally lower grade, are cyclical in value appreciation. The fact that a high grade Jordan rookie is simply not any kind of real rarity makes for a significant downside risk for the long term. If they're on the upswing and you can pick up one for the right price, flip it as soon as you can make some substantial money. Not at all an item for long term holding, IMHO, and very, very vulnerable to demand swings, whereas you won't see that with classical rarities in vintage cards. The latter will prove much more stable with likely very close to linear appreciation. What works to obtain the latter in EVERY field of collectibles is one simple formula: rare, significant, and in the best condition you can find or afford. The Jordan is not and never will be rare, although it meets the other criteria, but those are the two least important for value.

Highest regards,

Larry

Adam has absolutely hit the nail on the head. Buy on the leading, cutting edge, thinking outside the box a bit, and looking for rare, significant AND UNDERVALUED (which really means outside the hobby's current focus). If you're buying on the trailing edge, which is much more expensive and may only offer the illusion of lasting value, you may well find yourself in that last group of lemmings as the herd heads full blast off the cliff. John J. Pittman followed this course of action and put together a $40 million coin collection over his lifetime, never being able to obtain the real "trophy" items (he was a chemical engineer for Eastman Kodak, and died in the '90's).

Best wishes, to Adam and all,

Larry

+1. IMHO, the big bucks spenders are NOT purchasing for investment--money is the least of their concerns. They are buying legitimately desirable items, are not concerned with cost, and are simply trying to put together the very best collections possible for purposes of pride and enjoyment.

Happy collecting,

Larry

It isn't necessarily bad to miss the boat, especially when it sinks en route to its destination. Hmmm-why does the Titanic disaster of April, 1912 come to mind? Maybe because that one was "unsinkable" too!

Hi, Pete.

Larry

Th Manipulator needs to get to manipulating Mike Bossy and Rickey Henderson RC's. Zero plans to sell what I have, I'd just like to see a card or 2 of mine blast off. Got 5 of each in PSA 9, c'mon dude, get to work on this :D

This is exactly right. Collectors thought 1990 Leaf Frank Thomas rookies, 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookies and the like would only keep going up, up and away (like the Fifth Dimension, in their beautiful, beautiful balloon). Many dollars were being put into huge lots of these cards, but a liquid market for those lots never developed. The impact of huge production set in, and much of the market, mostly new cards, but with an overflow effect even on '50's and '60's cards, tanked. By recollection, the '52 Topps Mantle dropped in NrMt grade from $30,000 or so to around $15K by 1995. I don't think this market is like that one, because much of the $$$ is going into truly desirable, proven cards which are at least condition rarities, and seldom seen in high grade (note based on my previous posts above that I do not include the '86 Fleer Jordan in gem mint "10" in that group because it is so prevalent in only slightly lesser grades).

Regards,

Larry

90 frank Thomas leaf is a sore subject with me...

When I finally scraped up enough to get that card at 10 years old... I assumed it would be my key to early retirement...

Still have that exact card upstairs in a guest bedroom. :)

Josh, I remember a local dealer in the Detroit Metropolitan area who was planning to retire on Ken Griffey Jr. cards in the '90's, AND HE WAS ABSOLUTELY SERIOUS!

Even more than $$$ appreciation, may your collecting bring you joy,

Larry

I think long term investing in "high grade" graded cards of plentiful issues is foolish for a variety of reasons, not the least being the large number altered cards in holders with hard grades. If you were aware of the high percentage of altered cards graded, and the margin of error and other silliness involved in grading, why would you invest your money in that? I'd put my money in undervalued, quality, rare issues.

Somewhere, Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis, Jim Morrison and the Cobb T206 borders are sitting on a beach, drinking mai tais...

Then, come sit with me at the dumb guys table, Al. The bar's open. What are you drinking?

i snagged the cj jax. im sure there is some flawed history to this example, several will claimed it's altered/trimmed, gasp at the price, tell me that i am a fool or all the above.

in reality, i could care less. ive always wanted this card and wasn't gonna settle for one that i wasn't visually happy with. my chances dont come up very often.

tell me im an idiot and i'd probably agree, but in less than 3 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the card itself and the '19 world series and the idiot will have it and smiling.

study long, study wrong.

edit: typo change '16 to '19...leaving the retarded verbage of the 100 yr anniversary to prove the idiot part though.

Last year was the 100 year anniversary of the card. I think you mean that in 3 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the Black Sox scandal.

In any case, congratulations. :eek: :)

yes. it's late, it was a long thread, im tired.


oh. and f the peanuts, gimme some cracker jacks.

Congratulations on the pick up. I think the price was pretty reasonable given the quality of the card.

Wow! Mucho congrats!

You either haven't been reading the board or didn't understand what has been plainly said, imo. They ARE purchasing for investment.
Put a very high grade '52 Mick out there or a T206 Wags....or many, many of the high grade HOF rookies and there are a LOT of investors.. not buying for collecting and unfortunately they barely know what they are buying except pieces of paper in plastic. The cards are almost secondary to some....AND NOT for enjoyment.

A board member investor who has shown hundreds of thousands of $$ in cards on this board asked another board member, privately yesterday, what a flip was. Not quite a collector I would say.... But maybe what ALL of my friends in the hobby are telling me is wrong. (and many see who is bidding as they are auctioneers) :eek: Don't be foolish, there are a ton of investors in the hobby right now.


ps. Congrats on the CJ Bob...

.

What's interesting is the different predictions I am hearing from people who have been doing this a long time. Some think the game has changed forever and that at least the high end RCs and some other cards have moved from collectibles to investment commodities; some think it's a short-term trend and the investors will take their profits soon and move on and prices will collapse.

Right now, my understanding is that much of the buying one sees on these cards that are skyrocketing is being done by a relatively small number of people. So I think it's still a volatile situation.

Peter, anyone else besides Brent of PWCC who think the game has changed forever? Trying not to laugh as I type this.

forever ever!

or

forever?

My experience
 

The pure investors clearly have the most to lose here. At least those of us who are mostly in it for collecting will still have something we want if prices drop. And I personally still can't figure out how to do the "investing" part of cards. Everything I've ever bought specifically on speculation seems to be worth less than what I paid, while much of what I've bought for collecting has gone up in value, but most of my stuff is mid grade.

Sometimes just buying the right card of the player is what separates investor from collector. I like all the players mentioned in this thread, however with newer players just look at the production runs of Leaf, Topps, Upper Deck, etc... And then look at 20 times more rarer minor league card runs of the same player. I'll take the Thomas Cape Cod, Charlotte Os Ripken, Platinum Best Griffey, Remar Oaks Martin, and DiMaggio Zeenuts any day over their first MLB mass produced cards.

The late 80s early 90s Topps and Bowman Tiffany sets were very limited in production relative to the mass market stuff, to me they are better than minor league cards in almost every instance.

80s & 90s
 

Topps Gallery Of Champions ( originally Immortals :)), 1984 to 1991...in silver, bronze and aluminum sets of 12, plus some bonus pewter "cards"

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...ampions001.jpg
http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...ampions002.jpg
http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...ampions004.jpg

Reminds me of Highland Mint, Al. :D

The silvers do ok. My best 80s results came from 82 Blackless, 84 Encased, 85 Minis ( check prices on ebay), 88 Cloth and 89 Big Heads with Suckers...or Heads Up

Same guy has all the minis it seems on jacked up BINs.

With all due respect, Leon, it appears that some of these, perhaps the most knowledgeable, are cut from a different cloth. I'm speaking of Bob's post re the Cracker Jack Jackson, of course, but also of a M101 Ruth rookie in "7" that supposedly went to the owner of the Arizona Diamond Backs a few years ago. Was Al Taubman strictly investing in his $500 million or so art collection, auctioned off through Sotheby's fairly recently? One would think that if that was the case, it would have been up for auction before, rather than after, his death. Sure, art is art, but collectibles are also collectibles, and their appreciation/depreciation follow rather constant principles throughout their various iterations, almost like the laws of physics. That's why one particular 1964 Aston Martin recently changed hands for $11 million. This special edition model was supposed to have a manufacturing run of 25, but only 19 were made. Gee, might "rare and significant" have something to do with the above?

It's also why 1967 L88 Corvettes have recently changed hands for $3-$4 million--20 made, with 560 horsepower 427 racing engines that ultimately ended the Shelby Cobra's domination of Corvettes on the longer sports car racing tracks (165 mph top end for the much higher drag coefficient Cobras, versus about 190 mph for the L88 Vettes). These things will appreciate due to their, what was that phrase again, "rare and significant" nature, regardless of the initial motivation for their purchase, and in many cases, are simply being snapped up and disappearing from the market for quite a few years. They're being kept and held because well-healed, knowledgeable collectors LIKE them--sure, they like the thought that their value will increase, but do you really think that guys like John J. Pittman, who assembled a $40 million coin collection over his lifetime (purchasing mostly in the rare, undervalued, quiet areas, because as an Eastman Kodak chemical engineer, he could never afford the so-called "trophy" coins, such as the 1913 Liberty head nickel, 1804 silver dollar, 1894 S dime) and kept it for his entire lifetime was primarily motivated for investment? He LIKED his coins, which is why they only came up for auction AFTER his death, just as Bob quite obviously is delighted with his '15 Cracker Jack Jackson.

You're probably right that there is a significant amount of big dollar, near-mindless investing going on now, but IMHO, it would be incorrect to ascribe all the huge price increases we've been seeing in truly significant items largely to that factor. Just beware that if something seems overpriced relative to the existing number of examples, it probably is, and that these are the items, just as occurred in the coin and car collecting fields, that are in for the greatest correction in the market.

You are also correct that I have not been able to stay in touch with this truly great board you have fashioned as much as I would have liked for the last few months, due to an overwhelming work load (on the plus side, that heavy load has financed some long-sought after acquisitions). But the various collectible fields are far more alike than they are different, and the same principles will apply over time. I find the coin collecting field to be the closest parallel to cards, and it's history, having become an organized hobby roughly 120 years before cards, offers some unique insights as to where ours is likely going. The eminent Q. David Bowers, author, collector and coin dealer for more than half a century, wrote that, over time, the collector (as opposed to the investor) is king, because the former has taken the time to study the field, whereas the latter are often like lemmings, following the herd even as they plunge over the cliff. The collector, who in Bower's considerable experience enjoys the highest LONG TERM appreciation in his collection, buys and HOLDS, because he truly LIKES what he has obtained.

Hopefully, based on the above, the current market is not nearly as dominated by investment-only types as your post seems to indicate, but if it is, I would stay away from purchases where condition rarities seem to be hoisting up the prices of far lower condition examples to rationally unwarranted levels, where the latter are really not hard to come by. Persistent trends throughout the histories of other collecting fields make such "investments" a very, very risky proposition. Depending upon their significance, they will be cyclical in appreciation at best.

My very best wishes always,

Larry

Many lemmings these days it seems. :D