So you have $1.3 million burning a hole in your pocket
 

Which do you go for:

probably oceanfront property

Either one works for me Sir, but yah, ocean front property..

Real estate is the easy choice for me

Gone fishin'
 

A place where I can pull rainbow trout in from my deck...

Anyone who chooses a card over real estate is either already swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck or an idiot.

The neighbor from Office Space had an interesting take on what he would do if he came into some money.

I would put it all in cards of
Babe Ruth
Walter Johnson
Ty Cobb
Cy young
Christy Mathewson
Satchel Paige
Maybe a couple Mickey mantles
All in 1-3 grades

could not get you a studio apartment in nyc,,,,

For me, that amount “burning a hole in my pocket” means I’m 100% out of debt, retirement is loaded and rock solid, and my spouse and kids are set up in case something happens to me. Assuming all of those boxes are checked, I probably already own most anything I could ever want. All that said, if I’m going to spend that much on the hobby, I’m flying all of my hobby friends to a lodge in Montana, loading up on Van Pappy, and buying some rad wax to rip with my buddies. That experience and those memories, to me, sound way more fun than buying a card and shoving it in a box.

with a lot of beach or other land in front of it!

I was a buyer on the Doyle for a decent amount less than $1.3mm. I think it is an amazing card and the spike piece to the t206 set, the greatest set of all time. But I recently sold my Doyle, meaning I would rather have the cash I got than the card. I will reinvest some of the proceeds back into cardboard. I also like have dry powder for other things, including real estate deals that I put together. So, I have literally chosen real estate over a Doyle. I voted real estate

I'm not sure what kind of oceanfront property you can buy for $1.3 million--nothing in SoCal. That said, I wouldn't pay $1.3 million for a non-HOFer, no matter how scarce the card was. That just demonstrates the idiocy of set collecting. If there was an equally rare Doyle in a less popular set it would sell for maybe a thousand.

I actually think the Doyle is a better buy, given its rarity and the amount of well-healed buyers of T206s. Prime real eatate has gone even more nuts than vintage cards. I think the Doyle has a lot of room to appreciate (i did NOT buy this one or own one).

That said, for all of the three items, the only one for which the price isnt a lot of money is real estate. You cant buy high end real estate for $1.3mm. If yiu are one of the 50-80 people who own a wagner and want to complete the T206 set, there aer a lot fewer Doyle’s. But Doyle doesnt attract nearly as many people who want to just own an iconic card. Interesting poll.

Who do you guys think is paying for Doyle? Personally, my guess is a longtime (see old) T206 collector, and maybe only a small handful of other people like him as competition.

What about 20 years from now when these collectors are replaced? Does the Doyle still command attention to the tune of over a million dollars? I would guess no.

Index fund and retire. If I had unlimited money I still could not spend a million dollars on a cardboard picture of a dude, it's too much of a waste. I'd give the $1.3 to a friend so they could retire also, give it to a cause I like, you could do so much good rather than have a single baseball card.

Or flip it while it's still not underwater...

i feel similarly...and who wants to live in socal anyway!!!!

It would buy a nice lake house in my area and I think there's still room for appreciation on some properties. In the meantime, I would sun my fat belly and drink Natty Lights on the deck.

If I HAD to choose between the card and the bat . . . . the Babe gamer bat every time. Every single time.

Outside of this board, I never heard Joe Doyle's name in my life.

$1.3M is a lot of bread. The funny/not funny thing is that there are probably a good number of us whose collections today would equal or exceed this amount. Or if not to this level, they would be a decent fraction of this total. So the thought exercise isn’t as silly as it might seem at first blush. Because even if you want to take a zero off the total, at $130K, it’s still a lot of value to have tied up in a collection.

So by holding onto our collections, we’re saying something about our priorities and financial willingness to hold onto the collection rather than trade it in for something else that we could get with all that sweet, sweet cash.

Of course, part of the fun in this exercise is the fact that you’re buying a single piece with all that cash. There’s something about the size of that stack of cash that makes it extra ludicrous to plow it into a single piece. But is it really all that different to have a similar level of value spread across 10,000 items? Certainly there’s room to debate it, although my guess is that while it isn’t as shocking to the senses to buy 10,000 pieces at $130 apiece especially if you are picking them up over 50 years. My guess is that most of us would view that as perfectly fine, particularly if it didn’t really feel like a financial burden to get there. But suddenly if you’re spending $1.3M to buy just one piece, that’s a bridge too far.

Food for thought!!

I went with real estate. You can get a decent trailer house(modular home) in a 55+ community on the Oregon coast for that.

Joe Doyle:confused: never heard of him.

The Ruth bat would be amazing but I don't collect Ruth. I have a few Wade Boggs bats I wouldn't trade for a Ruth gamer.

My choices are made from the perspective of it is to keep and not for resale later.

I am not a wealthy man but I own a very modest home and a small office building in a town of less than 1,000 people where I grew up, lived and worked as self employed for decades.. and I own a 25 year old truck...I have no debt and have savings from my 40 years of hard work...I could get a nicer home, quit my self employed job and get a new truck but I choose not to because I am satisfied with what I have...I have been collecting for 50+ years and have been fortunate enough to accumulate a nice collection...to each his own but I don't want more real estate that brings more tax bills, utility bills, maintenance bills, insurance bills, things to tend to etc. If I had 1.3 million dollars burning a hole in my pocket I would see that my family and close friends have what they need and what is left over I would splurge on baseball stuff that I like...and I like all sorts of oddball stuff...it would be spread out to acquire lots and lots of stuff...especially stuff that makes a nice display with a story attached...I can be satisfied with cheap stuff to 4 figure stuff as I have never paid more than several thousand dollars for an item including my Hoblitzell no stats to complete my T205 set many years ago ...I can honestly say without hesitation that even having unlimited Bill Gates money would not tempt me to spend 7 figures on one item



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Almost certainly there are several equally rare Doyles in less popular sets. And I'm sure you're right about the price.

Same - and about to divest of some of my nicer e92's for some real estate. though my RE is digital - BITCOIN! my 2019-2023 BTC will finance my next round of collecting. I really need to add a Ruth and Mantle to my collection but don't see that happening until around 2026 when this next crypto bull run is coming to an end.

Now back to OP. That photo-matched bat is something else!!! loved seeing that in the REA auction!

Summer cabin in Colorado to escape the Texas heat.

I can’t physically live on a baseball card or bat….

Taco Bell

Ocean from property in Arizona, I hear it's going places..... snort.

Real Estate for sure, my wife would kill me and sell the card in an instant.

So if I want to live a little longer......

Butch

they are all able to be bought and flipped for a profit.

I would buy the real estate(depending on the type it is ) and then flip it for a profit to buy the Bat. Not a fan of the Doyle so would really only go for the Ruth Bat or the Real Estate. Ideally I would buy the real estate enjoy for a time and then flip for the Ruth Bat

This reminds me of me.

How many fake Doyles have got past the grading services, I wonder.

I can live in real estate, I cannot live in cards or a bat. Frankly the real estate would solve my biggest problem at the moment. So I choose the final choice.

Depends. Assume you have a primary residence. Would you be looking to upgrade your primary residence ? Do you have or want a 2nd vacation home ? Or how about buying a rental ?

Also depends on your age. How close to retirement are you ? If close to retirement, would you be looking to sell your current primary residence ? If you are younger, a long-term rental would make sense if your goal is investment.

Also depends on your family. Are you married, have kids, if so how many ? How much would they appreciate a vacation home ?

And not all real estate would cost 1.3 million. What about location. Would you be looking for a cabin in the mountains? A house on a Lake or River (fishing?). A house near the beach? A rental in your basic town may not be glamorous, but would be convenient.

If it were to be a second vacation home, would you actually spend decent amount of time there, or just an odd long weekend occasionally.

Like someone already said, be careful of the extra costs - property taxes, outfitting the house, repairs & maintenance.

If you just want easy street and not the hassles and extra expenses of a second home, then look at your desired cards.

If it were me, I would consider a second home in Maupin (with central a/c & heat) with a view of the Deschutes River. I love fishing and fly fishing in particular, and Maupin is close enough to get to nice higher elevation lakes out of Bend, OR. If money left over, be looking at a really nice Ruth card.

At least 1 did.

You can rip packs anywhere...

..oh not that kind of rainbow Trout.

I thought there was a PSA 6 or something where it was discovered to be fake but the owner declined to sell it back to them?

Hopefully they at least updated the database to invalidate that cert.

I never understand the argument that collectors of these vintage sets will dry up in the future. The set in question is already 114 years old. Why will it suddenly lack interest when it’s 134 years old?

That said, I’m not a set builder, and I don’t buy non-HoFers, so Doyle never interested me. I would have voted real estate, but if I’m being honest, I divested some big cards last year to buy cars and a boat. Far worse investments than cards or real estate. 😂 But the new acquisitions are a ton of fun and were worth parting with a few cards sitting in a bank vault.

A nice place on the Green Bay side of Door County, all day long everyday vs. the other two options. If I had to choose between the Doyle and the Ruth bat. The Ruth bat hands down, no question.

Bill

Sam!! Good to see your post. Miss you. Post more often. Hope all is well

Doyle and Ruth bat have no appeal to me. Assuming I'm squared away and can spend 1.3 on cardboard I would choose to spend it on a 1914 Texas Tommy Joe Jackson.

WIth you on the Doyle and the bat. I don't know which card or cards, but for me it would absolutely be Ruth.

I've often thought about this too, where are the 25-35 year old T206 collectors right now? Are they still churning modern but will soon discover the beauty of T206? Why aren't they here learning about the set from the incredible knowledge base on Net54? When every 60+ collector is dead what will the landscape look like? Nobody really knows. Will the corporate shills keep pumping T206 to young collectors for profit?, unfortunately I think this will be the case. Will prices come down on the cards we cherish? Only if there's more sellers than buyers, and that can happen in any collecting cycle. Until then it's still a pretty fantastic ride.

They’re on Discord buying cards of guys they watch. Most of them think T206 and the old stuff is cool, but it’s 1) too expensive for most new collector budgets and 2) there’s no hit factor that drives much of their joy. The old stuff is appreciated when shown but they definitely aren’t rushing out to buy them. Net54 presumably skews a little bit older than the actual prewar collector base because forums are rather outdated in general these days.

There’s enough interest to show the values aren’t going to hit zero or anything but I seriously question the logic of this board that the values will inexorably rise forever and we should drain our 401K’s and take out loans to pump vintage cards. I’m not sure the 50-70’s year olds that dominate prewar are going to have an audience to cash in on forever.

Olbermann bought a fake that SGC had slabbed (10 or 20 or something low like that). I don’t know about a PSA 6 fake.

First off - great question. I hadn’t made the comparison.

I vote the bat - I get the rarity of the Doyle, but the bat is a piece of the game, better than the cardboard.

Valid points, as a collector I don't really care if I pay 5k for a card and my kids sell it for 2500 after I'm dead. It's my collection and I build it for enjoyment, I care about the OG knowledge I get from this board, it's invaluable and will be lost imo at some point so I enjoy the ride. I also doubt anybody here is cashing out their 401k to buy cards, that would be a gambling addiction and while we all make sacrifices for our collections most folks draw a healthy line when it comes to that. It's a 401k meme at this point.

As a collector, values hitting zero, while not realistic, would be great in a lot of ways. A reset back to older prices is more attractive than values rising. I don’t doubt values will generally tick up for a few years but there comes the time when this current crop of mostly 50-70 year olds with the material sells off and I’m not sure there’s enough of us to absorb the glut of material that will appear. It’s hard to find a T card collector within 15 years of my age.

The 401K is a meme now from those of us who knew it was stupid at the time, but it was made very seriously and a number of posters here were supportive. Though nobody took up the challenge to post a screencap of them emptying their retirement account for some reason…

I think you can take a loan from your 401k and pay it back in 5 years with no tax or penalties. I’ll have to double check to be sure

I didn't say that people would lose interest in T206s or even the Doyle variation, only that I don't see anyone paying anywhere close to 1.3 million dollars for it 20 or 30 years from now.

I believe that the person who paid 1.3 million dollars for it, and the under bidder on it, are likely two old-time collectors who are completionists and had to have it at any cost.

I'm just not sure that same fervor for a Doyle error will exist for all of time.

I think the usual argument for the possibility of long-term decline in interest in the hobby usually is based on a couple of theories/data points:

1) Baseball dies as a sport. Obviously Star Trek famously predicted this future. And certainly from time to time there are declarations about the imminent demise of the sport. And although it has declined in popularity over the last 75 years relative to other sports, there is still a fairly large fan base, and the sport doesn’t seem to be dying all that quickly.

2) It’s happened in other collectibles markets. Certainly anyone who watches antiques roadshow will tell you that there are plenty of pieces that were popular 50 years ago and the kids today aren’t at all interested. A little closer to home, the pessimists point to the stamp collecting world and suggest that it really fell off a cliff. I’m not saying this is likely, but it seems like a theoretical possibility.

Of course, plenty of other people take the opposite side and argue that the hobby will go in the direction of the fine art world, and we should all plan to add a few zeroes to the price of everything. I’m a bit skeptical of this outcome, but if you’re a serious bull, then this is your pitch.

Bottom line when it comes to obscure rarities like the Doyle is that it doesn’t have quite the same notoriety as a Wagner or 311 Mantle. But it’s also a lot more rare! So the price will almost always be dependent on how much a short list of people with a whole lot of cash are willing to pay, and it really only takes 2 people to drive up the price in an auction setting.

Another element that comes into play is whether it continues to be accepted as a variation that is required to have a complete set. I’m no T206 expert, but there may be other variations out there that aren’t currently recognized or required to have a complete set. If this variation were to fall out of favor and no longer be recognized, including being eliminated from spots like the PSA set registry, then the price probably falls, and not just a little.

I'm under 40, I love baseball cards, am a lifelong collector and even if I won the billion dollar mega millions this month, I would have zero interest in paying anything for this card.

Only 6% of people on the board said they would invest in this card. I think that's a fairly accurate barometer re: not a whole lot of people looking to buy it at this price. And that's today. I'm projecting 30 years down the road and I'd be surprised if I were wrong.

regarding t206...I think as time goes by fewer and fewer "collectors" will be interested in attempting to complete the set...and will more likely just collect the hof'ers. I would not feel confident investing in a card like the doyle over time because to me it is a card for the wealthy completionist...and fewer future "Collectors" will be completionists imo.

Hi Sam! I think you made some great choices. Be well my friend.

When I sold my collection in 2015 almost half of my take home on it was put into buying a rental house. IT has trippled in price since I bought it. Yeah, I sold too soon but that wasn't the question. The answer for me is/was real estate.

That said, now, I have been looking at C8 Z06 convertibles. That would be more fun than a PSA 7 Young - Boston (not that it would necessarily buy one but it would pay for most of it, at least).
.

The more i think about it, the Ruth bat is the clear winner here. I shied away at first because I collect memorabilia extensively but mostly jerseys, and hockey jerseys at that. I had collected hockey sticks too, but those were hard to display and store, so I kept that at a minimum. I viewed a bat similarly, and would prefer a Ruth jersey, but the bat’s provenance seems solid and it is a piece of history. I would choose that. The Doyle is still very tempting, but since he wasnt a great player and it is an error card, I can see the argument against it. As a collector, the last thing I would choose is RE, based on the premise that the money is “burning a hole” or is superflous. If you have that much money, another $1.3mm in RE doesn’t do much of anything.

Kind of like spending insane money for relatively unknown California Leaguers while putting together an even tougher set :) ???

Leon, if you choose to sell that Young, I am sure you can figure out how to PM me…

[QUOTE=Schwertfeger1007;2365064]Kind of like spending insane money for relatively unknown California Leaguers while putting together an even tougher set :) ???


Agree 100%

It feels like people have different opinions of what "burning a hole in your pocket" means. I took it as you have to be set in life to have $1.3M just burning a hole, so investing wouldn't come into the thought process.

If I just had $1.3M for nothing in particular, I'd just start giving it to relatives, but that wasn't an option.

I have zero interest in owning real estate, especially since I'd already own something in this scenario of being set in life.

I have a Babe Ruth bat that was used in the original Babe Ruth movie. I also don't really collect memorabilia.

I collected T206 cards for years, so this was an easy choice for me. I picked the Doyle card. If in theory I'm willing to give away the hole-burning money, then I wouldn't care if it lost value over the years.

Agreed! I would be able to finally buy a single family home where I live with 1.3m.

Ha. Thanks, Jay. Will always be grateful for our dealings. Hope you’re well!

Side note: I’d love to see a Venn diagram of Wagner owners and Doyle error owners. I would wager there are almost no Doyle owners who don’t own a Wagner.

although nice, if you really were to invest in any land, it should be ag land, there is a large sale in my neighborhood next week, 1.3m should be able to get 250ish acres of productive ag land, that is where you should invest.

https://www.schraderauction.com/auctions/8502

link to auction, should be a fun one.

I look at the question a couple of different ways:

• First, if I had $1.3M 'burning a hole' that I wanted to invest, then I'd choose the one that I thought would bring the best returns, looking at each solely as investment vehicles. I'm sure we can all agree on which one that is ;). Me personally, I'd pick the Ruth bat. Too much cost of ownership of the RE and I think the Doyle has a smaller audience.
• Or second, If I had $1.3M to 'blow' without regard to ROI, I'd pick the one that would give me the most joy. For me, that's not a piece of cardboard or wood, but a nice spot on a lake or river where I can spend some time reeling in fish I have not yet caught.

I don't like polls like this which have no correct answer. The correct answer is none of the above. I guess the OPs point is, who is spending 1.3 million dollars on an error card on a nobody? If I am spending 7 figures on a card, it would have to be a t206 Wagner or a Baltimore News Ruth. I am not spending 7 figures on a bat, even Ruth. I am not spending 7 figures on real estate.

The best use of this money, in my opinion, would be to diversify. Buy a nice Ruth, Cobb and/or Wagner card(s), put some into a reasonably priced vacation home and put some into savings.

I go mud wrestling with the wcw girls and have a blast doing so