Best $10,000 investment card
 

One card only. What card would all of you invest in for $10,000 for the long run. I recently inherited this money and would like to put it towards one high end card.
Thanks for your opinions and feedback
-Shawn

I mean who knows, but in this category, I would say the best 48/49 Leaf Jackie Robinson 10k buys. For 10K you can get a very nice 56T Mantle, which while of course not a rookie is a classic of the genre. A 54T Aaron would be another solid choice. I wouldn't touch anything later than these.

Thanks Pete, I've been searching '48 Leaf Jackie's today, also had an interest in a high end '55 Topps Koufax

I'd get a Clemente before I got a Koufax, but that's just me. But I would much prefer Aaron to either.

I am with Peter on Aaron. I would also suggest his teammate Eddie Mathews 1952 Topps Rookie card.

Pick an iconic card from an inner circle hall of famer. The more popular, the better. The more durable the fame, the better.

Peter’s ideas are certainly good ones. The only real challenge is most of the really iconic stuff won’t get you much for $10k these days.

I also think it’s probably a good idea to avoid something that has experienced a crazy run up in the last year. If you chase the hot stuff then the odds are better that it will come down after that big runup.

Yeah prices on Mantle and Mays RCs, and of course 52T Mantle, are very high. But I think 10K can still buy a nice Aaron or a decent Jackie.

Don't. Just don't. Cards fail the test of liquidity. Therefore the spread between the bid and the ask is so great that you'll be behind the eight ball from the get go.

Moreover there's no growth in income/dividends from the card so you're relying entirely on an increase in demand for the card. Meanwhile the demographics for any kind of increase in demand is bad because the baby boomers who fueled the growth in demand for cards over the last few decades are retiring and even dying.

:(

I would never recommend going all in on collectibles to the exclusion of other investments, far from it, but I'm sure glad I didn't take advice like this when I was building a collection over the past couple of decades. And I did get such advice, believe me. But everything doesn't need to have the indicia of a traditional investment to be a good investment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjaAswnnyQI

https://www.barrons.com/articles/spo...tment-0ac44b09

Besides, the OP didn't ask whether we thought it was a good idea, he asked for recommendations on which card to buy.

If you are looking for a risky alternative investment just put your money in Bitcoin. Do not invest in cards unless you are interested as a collector

Weren't you touting a type of card investment a little while back?
https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=312702

+1 on the 54T Aaron.

Don't overthink this. Whenever this question comes up on here, I think the answer is always Babe Ruth from a pure investment standpoint. Even with the big run up, you can still get a decent example of any of his Goudey cards or the Sport King card for $10,000. Goldin has a PSA 1.5 Ruth U.S. Caramel currently sitting at $5,000 (that may end above the $10,000 price point). The 1921 Exhibit card is another option for $10,000.

Agreed but I thought the OP was looking for a postwar card.

I would also look at t206 Ty Cobb Portraits. For Postwar, 1949 Leaf Jackie Robinson or 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente would be the best choices.

Agree. I "invested" a lot of money in baseball cards when I was single, from 1984-1986. It turned out pretty good. You are always better to diversify your investments as much as possible and that includes sportscards.

If you're looking for post war, don't limit yourself in your search. By that I mean, look at sports other than baseball. There are great players to consider and here are a few examples (I'm talking about their high-end cards):

Hockey: Bobby Orr
Basketball: Currey/LeBron
Football: Mahomes
Modern Baseball: Pujols

You get the gist - there are a lot of established stars out there other than pre-war and iconic rookies such as Aaron/Mays/Mantle/etc. that would probably net more percentage wise, or ROI.

Just some thoughts.

I bought a lot of cards from 1979-2009 but didn't "invest" in any.

Well since those cards now bring me comfort and delight every single day, I too would say that it's turned out right.

;)

You're right. I read the thread title and forgot the section I was in. :)

All the cards you mentioned are great post-war choices from an investment standpoint.

For post-war cards outside of baseball, I think Wilt Chamberlain's 1961 Fleer card No. 8 has so much room to grow. For $10K, a buyer can still get a midgrade copy of one of the most iconic basketball cards in the hobby.

No one has a crystal ball so my advice would be buy a card that will bring a smile to your face each and every time you look at it.
If your long run is years and years, which I assume you mean, then do your homework, look at trends then roll the dice.

I'm partial to 52 Topps cards, and despite what some/many have noticed in the hobby, I just haven't seen their values fall like I have with other cards. Of course there are outliers, but overall, I still believe prices are up compared to many others and continue to go up?
https://www.psacard.com/priceguide/b...952-topps/1129

I think 10K gets you close to a 7 now.

Precisely my thinking!

:)

Yes

Peter, I know you've done very well with your cards. Many of us on this board have. I bought a bunch of Jordan cards in the 90s that are now worth 20 times what I paid for them. But I did it with my fun money. I didn't think of cards as investments then, and they still aren't now.

Fifty years ago, cards were nerdy and not yet cool. If you were one of the initial market makers that created awareness and interest in cards, good for you. If you were part of the initial wave of new collectors that saw the growth potential of boomers latching onto baseball cards as a later age hobby, good for you too. In those cases, you could say that you foresaw a market need and invested your time and resources into developing it.

Absent that, I would say you, like most of us, were just lucky. And if you were spending significant cash buying cards in the hope of profiting, I would say you were speculating.

I don't know whether OP's $10k number is fun money for him or not. Either way, it bothers me to hear him call it an investment. It is not. It is just a bet.

That being said, if I had an extra $10k to bet on whether a card would go up or down, I would pick a card that is not the common choice. My thinking is that if more people are thinking a Ruth card is most likely to go up, for example, then that card will be overpriced. You've got to zig while everyone else zags.

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Al, I understand, and I'm not saying I had any special insight into the future although I did come to believe in the potential of cards and maybe to some extent that informed how much and what I bought, even with a collector mentality. But any investment other than an extremely conservative one (e.g. a fixed income fund or whatever) is to some extent a bet/speculation and in hindsight any major success is in some part luck. But let me ask you. According to your definition, is gold an investment? Bitcoin? Commodities futures? None of those create value, right, they just go up and down according to what market participants collectively think they're worth.

That is my pick the Mathews rookie.

Yes, when it comes to investments, a fellow must zig when others zag!

:)

I disagree that you need to zig when everyone zags in terms of long-term price appreciation. When have Babe Ruth cards ever gone down as a "long-term" hold? Ruth is the biggest name in sports history and always will be.

That being said, I agree that there is stuff outside the big four sports that currently sell for very little but will pay off handsomely for the owners of those cards.

David Peck was buying up Wrestling All-Star cards when almost no one wanted them. His Hulk Hogan cards from that set are now worth 20X or even 50X what he paid for them.

I didn't see the skyrocketing price of Richard Petty's 1972 STP card coming when I bought a few of them 7-8 years ago. That card is worth 10X what it was worth back then, and the price increase has come at a time when NASCAR is less popular than it was a generation ago.

Picking the cards and subjects outside the big four sports that will skyrocket like that is easier said than done. Those are thin markets compared to how many people want a playing days Babe Ruth card.

Gold and futures are not investments in the pure sense, but they are used as hedges to reduce risk, so they are investment tools, I guess. I have no earthly idea what Bitcoin is.

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Is there room under that rock, it may be a good place. :D:rolleyes:

10k for a postwar card
 

Meanwhile, back to the actual topic-

1) Someone mentioned earlier the Bobby Orr rookie. Great call!

2) Wilt's Fleer rookie or his 68 Topps Test

3) a 68 Topps 3D Roberto C

4) one of the more desirable Pele rookies

5) a high end 53 Bowman Color Mantle

6) a Satch rookie

Trent King

10k card
 

Almost forgot another candidate- a nice 51 Parkie Gordie Howe rookie.

Trent King

Haha, aren't you the scurrilous old codger. Don't kid yourself, Peter. I am not telling you anything different than your own investment advisor.

It's great you can afford to buy the cards you want, and it's great their value has gone up for you. Be happy you get enjoyment out of your hobby. Don't try to make it more than that.

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That's too bad. My last investment was December of 1986, 100 cases of 1987 Donruss for $20k. A year later, I more than doubled my money on my investment and I used the profits to buy my new wife a nice house. She has never said a word about me buying a card for my collection since. :)

How 'bout a high-end digital card?





LOL

.

a nice ruth

Al my "under a rock" comment was about your having no clue what Bitcoin is. :)
As for investment advisers, sure, but their background biases them towards a certain perspective. And I'm a huge believer in equities, but not necessarily to the exclusion of all else.

Oops. I know that some very smart people, including Musk and some of his Stanford buddies, wanted to create a universal currency outside the influence of government manipulation. I don't have a good idea why people want to "buy" it, though, other than it is going up.

Musk is not connected to Bitcoin. If you're interested, here is a link to some basics, I don't really get it myself but I think it's here to stay.

https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypt...4aAjytEALw_wcB

Huh!? How is that "bad"?

:confused:

Precisely my point! Only those cards/items currently considered outright junk can eventually explode in price because only those are trashed.

And you've just motivated me to break the Wrestling All-Stars set I bought for $5 over 35 years ago out of its sealed brick and put the cards in Ultra Pro sheets! Plus I uncovered a Traks Richard Petty set that I'd forgotten I had.

;)

Until everything goes to hell in a handbasket (including the U.S.$, Euro, etc.) and the internet goes poof. And it will eventually. Hopefully the whole house of cards holds together for a few more decades by which time I'll no longer care.

:(

Yes, Jeremiah. Son of man....

He is in the sense that he has long been a proponent of crypto and was something of a market maker for Bitcoin, by encouraging it as a currency to buy his Teslas.

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I would like to drift back a little to cards.

Another avenue may be a sealed pack of cards, graded packs have really gone up but haven't gone down proportionate to individual cards.

Unfortunately, I think the only grader in town in PSA.

Haha funnily enough I did make some good money flipping on NFTs selling them quickly before they crashed. But that was just gambling not investing lol

The OP states a recent inheritance of $10K and seeking a card to invest in, so assuming 401K is maxed for full employer match, and has no high interest credit cards to pay off, if were me purchasing a new card, I would do so from this order of availability:

1) Honus Wagner portrait card (rising tide floats all boats-every time his T206 sells, it raises the visibility of this iconic image as the banner of pre-war cards)

2) 1932 US Caramel Babe Ruth (a very scarce issue from his ‘Called Shot WS Game 3 Year’ and depicts/memorializes him in a NY hat, whereas his Goudeys are sporting generic hats-he also transcends baseball)

3) 1949 Bowman Jackie Robinson (has a lot of upside compared to his 48/49 Leaf and is a beautiful card to look at with iconic memorialized Dodgers and B hat-he also has his own MLB day dedicated to his legacy, so will forever remain top of mind for his heroism in being the 1st to break the color barrier)

There are some great suggestions in this thread. Nonetheless I’d spend that money on a game used Ernie Banks or Stan Musial bat. They can be had in that price range and I believe they will continue to increase in value. Those two are currently under appreciated when it comes to game used bats. Aaron and Clemente gamers have taken off and nice ones will now cost you 30K+. They could have been had for 7-10K a few years ago. Banks and Musial are the faces of their respective franchises and will likely be the next ones to increase in value. There are currently 47 Banks bats and 75 Musials on the PSA pop report. Obviously more rare than cards. They also represent a more personal connection to the player. I may be in the minority but bats are so much more fun and interesting than cards. I have nice Clemente and Aaron rookie cards. However, when people look at my collection they are more drawn to my game used bats than they are the cards. I’ve never seen anyone get chills holding my rookie Clemente. I have seen that when people have held and swung my Clemente bat.

Haven't M116 Wagners dropped rather precipitously of late?