Questions about the hobby
 

Hi!

I'm really pretty casual about my collecting. I like certain HOF guys. I go mid grade. Nothing to crazy. As a kid in the junk card era I am over that and focus mostly on prewar and some big names after (Mays, Aaron, etc). Nothing fancy.

I do not understand this hobby.


Two years ago I bought a 33 Ruth Goudey (the yellow one) at PSA 3 for $4000. These have since SKYROCKETED in price. A #149 PSA 4 just sold on the PWCC auction for $8,000!!! A 4! Is this real? It makes no sense. I followed so many cards on todays PWCC and they all sold WAY over even the recent auction result prices. All kinds of cards (pre/post war)! I don't get it. Are we really doing 75% appreciation month-over-month here? Is there an influx of Chinese billionaires since I started looking for cards again a couple weeks ago?

Please help me make sense of it! I don't buy to flip-- I just want a few more cards. This is a bubble, right?

Thanks!

Okay I officially think PWCC is fraud.

4/9/19
1910 E98 Red Chief Bender PSA 9 MINT Black Swamp - PWCC on ebay
$4,605.00

4/6/19
1910 E98 Red Chief Bender PSA 9 MINT Black Swamp - Memory Lane Auction
$2,635.20


So an IDENTICAL card gained $2,000 (+75%) in value in THREE DAYS?

Honestly, this has gotten too scammy.

ANOTHER inexplicable one....

PWCC ebay auction today.

T206 Walter Johnson portrait PSA 4 Sweet Cap (centered) - $6,236.99

T206 Walter Johnson portrait SGC 4 Piedmont (centered) - $2,837.90

Someone explain that to me, please.
Do PSA slabs have a $4,000 premium over SGC now?

I highly doubt its fraud. Yes, PWCC continues to sell things way above current market. But, I think the anomalies are usually high quality for the grade or a bidding war. The T206 Johnsons were puzzling, as I thought the SGC version was a bit nicer. Someone got a dealand someone way overpaid in my opinion. I'm more irritated that some folks think a single PWCC result that's nice for the grade means that should be the starting price for all subsequent auctions.

I agree I would have preferred the SGC myself. 4,000 dollar spread for simultaneous auctions of near identical cards.....sorry but that is just too weird to write off as a quirk of the bidding process.

Something is fishy.

Someone else, a week or two ago, was complaining about the price difference between PSA and SGC. I wouldn't know, I like raw cards, but he said he occasionally flips cards and he noticed that his SGC cards haven't reached the same prices PSA cards have (for identical player/year), and have even sometimes lost value.

As for something I agreed with on a different thread - just be patient, keep searching, and good deals come along.

Winning a PWCC auction requires 20% premiums like the big houses. So just keep that in mind :eek:

What happened with those two Johnson’s is just not right. I understand PSA gets more than SGC, but the PSA was inferior and pulled more than double. I am throwing the flag on that one- very fishy. As for the rest, I think there are people out there spending stupid money. The National will be telling- if you see a ton of new faces, then there is a ton of new money. I suspect that is the reason in most cases. And of course, the new money pushes the old money to reach for things.

What's happening in the hobby? A lot of stupidity imo!!!!! There are many "mindless" "investors/collectors" walking around brainwashed like zombies muttering...PSA...PWCC. They see Forbes articles touting the powers of investing in BB cards when the data is being presented by the marketing machines of PWCC...PSA...who are getting fat with cash because of it.

It's similar to reading the business news and some analyst who has a vested interest in a given security is touting that security.

Time will tell...but these such increases are not sustainable.

With many auction houses now "allowed" by their rules to SHILL up their lots...if you don't think this is happening with PWCC...you're DUMB!

?
 

What? PWCC doesn't have a buyers premium.

Check out these search results

https://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=...te=1&LH_Sold=1

I had someone bring in one of these Gretzky cards a week ago which brought this to my attention. It is a Gretzky room key promo from the National with a picture of a Gretzky card on the front so it is not actually autographed or numbered. There are 4 sold listings. One sold in a lot with a McDavid for $12. PWCC sold 3 of them for between $130-170 each time it “sold”.

This is probably worth about $5-10 to a Gretzky collector who needs to have every card IMO.

looks like honest bidding to me!!!!:D

Oh I didn’t mean PWCC adds a premium. If you want to win an auction these days you’ve gotta place a 20% premium on the bid price to have a chance. Overbidding is the new fair market value bidding.

I think the way to look at it is as having future earnings baked into the price. Because in theory, if someone is willing to pay a price, regardless of what anyone else thinks of said price, that's the market value. Yes, it's a market of one, but that's all it takes.

Hard evidence, not circumstantial, is warranted before I'd be anywhere close to considering PWCC a fraud. I look forward to its emails weekly showcasing the auctions, and suspect I am not the only one. I attribute the big returns to its' marketing and in-house grading attracting millenials. And bottom line-wise, PWCC's fees for big time cards are actually cheaper than what many small sellers would be paying ebay. It pays for itself to use an auction house with that kind of reach if ebay charges 10% compared to PWCC's 9%.

Since we're speculating here, I suspect the crypto crash might have something to do with PWCC's success and spikes on cards like, say, green Cobb portraits or Jeter foils. A lot of people were looking for a safe haven last year, and high end vintage cards sure looked good if you were on ebay and came across PWCC in 18.

Chinese billionaires may be part of the equation, but I think what you mean here is crypto. We know for a fact some bitcoin whales did make the crossover, directly, last year during the 1952 Mantle Heritage auction by Evan Mathis. Smartly, Mathis and HA got together and alerted the media, generating free marketing and exposure for the auction. The AP and ESPN picked up their announcement that a bitcoin transfer would be accepted. Evan even showed up here on this board to answer our questions. Point is, we have a proven correlation between vintage baseball cards and bitcoin. If even a dozen of those bitcoin whales moved into this hobby, you'd be contending in auctions with people who can bid many of us into the ground. Bubbles are everyday for these people.

RE: Mathis, if he made the mistake of holding on to that $2.88 million in bitcoin, today it would be worth $1.73 million.

It's a bull run for sure, but you can still find bargains. You have to work harder in a bull market.

I was going to write about asset reflation, low interest rate bubbles, alternative asset diversification, added value from fungibility from third party gradingblah blah blah..... but then I saw this article and summed it up perfectly.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...n-simpsons-art

That is a great article, thanks for sharing. So in China, there is an art bubble and hoodie-wearing millennials are going to take a bath on Simpsons art work, I get it. My question is this - given that, is it unwise to buy a Picasso or Norman Rockwell, even if the prices on those pieces are high (because o not because of the Chinese Art surge)? Bringing it back to earth, assuming we are in a card bubble, would you still be bullish on Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, 33 Lajoie, 35 Nagurski (I.e., blue chip players and iconic cards), or do you sit out on the whole asset class?

I disagree that that is market value. In fact, in cases it isn't the market value because the one person willing to pay that much now owns it and is out of the market.

The general rule of thumb in analyzing a large group of number results is you start by throwing out the highest and lowest numbers, because, at best, they are outliers or extremes, and, at worst and commonly, errors, corrupted or garbage.

You should at the least have a second similar sales result before you call the 'record' price the standard. Because, except for in a tie, the record by definition means the exception.

Hi Ryan, hope you are well. I am sitting on the whole asset class. Sitting on my cards that is. Whether it goes down or goes up 3x, I'll let my son decide on what to do with them when I pass it down to him. My problem is I have one son and two daughters.... and I like baseball cards much better than Jewelry (for my wife who will never read this post...hahah)

Ryan, my presumption is that your question is a rhetorical one; i.e. that you still believe it makes sense to invest/buy the blue chips you reference despite the possibility of a bubble. (If I’m wrong in that conclusion, please correct me.)

But if I’m accurate in my interpretation, then how do I reconcile that point with the earlier comments on this thread when you called the purchase of a centered Walter Johnson portrait “not right” and “dumb money.”

Is it only “smart money” to buy the blue chips in which you have a vested interest?

"Investors" want PSA.

I feel for the guy who consigned to JP. Have our spin doctors justified this one yet? :)

Peter, don’t you also prefer PSA? Didn’t you just say “SGC is dead” in another thread? So why begrudge anyone, collector or otherwise, for paying a premium for PSA when they share your bias?

Big premium, but sure why not.

I do believe it still makes sense to buy the blue chips. And I continue to do so.

My comment earlier in the thread that the Wajo portrait was not right, (quite clearly I think) referred to the price someone paid for the PSA flip vs the SGC flip; I think the SGC card was superior, if not equal to, the PSA flip, yet the one in the PSA flip went for more than double. That I do think is fishy and not right. I have no issue with someone paying strong for a nice example of a great card. I do think something is not right when a PSA 4 sells for double an equally nice SGC 4.

As for stupid money, that reference had nothing to do with blue chip cards. I believe there are new and fairly unknowledgeable investors in the “hobby” and they are chasing things and driving prices to alarming heights - blue chip or not. I can understand that happening with blue chips, but I think it is happening with many cards, especially if the cards are in PSA flips and sold in pwcc auction. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with PSA or Pwcc. I just think those are the big names and new people looking to invest (stupid money) are chasing

To be clear - I believe it is almost always a good time to buy the best/better of any asset worth owning. I think things are very expensive right now, and they may go up or down for here, but in the long(er) run, it’s tough to lose, and often easy to win, with blue chip.

I think something is fishy when a PSA 4 wajo Portrait sells for more than double what (I believe to be) a better looking sgc 4 wajo Portrait sells for

I think there must be increasing amounts of new “collectors”, likely well-heeled, investing in cards. I presume (but of course don’t know) that many are fairly unknowledgeable but motivated to buy, and are chasing cards (blue chip and not) and taking them to alarming heights. I am referring to this new collector as stupid money.

Hmmmm. Last time we were trashing a buyer it turned out to be Sam.

Ha. Whatever makes you guys feel better!

You have a lot in common with Ebay sellers I see if you think that sgc Johnson was centered. A big part of the price difference was probably PSA vs SGC. But I wouldn't be surprised if the centering and eye appeal of the cards was more important to the winner of the PSA card.

In general when you see outliers like this in an auction or vcp listing take a look at the card before jumping to conclusions. More often than not I'd be willing to bet it was someone stepping up for a card with eye appeal that transcends its assigned grade.

PWCC called it "wonderfully centered"

As I recall, it also had alluring corners and sexy registration.

This is the only card I saw sold recently at the price mentioned. The centering is off left to right. Worse top to bottom. And its tilted. But yes other than that it was well centered. Just like the PSA example.

The important thing again is that you're happy with the purchase.

id be very happy with that card at that price!

PSA better centered but notice the flecks of what appears to be paper loss on the face and the upper left outline looks like ink is missing. For that reason, the SGC is nicer in my opinion. Regardless, I don’t think the PSA is x2 nicer than SGC. I guess the one thing the PSA has is the factory 649 overprint, but that’s not very uncommon/uncommon in a wajo Portrait (sorry, my phone is not uploading pics right now)

In REA, an SGC 6 Matty portrait sold for over $10k compared to a PSA 6 Matty portrait that I bought for $7800. The SGC Matty was superior to the PSA one, and my opinion, was worth the premium over the PSA one, but it was not more than double.

Yeah. For me, for most cards, if it's better than 60 40 or so I'm looking more at the corners and color and registration than on how perfect the centering is. But that's just me.

I'm not saying it's a bad looking card. But once again someone has stepped up and paid a big premium for a dead centered card. The discussions are remarkably similar every time this happens. With all of the hobby knowledge on this board I'm surprised so many here don't realize there are collectors who will pay 2 or 3 times the normal selling price for a card in a specific grade for an example with elite centering. Especially if it's very difficult to find centered.

Speaking only for myself, I guess I just don't understand why a 50 50 card is worth 2-3 times a 52 48 one. I don't recall seeing that until fairly recently and I've been buying a long time.

52/48 would be elite and close enough for me. It all depends on the card. I'm just saying, and not to you specifically, but when you see a card go for 2 or 3 times what you thought it should have, or another similar card for recently sold for, maybe just see how it's centered. If an off centered card goes for a huge premium I might suspect something.

The irony of centering being the be-all and end-all for not only grading, but pricing premiums as well, I find amazing.

Centering is the one thing a moron can see without getting the card graded in the first place.

Well, maybe not all morons.:D

The question of whether it is a bubble kind of answers itself: if you have to ask if there is a bubble, there's probably a bubble. Of course a 20% or more a year increase is unsustainable. The more interesting question is whether recent pricing is stable or will a historically $2000 card that sells for $4000 now revert to $2000 when the economy slows, the newbies lose interest, etc. Depending on how you answer that decides whether you buy, hold or sell. Of if you just like your cards and don't need the money, you can take a purely academic interest in it and enjoy your collection.

As for foreign money, you're looking in the wrong place w/r/t vintage American baseball. Look to basketball cards from Jordan forward, Pokemon and other gaming stuff. That is where the real overseas collectors go. There have been some insane prices on LeBron and MJ cards from recent shiny sets driven by heavy interest from Asia. PSA opened an Asian office to handle interest from that part of the world and their clientele aren't submitting E98s.

Ranks right up there with the professional grading of an autograph.

My thought has been that if you need an 'expert' to tell you the condition of the sharpie autograph on a photograph, you probably shouldn't be collecting.