Where is the market?...is a "crash" coming
 

Hello,

I'll start by saying that i am first a collector...but a "conservative" one who appreciates a "deal". I am curious to know where my fellow 50's-70's baseball collectors & those who invest..think we are with prices today? IMO-we are still headed for a recession in the US (I hate being negative but I don't see how we avoid this)...so think card prices may/should drop accordingly.

I welcome thoughts/opinions.

-os73

When the pending doom of a recession actually arrives, history has shown that the average time frame lasted is only about 9 months with a positive turnaround on the other side of it. I think the imminent doom and gloom beforehand is much worse than the recession itself. I think we have been and are continuing to experience this already for quite a while now.

Post War has Substantially Corrected from the highs which I contend many may have been fluff numbers…we are entering imo a normalization period…we will be up from pre pandemic but nowhere near as up as in what cards were selling for in major auctions back in 2021.

I seen a few dealers this weekend with tons of over priced graded post war….none of it was selling. The reason it’s for sale and not up for auction is because they don’t have the guts to roll the dice…they know people aren’t paying up like they did.

Pre War and the Post War Killer Names Centered in higher grades are all more then Fire 🔥 Cobb Ruth Wagner Jackson Mantle Jackie and Mays.

Keeping it strictly cards, I'm seeing a slow-down in buying, but I'm not seeing people selling off their collections to pay bills or otherwise get loot.

The "Ebay museum" of overpriced pre-war vintage doesn't seem to be coming down and there doesn't seem to be much new inventory making it's way there for sale that would indicate people needing to sell off for other needs.

Yes the market is crashing ,thats why i bought 1 k in vintage hockey😳😳💃🏼

How many times can we keep doing this?

I will keep buying

For as long as it takes!!!

I believe there are several threads on this including one just a few weeks ago.
But regardless over the long haul there is definitely growth.
Vintage is less risk and more steady than modern.

To most of us who are collectors
1. Buy what you enjoy
2. Try buying the best card you can afford of the card you want and focus on eye appeal, centering etc.
3. Try not to use your charge cards to pay for it unless you get rewards points and can pay it off fast.
4 sharing your collections and things you win with pictures so we can enjoy your collection with you. As we all collect different things and some similar and we enjoy see what others have

Where is the market going?
Are we at a peak?
Are we at a bottom?
Should I buy now or wait?
Should I sell now or wait?
Where do you see the market a year from now? A month from now? Tomorrow?
What cards do you think will gain in value? Retain their value? Drop in value?

What happened to collecting?

Economists have correctly called 25 of the last 6 recessions.

Lucky you..so fortunate to have infinite disposable income and not worry about price.
 

Lucky you..so fortunate to have infinite disposable income and not worry about price.

I'm thinking maybe like six more times..... :D

Don't I wish but not at all the point. The points are these: 1. This has been discussed ad nauseum on a near-constant basis. 2. Nobody here knows the future, it's a meaningless conversation.

The SCI 500 shows us that prices have been falling since 2021. When are we going to hit the bottom? Nobody knows.

Never seems to happen to any card I want though.

well said Jeffrey!

You should start a YouTube channel lol

Thanks for being omniscient on worthwhile discussion.why interject if not worthwhile?
 

Thanks for being omniscient on worthwhile discussion.why interject if not worthwhile?

LOL. Could I be any worse than SCR or Geoff Wilson?

Maybe we could have a permanent thread.

It's pretty remarkable how if you watch one TV network for any period of time you walk away firmly convinced that (a) we have never had more violent crime in the history of the country and (b) the economy has never been worse in our lifetimes. :)

Hmm....which TV network could that be? :)

It changes every 4 years based on whom the networks want to blame. The networks that paint a rosy picture now will flip to negative, and vice-versa.

On this we agree

Yes.

"sci 500"?

Index started in the pandemic by Geoff Wilson, one of the modern investment types with a big online presence. Not sure of the components.

This depends on who you ask. If you ask a dealer, there been absolutely no down turn, just look at the prices on their cards at shows. You ask any collector, prices have been trending downward since the COVID era.

I've seen it with the others...but Reggie Jackson?

And Jackie Coogan??

That Addams Family card is well centered...Uncle Fester's head is sunken down smack dab into the middle of his sternum.

Brian

Don't be silly. They're obviously talking about Roy Lee Jackson

Just some food for thought:

1968 Topps 3-D Uncut sheet with Clemente and 2 proof cards


Summer 2023 REA Lot#1402 sold for $29,400

Fall 2023 REA Lot#2149 hi bid $13,000 - not sold reserve not met

Looks like the exact same sheet, with the exact same description for both auctions.

What a difference 3 months make!!!

And it can be stickied to the top of each section!!
.

and a card...

https://luckeycards.com/e126.jpg

I don't predict a crash, but it was very telling that several REA lots did not meet their respective reserves last night.

How does that Fester Card only grade a 6??????

WTF

It's obvious, ... no light bulb. :cool:

The simple point is this. You are the latest with one of countless posts, asking the same question. How or what is the market doing and is it gonna crash? or many, many, variations therein.

No one here can predict this at all. Everyone has pretty much the same market information that everyone else has. So the questions and the answers are all the same. dunno.

It is just tiresome to answer a question that never has an answer to it, over and over again.

Cheers,

Butch Turner.

This.

Ditto. Even with postwar standard stuff that isn't rare by any stretch of the imagination. The BIN's remain high on most decent looking midgrade slabs, and waiting out auctions with any consistency to get a real deal has never been my strong suit...

The Fester card is mislabeled. I believe that is a Fetterman RC, not Fester.

Supply and demand, right? Economic conditions play a role, but the bottom line is the demand. As long as there are people (collectors or investors) that are willing to pay high prices for cards, then there will be strength in pricing (demand).

What hurts the pricing is when people get greedy and try to manipulate the market and create the illusion of a "hot" market with hype or other means.

At some point in time the investor side will get burned because they're buying with the idea the card "market" will continue to rise and they'll find out the hard way that the pricing will not continue to grow infinitely when they don't have a chair to sit in when the music stops.

As long has you have two people willing to bid up prices, there will appear to be strong demand.

To the investors out there: Keep the hype machine going but make sure you have your chair when the music suddenly stops because if you don't have a chair, then welcome to the collecting community (unless of course you want to take a financial loss and dump your cardboard because you really never cared for it in the first place). :p:o;):)

Well said. I have to admit that I'm skeptical of all claims that "the good stuff (whatever that means) will never go down in value". Every collector has to know that these little pieces of cardboard have essentially zero intrinsic value, right?

Then why even read/answer the thread?..just move on.

It's like a train wreck. We can't not watch!

Plus we all want our part in the conversation, so not responding is not really a viable option.

So instead, we get to debate whether the whole premise of the debate is worthy of debate.

And complain, of course. Plus complain about the complaining.

Better yet, don't ask a question that will never have an answer and post it on a board for all to answer.

Because you will get an answer, just not an answer to an unanswerable question.

Butch Turner

A crash is definitely coming. I am 100 percent certain. My stars, Ouija board, palm reading, tea leaves, and tarot cards are all in perfect alignment. My local gypsy concurs as well.

If thinking about your cards futures is too much, I am offering my help in taking them off your hands so you can clear your mind. I will pay you only what I want to pay, seeing as thinking about their price is giving you such anxiety.

This is my gift to you.

I see no evidence at all that there is a bear market in anything that I collect. To the contrary, prices keep going up.

Timing the market

See last weeks LOTG and this weeks REA winners threads…

Prices are strong on the good stuff

You're right. I heard it once from a dealer in 1999 whose name I can't remember and maybe never knew but he would have no reason to lie. LOL LOL LOL LOL :rolleyes:

:p

It certainly feels like the go-go days are still running on everything I want for my collection. Witness the solid bidding war I got into last night (and lost) on the PSA 9 Mays 1954 Stahl Meyer. I finally dropped out at $93k. (link: https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=162374)

On the other hand, the PSA 7 Mantle that sold last night went for $246K, here:

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=160751

It looks like the exact same card went for $336K about 12 months ago:

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=125688

So a drop of $90K over the last 12 months. Good for a ~27% decline. We can debate whether that's a crash, a correction, or just someone overpaid in December 2022. But for some things the prices seem to be coming down.

Right. Just like coins, comic books, paintings, sculptures, and a multitude of other antiques and collectibles!

Just like the doomsday preppers say "the crash is coming". Get prepared now by selling all your cards and buying gold and silver the currency of the future.:rolleyes: I have been predicting this crash for decades and someday I will be correct.:D

Howard, thanks for the reply. Point taken, although some coins and stamps could still have some utility value if they lost their value as collectibles. :)

Looks like you've been in the hobby for some time–what do you think about the belief some have that a certain "class" of cards will never go down in value? With a van Gogh or a Rodin, such seems more plausible than with a mass-produced item like a baseball card.

The internet is full of places you can add no value. Enjoy.

But WHAT will they accept as tolls on the roads? I don't That was ever discussed

But the fun is seeing other pontificate how much they "know" about the market, no matter how disconnected they are with reality, the actual market, and have heated interests in keeping prices going!

Right, as was posted here in recent memory, silver we be useful to pay gangs of farmers who take over the roads.

Well I learned the roads will be manned by Indians who accept silver for passage in the water cooler section. Educational thread that was!

I thought y'all said the farmers are going to accept 51 Bowman commons for the footpath toll.

Nope, farmers, here's the quote.

The book I read used silver for traveling purposes. The scenario is farmers turn portions of roads into toll roads. Silver would be used to pay toll fees. I live in WA. If something happened here, I would be close enough to try to make it to Canada.

And someone on the way to Canada would inevitably ask you what the futures of silver looked like. chortle.

Nope. It is a sign of how productive I am being today that I checked the thread.

#57: "If a collective of farmers want to fill that power vacuum, so be it. But in Eastern WA, there are enough small highways to get to Canada. We have a single lane highway that runs all the way from Spokane to Nelson, BC. That's the road I would need to take to flee. It would be controlled by someone; possibly even a Native American tribe because it runs through their reservation."

Both were used in the thread, and then you and I were both making fun of both options according to the transcript. Just have to get to page 2.

LOL too funny. Filling that power vacuum indeed.

I could have gotten better deals on two of the three most expensive cards I bought this year by waiting...1953T Robinson, 1954 T Kaline, but probably not the 1948 L Musial. But I don't really feel bad about any of the purchases. All cards I had wanted for a while and now I have them.

Index for vintage sports cards
 

From PWCC. Just came across this thought it was interesting -

https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/mark...&direction=asc

Had been hoping that there was a T206 500 index, or something similar, or even thought of creating one to just get an idea of what prices are doing/have done. This is broader, but it does have a handful of t206 cards included in the index.

No index started by Brent has ever gone down. Good to see we're WAY up since the pandemic peak if I am reading it right. To infinity and beyond!! :)

I'm glad I could teach you all something. We all have our different conspiracies we hold to. I still believe that economic/political uncertainty lingers. Another Trump presidency would make 50% of the country go absolutely bonkers. While I am rooting for Nikki Haley, The Don is running laps around all the other competitors for GOP candidate.

Also, to answer the OP: It's hard to debate a downturn in cards for modern between November and February, which generally are the doldrums. Come March, modern cards will warm up again and people will forget the winter blues.

Jesus, if THAT hogwash passes as "teaching", I can only imagine what The kids are learning


Save our souls

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I think most of us believe there is political and economic uncertainty and that half the country goes ape when they hear evil orange man’s name. I fail to see how this means Native Americans become the muscle and adopt a silver based travel system, as did everyone else.

I am rooting for whichever candidate my favored propaganda mill or party tells me is the solution.

pricing trends
 

Conclusions on pricing trends can't be drawn from one auction, but the results last night reinforce that grade continues to be less and less relevant over time to pricing. Premiums for strong centering/color/registration and discounts for poor centering/color/registration are increasing. There is scarcity of the former for many cards, even if the pop is high.

Some comparisons:
https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=161130

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=161129

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=164229

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=164248

And a couple of other examples of premiums strong centering/color/registration is getting versus average comps:

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=161266

https://bid.robertedwardauctions.com...?itemid=161953


There hasn't been any weakness in pricing for really nice examples of in-demand cards or sets. Those examples have been and will continue to be less sensitive to any market corrections that are inevitable over time, especially after huge runs.

I had forgotten about your post. I have a sad hobby of binge watching reality TV because I find it as funny if not funnier than stand up. My latest was about preppers being scored on how ready they are. It was so beyond hilarious especially knowing there are people who actually take these silly shows seriously.

The card crash is near!!! Sell now and invest in toilet paper because unlike silver and gold it will be needed.:rolleyes::D

"depends"

Snort, I love squeezing that into a conversation about TP any time I can get the chance.

B.T.

Another way to look at specific key cards from the vintage market is to look at how many examples of each card that appeared in the just concluded REA auction. For example, I believe there was only 1 Ted Williams RC, meaning to me that at today's market value, this is not an attractive card to move with the assumption having to be that there will be more room for growth on that one in the future. Same can be said for the 51 Bowman Mantle and Mays rookies, of which I believe there were 3 of each in REA as compared to summer of 2021 where there were probably around 10 of each, if my memory is correct. Compare this to the dozen or more T206 Ty Cobbs in REA, meaning to me that this card has already peaked in value at this point, at least for the foreseeable future, and many are looking to sell now to take advantage of what might be a higher price as compared to a year from now. I believe there is some merit to this kind of stuff. Watch the upcoming major auctions and look for cards that are not being offered regularly. Those are probably the cards to buy right now while staying away from those that are being offered in multiples at the same time, whether in same or different auctions.

"Teaching" was tongue in cheek, sir. BNorth seems to have understood. I guess it "depends" on whether you want to join us.



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nice!!