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Recent price action
I've heard from some friends who collect post war and modern era that there's been some serious sell off in the past month in certain corners of that market.
Anyone seeing real softness yet in pre-war? I realize that's a broad question. . . . There's been so many auctions lately and I really haven't followed them that closely . . . |
I have not seen what I would call “softness.”
A couple months ago, every new sale was 10-25% higher than the last. Whether that was a day or a month from the previous one. THAT has slowed down but I wouldn’t consider that softness. Stabilization IMO. |
Nothing pre-war or 50’s that I would like to buy is anything but strong still.
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I don’t watch modern cards at all but does the softness extend to high profile cards in 50s?
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I had been looking at prices of Jordan RC ('86 Fleer, PSA 8) and a couple of months ago they topped out around $17k. Now they have dropped to around $12k. That's down almost 30% from the high.
That may be off from the original scope of your question, but it is a card that is traded/sold fairly often. Tom |
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1949 Leaf Jackie Robinson PSA 7 136k last 3 sales 402, 234, 354 1951 Bowman Mantle PSA 7 81k last 3 sales 115, 174, 99 1952 Topps Mantle PSA 8 861k recent sales at 1.6 and 1.35 million I have noticed this in some other recent auctions. Maybe this isn't what you are looking at, but there is definitely some correction going on at the top of the postwar vintage and modern market. |
Low/mid grade 50's have been strong. Taking more patience on cards like '52 and '53 Mays' to find at a deal. Catching someone sleeping on a bid took more than a dozen attempts to still pay record highs.
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Everything feels a touch softer than February. Modern is getting killed. The argument though is that compared to early last year modern is up way more than vintage still.
Would love if some Cobbs softened up though!! |
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Sorry, but you set 'em up. I just knocked 'em down. |
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That being said, rare cards will hold their value better than most. |
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recent price action
I have followed the last two Heritage and REA Auctions and the prices are down from February and March prices cards of players whose prices rose very quickly, e.g., Mays, Robinson, Aaron. Ruth, Cobb and Mantle also seemed to have come down a bit.
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From an editorial on SCD the other day:
"Anyone following the market closely realizes that some areas of the card market have hit a soft spot or a plateau. Prices have clearly started to drop online for some individual cards or categories and I can tell you firsthand, there is less overall interest in store than there was a few weeks ago, but I’m not saying the sky is falling just yet, Chicken Little.The stupid money is on the march. That's why you see frothy commentary and a plateau: the remaining players are trying to hype their stuff ahead of selling, while the potential purchasers try to decide whether the music has stopped playing. Just watch for the stampede to the exits on anything where the speculators rule the roost. This is the start of the desperation selling and ultimately capitulation. By the end of the summer I would not be surprised to see 20%-30% price drops from the prices at the height of the frenzy on a vast array of cards. Quality prewar will be the last to feel it. When there are only a few hundred examples of a card and most of them are in the hands of people like us who will be loaded into our caskets clutching them, prices tend to go up and stick the longest, or supply just vanishes as prices soften because we don't have to sell. Where to jump back in will be the fun game to play. |
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The truth can be pretty funny sometimes...
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The Top was early April....Many of this was Caused IMO by artificial inflated numbers generated by investors/buyers clubs. They made their monies on the undercards.
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If you look at the most popular rookie (or "rookie") cards of the top players across (in increasing order) NHL, MLB, NFL, and NBA history and track their sales over the past several months you'll see they've dropped on the order of 50% since mid-February.
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I do think there has been a combination of fatique and oversaturation. Seems like strong auctions are no longer a rare treat but an everyday fact of life.
Jordan RCs prime example. Was a treat when the first few 9s arrived at auction. 2,500 cards later, not so special. I also think speculation on stocks, real estate, and all sorts of things have dropped off as the country has opened up a great deal more. All of a sudden going outside and getting away from the computer is looking real attractive. I'd expect speculation in Jeter cards will take off a ESPN has announced a new 6 part series. I really can't see where a Jeter series will lead to Jordan like hysteria, but I'm sure some people are betting on it. |
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I think everyone saw this coming and it'll continue now that COVID is more or less behind us. Many will move on to other interests over the next year or so. People are also going to need more money to pay for all of the essentials that are skyrocketing - rent, gas, food, building supplies, etc. Heck even some printing paper has almost doubled in price.
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I think the biggest drop will be right after the National. There will be some dealers who bought heavy during the recent high and they will be stuck with some high dollar inventory.
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I wonder how the market is faring for collectors of burnt toast with the face of Jesus on them?
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"Collectors" who bought up cards during the last year are now stuck with inventory and can't move it. Prices will drop massively during the summer.
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Also the Flood of JUNK CARDS Coming Back From PSA Bulk orders...especially modern garbage, a lot of stuff is not going to move. Over Supply with Less Demand. |
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The S&P isn't even down this month actually. It's flat. Given the modest inflation fears that have percolated lately (ones that can easily cause a noticeable selloff for awhile), that's an awful strong performance for a market which is 1% off all time highs and that's been on a tear. A tear for not just the last year, but the last 40 years. I'm not saying that Wall Street hasn't peaked for now. But given how impossibly strong the market continues to be (and the endless flow of 401 k money into it that shows no signs of stopping), good luck calling a top. As far as sportscards go, as others have said, the overall phases that've happened lately are common. Modern/fad-type stuff/cards with the most extended 20-30x leaps getting hit the hardest. Boring blue chips with great, but not insane gains should hold on a lot better Funny thing is that if you told someone that their Jordan PSA 10 rookie had gone from 30 k to 300 k in a year and a half (without them knowing that the peak was more than twice that), they still would've thought it was the most amazing thing ever |
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Also think a lot of people are going to be eager shoppers at the first National in 2 years. |
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I think a lot of the people who have jumped onboard in the past year don't have very strong memories of the 2008 crash or other downturns (not counting the selloff last spring because that recovered so quickly). I see it with my sailors who are talking about getting in to real estate and other investments; they think they only go one direction, up. I've tried warning them that elevator has a down button as well, but if they want to learn from experience, well that's their decision. |
PSA finally getting caught up is going to continue to hurt the ultramodern market. I'd expect some new collectors will stick around so overall the market will be better than it was before the big climb but no where near the peaks. Auctions have been down the past month or so and I'm hoping they continue to drop going in to the summer.
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I do think on the more modern stuff, supply has finally been brought out to match or sometimes overwhelm demand. So we are definitely in a correction period. For instance, Classic Auctions has 54 Gretzky rookies this month! Today the past few years there would be 3-10. so prices still strong but no way they will hold up except maybe the ultra high end where rarity still might exist. The grading backlog and time it takes for supply to catch up definitely fueled the runup.
Perhaps the 40-60% retracement in crypto prices is affecting the silly money a little, for now, as well. NOT seeing 54 Wajo portraits in one auction, though supply of prewar is up a fair bit, too, on the less rare stuff. The expense of grading will keep a lid on the supply as well. |
Just need to compare the prices of 1986 Fleer Jordan RC PSA10 then we know the market is going south and head back to "normal". That card was at a $640K level (sold at that price twice in the same auction) and now down to $250K. It should back down to a 5 figure card by EOY.
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....and then a Gretzky RC sells for $3.75 million......
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Haha. Was just about to say the same thing about my SGC 4.5 |
Things seem to be tanking across the board. It will be interesting to see how far down we go.
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For the Past Couple of Years I have been going to the Post Office at least 3-5 times a week and What I have noticed since early March is a large New Submission and Renewal of Passport Applications being done at several of the branches in the Central/Western Maryland Region.
People are scheduling vacations and travel....I feel a lot of husbands are going to be spending their disposable monies this spring/summer/fall on taking their family on vacation and not on ebay or other venues. Idk could be wrong just some of my observations over the past few months. |
I don't think you can really look at the Jordan RC PSA 10s of the world to determine the direction of the overall market. For the majority who play in the mere mortal world of cards costing anywhere from $5 to $5000 (and I do understand many people on net54 go above this threshold) I would say prices are certainly down from the peak, which to me was the insane PWCC auction that closed on Valentine's day.
Without hard data, but nonetheless being a math guy and and analyst who focuses on certain mid grade cards, I think the vintage baseball market had a long run-up from late '19 up until early '21 and then when Hank Aaron passed away on January 22nd (RIP great man) the market went into complete insane overdrive for 3-4 weeks and you saw prices in some cases double. For the other sports, particularly basketball, this explosion happened earlier. Anyway, since February 14th things began to decline subtly at first and I think that decline has accelerated some lately as many predicted would happen when the vaccines started to work and people began planning to spend money on other stuff this summer. That all said, the market is still above mid January 2021 levels by my count. There are fewer deals happening as people who overspent hold out and you can see more buyers getting shy on the trigger. So if you ask me there's probably some additional decline coming, but the real test won't happen until winter when it gets freezing again in the north and people have less to do. |
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Good take. I think that's very insightful.
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