Printing More Money vs. High Card Prices
 

I have been wondering about a question I have so thought I would put it out here. If this gets political it will be locked. That is not what is intended. This affects both sides of the aisle.

Do yawl think all of the money being printed by the treasury, and the many trillions being doled out, has anything to do with card prices? It almost seems like there is too much money in the economy but I am far from an economist. A freaking 3.5 of this card just went for over 20k. So much for me getting an upgrade. LOL

http://luckeycards.com/r319rutha.jpg

Hi leon dont think so .But the market is insane ,,im selling all my labrons ,,people have gone nuts ,,its insane.

Yes.

where can you park your money

real estate - covid killed a lot of landlord(lower rent, not able to pay rent, therefore can't pay mortgage), so not looking into getting more

stock - overprice , it keep going up just cuz of money keep pouring in

cash - no interest at the bank

Card - at least something we enjoy, stock if it drop 50% , it's just number, a ruth drop 50% you still hold and enjoy the ruth right. and I know in 10-15 years most likely will worth more than what you pay

Leon,

I'm by no means an expert, while I do think the stimulus checks shouldered a little bit of the blame early on, I'm thinking now it's more because people are looking to cards as an investment opportunity and big money is getting thrown into the Hobby by people who would normally spend it on other things.

We still have portions of the Nation who do not feel safe traveling, or going out of there house, but still earning an income, the end result, I think is that money gets poured into the hobby. Combine that with the fact people see rising prices as an "investment opportunity" so new money starts entering from people who don't really know what a reasonable price is for a card and we get this result.

We also have the issue of card prices shooting up on various older players that are still alive because people want to capitalize on their eventual demise. Look what is happening to Mays' cards ever since Aaron died.

I have not been in this hobby for nearly as long as half the people on this forum, but frankly I do not think it's sustainable, at all. I do think some of the high end Vintage stars will maintain their value, but we see some sort of correction eventually.

Yawl is a sailboat.

Short answer to Leon... not directly. However the easy money is somewhat related as I do believe that the stock market is more likely tied to the rise in card prices. There are an awful lot of people in the US that make far, far more money and have far greater assets than they or their families will EVER be able to spend. Nobody NEEDS $1B, let alone hundreds of millions. At some point it's just a way to keep score and the whole concept of money as reality goes away.

Some with unlimited resources just want stuff and will outbid anyone else...well, because they can. And it only takes two to tango in an auction.

Imagine if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos decided they wanted a certain high-end marquee card!

I also believe there is a certain level of "pump and dump" action going on.

My 2 cents.

FWIW I'm in the bottom 50% statistically, and got both stimulus payments of which 100% went to pay bills.

I agree that all the printing of money has caused prices to rise. I noticed prices on modern cards taking off when stimulus checks hit and now some of that is flowing into vintage. Also, people not being able to spend money in recreational areas frees up money for cards. If you didn't spend money on season tickets or vacations, why not put it in cards. It has also created a volatile stock market and people are looking to diversify into other investments like cards. There are plenty of influencers who got in at floor levels that are really pushing cards as investments.

I don't know if I understand how stimulus checks are related. Personally, I've received less than $2,000 the entire pandemic. I don't see how that would open a door for me to buy a 20K card.

I agree. People who can afford to pay 5 and 6 figures for cards are probably not doing it with stimulus money.

The question is not about the stimulus money that people received. You are correct, people are not spending 1200, or whatever they got, on big cards. The question is about the fed “stimulating” the economy buy continuously printing money to keep us from imploding. So yes.. without a doubt.. it is a HUGE player in driving card prices up. I have to run, but I will explain later if someone doesn’t beat me to it.

Correct. I got 600 dollars. That isn't going to buy much nowadays in nice cards. It's the feeling and sentiment of easy money that is my thought on the subject.

.

The Fed's Easy Money Printing Def is a big factor.

What I fear is happening is a lot of collectors are in somewhat of a panic mode of FOMO thus running up their credit card limit's on purchases because they're afraid if they don't buy now they will never be able to afford 6 months from now. This Upward Cycle in Ever/Always increasing values of cards doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. If it does it could get ugly.

This is incomprehensible to me




25 highest-paid hedge fund managers made $32 billion in 2020, a record

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/-25-...n-in-2020.html

There are people getting the full 3600, with another 2800 coming, that don't need that money. Add in money not spent on vacations, going to cards shows, going to games, going out to eat and to movies, etc and there is plenty of extra money being spent on cards.

It is not like this happened overnight. Stimulus checks started hitting last April. Vintage really started jumping in January. That is plenty of time for guys to flip cards and have 5 figures to buy cards. There were huge run ups in modern cards, especially basketball and Project 2020, last year and guys have moved from prospects into legends as more stable investments. This is not the whole cause, but is one of several major factors.

I think money first goes to modern. And some gain so much start moving asset to more conservative and know vintage is better long run. They saw vintage market is undervalue for so long.

That's a lot of benchmarking and criteria to clear for stimulus money to have anything to do with a 20K card.

I think this is really a good point. While many people have been been greatly impacted financially by the pandemic (or more accurately the response to it), many others have not. Those that have not been negatively affected by the situation likely have disposable income that in the past was spent on tickets, vacations, etc. Some of that disposable income is now being spent on cards. Plus, at least with some of the higher dollar examples, it would seem that cards are now a trendy place to park ones investment dollar.

In my opinion this is 100pct accurate. It's not individuals getting stimulus checks, it's the new super wealthy that have significantly increased in number as a result of crypto price surge, the proliferation of spac issuance that instantly enriches the sponsor, real estate strength, etc. They are buying immense quantities of hard assets from the extremely rare to the limited quantity luxury items. Stories of individuals buying a ferrari dealership out of their entire inventory, super yacht shortages, low if non existent waterfront properties in prime locations. This will result in hyper inflation and will filter down into what was previously thought of as things that were considered available though somewhat limited in quantity to those making a decent living but were not wealthy. Things as simple as say lobsters (dont laugh), or BMWs, relatively fine wine etc. It is all going to be bought up.

I haven't seen a very good explanation for why a person with no previous interest in cards would suddenly decide they needed a 1953 Topps Satchel Paige.

I really don't see why there is a POV that the uninitiated are driving up prices. A 52 mantle, a T206 Wagner, sure, those kinds of cards will appeal to the same layman that Picasso does to people who don't collect art.

What drives a guy to buy a 1950 Bowman Jackie Robinson?

And so much for me hoping to buy yours after said upgrade! Watching whats happened to the 33 Goudey Ruths over the past two months has been pretty amazing, & REA last night felt like the end of my dreams... for now. Big regrets on my part just missing out on two 144s in major auctions in December :( In the non-Ruth realm, i was able to fill in quite a few holes in my ‘33 Goudey set last night.

Why can't it be both?

One Word MONEY

I*have to believe that the value of the dollar will have to erode longterm. The decision way back in 1948 at the Bretton/ Woods Conference to make the dollar the world's reserve currency was probably fine until Nixon went off the backing of gold in 1971, and all bets were off. Quantitative easing and Covid relief packages have left the country flooded in liquidity and the repayment of all these bonds plus interest will reflate even more. Let's face it the Federal Reserve's actions is almost a Ponzi scheme in that new investors are needed to keep the party going. I don't think we are at the stage where the prices of oil and gold are soon to be denominated in Euros, Yuan or Yen but do feel the days of dollar dominance are fading.
All of that just means that there should be ample surpluses of money for those who have some to buy sports' cards. Right now it is a wild and heady environment for those those who can play the game. My God, 90K for the Goudey #53 Ruth in last night's REA auction just seems surreal

Awesome card Leon - that batting pose is a classic!

We all know the fed/fiscal stimulus is the main reason for where stocks and cards are valued. Conceptually, it's not about whose getting checks. It's about how the checks are recycled (velocity) back in our economy. Say the $600 is used to pay for groceries or Pokemon cards. That cash is used to support the business selling those goods, who in turn pay the employees to sell those good, who in turn... Stimulus check keep our economy "moving" and bridges us to we normalize (whatever that may be).

More people are employed. At the lower-end, less people are in needs to selling their assets (stocks/cards) to make ends meet, which creates the demand/supply imbalance towards MOAR. At the upper end, that economic activity is supporting the cashflows of our cashflow producing assets, supporting the inflated values of our income producing assets. Until risk assets are valued using an almost risk free rate.... which is not sustainable.

And in a world where there is no alternative (TINA) to stocks because the Fed has pushed us higher in the risk spectrum for yield (as evidence by a 3.5% yield for high yield index!), the marginal difference for yield is not worth it (picking up pennies in front of a steam roller), and more people start looking for alternative places to store their wealth, whether it be art, Gold, Bitcoin or cards. There is no coincidence today that Bitcoin is down ~10% and Gold is up ~2%. People that are running out of Bitcoin are not putting it into stocks, they already predisposed with an alternative mindset for why they are in Bitcoin in the first place. But where did they get this money???

I put an earlier pose, that the Fed increased its balance sheet from 3T in 2013, to 4T in 2018 and not 7.4+T..... so yes, that money is going somewhere.

This is separate from speculation, which is also in our industry and is cause for concern short term, but indifferent long term.

As it relates to the $90K ruth, one sale does not make the market. It sets the price, but only at that time. In times like this, if you can't axe the bid, then value your stuff based on an average of recent sales...

And
PSA 3 52 topps mantle way off center for 90k

Current government policy with what is being printed and distributed related to COVID has an effect, but I don't think it's the cause. The rest of the bubble I believe will be cyclical as we've seen historically with cards since the 1980's, and for those of you that can remember - likely longer than that. What I don't know whether or not is / is not on the level is all these reports of investment portfolios getting interested in both modern and vintage cards. If that's really true, then it could be a game changer if not temporary.

But that's not realistic. How would some everyman be driven to buy esoteric collector cards without being a collector?

There are no newly initiated people driving up the prices for many issues that have spiked. It doesn't make sense that they would look anywhere else but prime time for something they know nothing about.

If I'm getting into art, I'm not asking to see someone's Lucien Freud collection. I might have heard of Andy Warhol though.

"Young investors new slogan"
 

Cash is trash!!

So here's what I'm wondering. If stocks, real estate, cybercurrency, metals, art and baseball cards are all overpriced, isn't it probable that cash is overvalued? The reason I'm not ready to buy into the concept whole cloth. The reason for that is we are not seeing wholesale price increases in staples. People have been sitting around with nothing to do so buying cards has been a fair enough diversion. Those who have not been hurt by COVID-19 haven't been spending money on some of the things like travel and, to a lesser degree, cars and clothes that we normally would. It's a mystifying time. I would think stocks would be the first to adjust, but what do I know.

A couple thousand in a stimulus check is not going towards a $20k card, but a lot of people took that money months ago and put it into a card or cards of some sort and those cards may have increased in value greatly in the months since. It's very plausible that if someone put $2k into the right card that it could be worth $10k today, and after flipping said card they can turn around and put the profits into something they deem to be safer such as a great vintage card.

The recent surge in vintage coincided with a drop in a lot of modern cards. I think a lot of flippers who were playing the game buying modern cards like Luka in basketball started seeing how volatile that game could be when these current players struggle to live up to hype in a real time season. I believe a lot of people made a lot of money during the last number of months flipping these commodity cards of modern players and now could be sitting on a five or even six-figure bankroll that allows them to ''get serious'' and begin buying safe blue chip vintage cards that have traditionally held and gained value over the long term and won't be susceptible to the up's and downs of an active player's career. Ruth, Mantle, Jordan, Gretzky, Aaron, whomever... These guys won't break their leg tomorrow and see their value plummet.

I can't say this is accounting for everything we're seeing but I can tell you this, I've been doing the exact same thing myself going back to December of 2019. I've turned my 12 years of modern collecting equity into some amazing vintage cards for my PC that I never thought I'd own.

There are a lot of assumption being made that people even take vacations or go out to eat. Those are luxuries many people I know had to forego even before the pandemic.

Its odd, because people are not eating out, or traveling (less experience spending), they are spending on material goods. At the upper end, private planes, boats, second homes away from NY. At the lower end, people like me, baseball cards.... =)

Money is money in every other context really except the baseball card world, where now your money is worth the least it has been in quite a while.

If you managed to save 15K and that money means something to you, this is probably the worst possible time to buy.

Because they "always liked Jackie" and they want to collect them all? Never a Bowman fan, but wanted this one in my collection. Not so much the trimmed leaf rookie or ugly 49.

I think many small business's, received gigantic PPP loans that you don't have to pay back. They were discharged pretty quickly and free $$$ to the wealthy, I hear.

IMO, I think the pandemic and a 40+ age group with monay to spend created a booming market. There are many factors to it but I think this is the foundation. I'm 45 and have a certain amount of comfort in my life that has allowed me to purchase cards I only dreamed of having during the card boom of the 80s. I'm sure there are tons of people in the same situation. The pandemic gave people the free time to explore and revisit old anew interests. I picked up skateboarding with my son after 20 yrs of not being on a board.

Enter the highrollers and speculators getting in on the frenzy and its anyones guess where this will go, a big inflated pissing contest that tanks or a lasting trend with stable highs and lows?

At this point I am thankful for what I have and defintely bummed that some cards I wanted are way way out of reach

I believe those are asking prices? Have they sold for that anyway? Considering what some of this junk is selling for, that is still a bargain, IMHO.

A PSA 3 is a PSA 3 is a 3 is a 3. Still a nice collectible card with many fine attributes, even if "way off center".:D Eddie, as in Anal Eddie. You wouldn't want my off center 3 and I wouldn't sell it to you. Not even for 9-0.

Agree, a 3 is a 3. I have no problem with off center cards, and i owned a few OC, i find great value for them.
that's the sold price, we'll see how heritage/goldin auction ends for these 52 mantle to get a reality of the current value

LOL. You never know when the good old centering debate will re-enter the equation! I would agree. A lot of the current thinking on centering preferences is the result of collective bias.

A lot of times, ppl compare a centered card with off centered but with similar aspect surface/corner, of course it makes the centering card look way superior
If you compare a beat up center 2 vs a bold color decent corner 2, i'll take the off center one every time.

Agree 1000%.

Not OCD about centering in any way, having always preferred clean surface, image, corners. Glad to be in this camp. It saves me $$. :D

More to topic... big time price for the last Uncle Jimmy Jimmie last night. It's a nice example for sure, but wonder if the fear of missing out on the Uncle Jimmy offerings had something to do with its premium.
https://www.wheatlandauctionservices...entoryid=19358

Leon-I don’t think it is that. I think what you are seeing is new well healed buyers entering markets where the supply of desirable goods is limited. If anything, it is probably analogous to Tulipmania, although Tulipmania was a bubble and I’m not sure that this is. If there was too much cash sloshing around in the economy I think you would be seeing widespread inflation and you are not.

It ain't a boat in Texas. LOL.

As far as the bubble aspect, regardless of the multitude and range of factors that have contributed to the rise in prices (stimulus, boredom, no travel, no meals out, etc. etc. etc.), some of the players will exit the market. They'll take their profits or losses, take that vacation or whatever. Not all of the people buying cards during this increase in prices will continue to buy cards. The pandemic will subside and many people will move on from cards for one reason or another. Prices will drop, whether this is a bubble or not, although I could see some of the cream of the crop retaining value and not giving back as much.
The big question for collectors is: how many new people who have entered the hobby will remain long term?
Then again, I've been very wrong about very many things before...

I think if the world ever gets back to normal and people start traveling and going out again regularly it will slow down some. We for example cancelled a Disney trip and another vacation to the tune of about ten grand. People are bored and cards are a good distraction and can be done from the comfort and safety of home. I also think there is a faction out there of rich folks making it cool to invest in cards. After the dust settles it'll be like any other collectable market and a lot of folks will move on to something else much like the junk card era or other collectable/investment booms. Vintage will always hold value especially the really cherry stuff but I think in time the hobby will correct itself and this current insanity will run it's course.

My primary clients are farmers, but a huge uptick in web sales for home gardeners when stimulus checks hit. In my case, printed money became a sense of food security for folks all over North America. Also, a form of mental security to combat the stresses of isolation. I believe hobbies, including cards, are experiencing the same impact. One man's hobby is another's business.

I don't think it impacts those cards, but it is enough to turn a $75 card into a $315 card, as another thread here was discussing. And if someone had spent their first check in the stock market when they got it, they could have enough to pick up a four-figure card, or get a good start on a five-figure one. With the tear the market has been on, someone could have relatively easily turned their stimulus check into a much bigger sum; QQQ was at $180 in March, and it closed today at $322. VOO bottomed out at $200 back then and closed at $355 today.

And what happen when next stock market crash. They just going to print more. Unlimited QE. Asset inflation even more

I agree, Jackie Robinson has transcended the hobby. Someone wants an early card of Jackie, can't afford his late 40s cards, but can afford the 50 Bowman.

However, I understand what you meant, I just think you chose the wrong name. Maybe you meant Warren Spahn, or Gaylord Perry, or Bob Feller......

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

$600 Stimulus checks are not causing Jordan rookies to go from $20,000 to $700,000.

I can only speak for myself but the two checks I got didn’t cover one months rent combined.

I dunno, with Wall Street getting involved this may turn out to be an industry wide pump and dump... great time for sellers, buyers not so much...

Well, my #144 is still in transit to his new home, and, while I do miss him, I do have a Net54 label pin and T-Shirts displaying that same Babe Ruth image (along with a reprint and scans of my 'ex'-card)...that will have to suffice until Leon comes up with another way to share that image with the rest of the world...and I'm on board with a pre-order.

I believe Modern 1980 and up there is a lot Of Major Pumping and Dumping Over Inflating because they have bought up all the cards and cornered the market.
Vintage they ain’t or weren’t able to get cheap, hard for them to P&D.

Some prices really make you scratch your head though, to the point where you have to believe this. Like the recent action on Rickey Henderson, or George Brett. I'm not doubting there greatness but so many of those cards were made and are around, these prices don't make sense.

It's the same thing with the Michael Jordan RC. I own one, (Though I'm pretty sure it's fake) but regardless of that, so many Jordan RC's exist. From what I've heard you could practically get them for free when they first came out, I get it, he's the Greatest Basketball Player but his Rookie in a PSA 10 should be nowhere near 700K with the amount that exist.

The short answer is that yes, in general "printing money" drives inflation. It's not related to the stimulus checks but to the money supply. Here's a very simple illustration.

Imagine an economy with just 2 people, a can of BBQ beans and $100. In this economy a person has to spend all their money every day. One person starts with $100 and the other person starts with the can of beans. Because there's only one product, the price of that can of beans is $100. Now if we print another $100 and leave just the one can of beans. So there's still one can of beans and $200 available to be spend each day. The price of the can of beans is now $200.

I know the illustration isn't perfect. It's a ridiculously simple example, to show the effect that printing money has on inflation. Most goods are replaceable (e.g. food, clothes, etc. etc.). More corn will grow and more clothes will be made. So long as there aren't major shortages, prices might rise with demand but nothing outrageous.

For assets that are in limited supply like real estate, art and vintage baseball cards things work differently. The supply of these assets is limited. When more money is slushing around the system, some people choose to save that money...but others choose to spend it. A small number of people jumping into a an asset can make a big difference. That's where printing money drives asset prices (e.g. bubbles). It's not the only way that an asset bubble can happen, but it is one way.

People assess the value of assets in relation to other assets. That also helps to increase demand. "John's house just sold for $500K but the house that I want to buy is bigger. I'm willing to pay $700K for it." or "Geez, that 2010 Trout Refractor just sold for $500K. A T206 Cobb should be worth more than that". This further increases the demand and creates a sense of normalcy in people's minds that the prices are justifiable.

Asset bubbles aren't new. Bubbles tend to pop when there's a shock that changes the economic balance. In 2009, it mortgage defaults started to increase and banks stopped lending. It was the plentiful, cheap loans that helped drive the bubble. When the banks stopped lending, the bubble burst.

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/...0921111206.jpg

What'll change this time around? Will the Fed stop printing money? Will interest rates start to rise? Will someone find a warehouse full of "one of a kind" Mike Trout Refractors? Will a new MLB doping scandal cause the bottom to fall out of the modern card market? Take your pick and make your bets.

Leon, there were multiple events that happened in the past year that I feel fortuitously mingled to simply get more people involved in the hobby, thereby organically stimulating a market that was undervalued. A hobby that is considered a safe haven by all stripes of investors.

The first round of stimulus back in April was timed right for the hobby because, quite simply, people were stuck in their homes looking for...a hobby! It helped that some in the middle class who never got laid off got $2-4K and maybe bought that Goudey Ruth or Aaron rookie they'd been thinking about for years. Or they bought a 2020 Topps Chrome hobby box. Also, card breakers on Youtube went nuclear because their format was perfect for the pandemic.

Increased media coverage during a historical crossroads may have contributed to the most recent bump, from mid-january to current.

Auction price headlines and the unfortunate and sudden passing of our giant Hank Aaron came right around the same time that a sea of what I propose is "dark" stimulus money was printed: the Gamestop stock cash out. On Feb. 1, this stock crashed and many, many of the sellers made profits. And it's a brand new generation of collectors. The common story I think was that you bought in at $11 and sold at $300. This injected new blood into our hobby because if you look at the timing, I believe it's clear that a lot of that money is now in our hobby.

My theory is this new generation's buying started with mint condition rookie cards of all sports, anything Ruth, then T206 portraits. There's others I'm sure but these were the most noticeable to me. Stuff that had been on ebay for years (e.g. Dean's) was bought at asking price.

Bitcoin reached its all time high back in December, which freed anyone who may have been stuck with it since its last big crash in 2018. If you bought last summer and cashed out there were healthy profits to be made. Its $46,000 per coin as of this writing; in March it was $5K.

In summary, I feel the traditional government stimulus was just one of many reasons new money has found its' way into our hobby. Students of history will recognize the uncanny collision of circumstances that make these moments abstract and somewhat hard to process as they occur. And there is evidence of an overall V-shaped recovery on the horizon which could make a strong bear position attractive to these new collectors.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/05/04/br...d-the-pandemic
https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NYSE-GME/
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/96125...red-in-atlanta
https://www.tmz.com/2020/12/17/kurt-...-million-rare/
https://www.tmz.com/2021/01/14/micke...n-sets-record/
https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_nkw..._cards&_sop=16
https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/b...omic-boom.html

Something is broken when you go from one bubble a century to one per decade.

I think that summary skipped a few; off the top of my head it missed the Crash of 1893, the Panic of 1907, and the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market.

Then what do you think is? It certainly isn't due to Jordan putting up 50 against the Knicks last night.

The rich have cash to burn so they are parking it in collectables - other hobbies - such as muscle car prices - have went insane during this time period as well. The poor are spending the cash as soon as they get it on necessities - but guess who own/sells the necessities? The rich guys!

Personally I suspect there may be tax 'benefits' to holding something small and easily/anonymously exchanged as sports cards in some of these situations as well.

The Hunt Brothers trying to corner the sliver market....ah the good ole days. I remember my older brother going to sell his books of Washington Quarters and his Kennedy Half Dollars when silver hit $45 p/oz.

The infographic from the Wall Street Journal was in no way complete. If anyone's interested in the topic of bubbles and maniacs, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay is the definitive treatise on the subject.

I think the reason the card spiked is because it's been fueled by faux sales, like a lot of cards have. Seller X doesn't actually sell the card, but it looks like it "sold" for a huge price tag. Someone on this board makes a post along the lines of "how did X get this much for this card?". I see that post and sell my similar card expecting that price as a benchmark. Other people see the faux sale and think that it's a real sale too, so if they get my card for the same or similar price they think they've gotten a deal and I'm happy with all the money I got.

But the card that raised the price point for mine didn't actually sell to anybody. Now seller X seems to have a never ending supply of the same card that all hit the block after the benchmark is set.

That’s exactly what is happening.

Seller X can be defeated if everyone stops bidding. But doing that is going to be hard of course because people want stuff.

Yes believe me if anyone else says otherwise they are either just fooling themselves or being contrarian.

The stimulus checks are a smaller part. I have a few friends that got laid off. They are getting normal unemployment checks and a huge extra check every week. They are making WAY more money not working than they would make actually working. I could see this increasing the sales of cheaper(under 2K) cards but not the insane rise in the 2K+ cards.

It is not one thing.

--Some cards have been undervalued for a long time and haven't gone up in price hardly at all in years until relatively recently. $400 for a mid-grade Jim Brown RC was an asinine price. Take the 1972 Topps Dr. J rookie card. That card was an $800 PSA 8 for years and had gradually crept up to about $1500. It was one of the first pump-dump cards, going from that to nearly $10,000 in a few months. It then dropped back down and has stabilized around $3500. Was $800 too low for a nice RC of one of the greatest of all time? I's say absolutely yes. Was it pumped/dumped? Definitely. Is the current price more in line with where it should be? Probably.

--Some cards were driven by outside events. Kobe's death just before the pandemic, the documentary on Jordan and the Bulls. A growing understanding and appreciation of Jackie Robinson's legacy and place in the pantheon. The pending NL 100th anniversary and NL statistical absorption into MLB.

--Some cards are substitutes. Satchel Paige has four active-career MLB cards: 1949 Leaf, 1949 Bowman, 1953 Topps and the 1949 (ish) Exhibit card. That's it. The SP Leaf went to the stratosphere, people turned to the Bowman, which went up too, and then realized if you want a mainstream gum card of Satch, you better get a 1953 Topps. That card skied and people realized the Exhibit was left.

--Some cards have increased because collectors woke up to them. I think of the 1933 Goudey Ruth cards. Always popular but considered common and not a priority. Priced pretty stable for years. The idea that as of the last National I could pay high three figures for a low grade but presentable 1933 G Ruth but didn't bother makes me throw up a little in my mouth. Again, were they perhaps too cheap at the prior price? I'd think so. But definitely being pumped now.

--Some cards are simply up for demographic reasons: cards of the 1980s-1990s have been driven up in part because the collector kids of that era are now in their best earning years. I know a lot of guys who've bought their childhood dream cards. Many of them are PSA or Beckett believers and opt to pay a premium for a PSA card.

--Boredom: half the population of this country believes in the COVID lockdown and have acted accordingly. Lots of unused cash and frustration.

--Interest rates. What else are you going to do with your money? My high yield savings is yielding 0.5%.

--FOMO: there is a get in now mentality for some cards that are seen as going to the moon, esp. if they are staples of collections: T206 top HOFers, 1952 Topps, etc. Everyone who bought a 52 Mays last year is loving life right now. Everyone who didn't and who is working that set is pissed.

--Actual sales of mega-cards drive up prices of lesser versions. $5.2 mm for a 52 Mantle in top condition? Why wouldn't a 1 be 1% of that?

--It's a bubble. Once that is touched off, forget the rest of it. Remember 1991? 100,000 people at the Anaheim National ring any bells? Rugby scrums to get promo cards that were worth $100+ instantly when you walked in and found a dealer? The E card bubble before the Great Recession? The bubble on boxing cards around that time? Ringing any bells here?

I'm using this to clear out appreciated cards that i don't really appreciate, and to trade.

/thread.

Exactly. The money printing has everything to do with card prices. There is so much money around, especially at the high end of finance. Its overwhelming the supply when people want cards.

Thank you for all of the insights. It’s helpful to have perspectives from a recent span of time of what has happened from 2000 onward as to how the market for graded vintage has risen and fallen. Keep the insights coming!


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people invested in crypto and/or high growth stocks have gotten rich.
paper profits make you feel rich.

those are the people pushing up prices because they are indifferent to paying an extra $10k for a card

Exhibitman, Spot on!

I would add that those 1980s kids are also interested in vintage. They either couldn't afford or find vintage cards back in the day, pre internet.

There is probably some artificial inflation on some cards that is driving some of this, Rickey H is a good example. I don't think there is much justification for this price.

Let's also add rampant fraud and shilling. My rule of thumb in analyzing a card price is to throw out all PWCC and Probstein results.

Good post adam

A yawl in Texas is definitely not a "ketch".:eek:

But you can "catch" a yawl with a stinkpot. Trust me.;):p:D