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Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll
Article from today, interesting read. I would imagine nice vintage and pre-war cards to fall into this same category (as art).
Diversify with fine art
The younger generation of investors increasingly believes that “a traditional portfolio of stock and bonds is not going to deliver above-average returns over time,” according to Jeff Busconi, chief operating officer at Bank of America Private Bank.
Fine art is the perfect alternative investment for savvy and high net worth investors who are looking to diversify their portfolio. It’s notably consistent, as contemporary art has outperformed the S&P 500 by 131% for the past 26 years.
Previously, there was no way to invest unless you had millions to buy an entire painting. But Masterworks has completely changed that. Instead of buying a single painting for millions of dollars, you can now invest in shares of individual works.
With this revolutionary investment platform, all you have to do is select which shares you want to buy and Masterworks will handle the rest.
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Not really unexpected that for investments of this type things would start to go this way, is it? And in relation to earlier comments made about differences in business practices and strategies between the likes of REA and Goldin, which of the two could any of you see as more likely to also start doing something similar for their customer base, offering to buy and hold a major collectible item that no one can really afford to ever buy themselves, and then offering to sell partial interests in it to the general public?
For a T206 collector that could never afford one of the "Big Four" cards themselves, this could at least be a way for them to buy a partial interest in say a T206 Wagner, and afford them some level of ownership. It isn't perfect, and certainly not what most any true collector would really want. But in the world of reality where there are only an extremely limited number of T206 Wagner cards that exist, and at prices that are beyond most every collector's ability to ever afford, that may be the only way such a collector could ever theoretically own a complete T206 set.
I keep hearing and seeing things about Goldin's 100 greatest collectible cards, or something along those lines they are working on, and soon to come out with. For the average collector, or a new, younger collector just starting out in the hobby, how many of those 100 greatest collectible cards do you think any of them may be able to afford? But what if someone like Goldin actually goes out and acquires one of every one of those 100 cards, and then offers collectors the chance to buy an interest in the ownership of the entire collection? You can easily go and buy and sell shares in things like an S&P 500 index fund, why not something like a 100 greatest cards collectible fund? At this recently ended Mint Collective convention out in Las Vegas, I can most definitely see that being a very possible, and viable, topic being discussed among members of the collecting industry.
And before any of you start shaking your heads and muttering that that will never happen and so on, how many of you can remember back to when you could go to the corner store to pick up some bread or milk, and you would also be able to grab a pack of baseball cards at the register as you were checking out? Would any of you back then, in your wildest dreams, have ever imagined things like Breakers and the card market/industry like it is today with the wild and astronomical prices we're seeing, or the idea of TPGs, the internet and Ebay, and on and on? Even mentioning the fact that baseball cards could ever possibly be thought of as actual legitimate investments one day would have gotten you laughed at by most everyone. Just go ask all those old collectors with their boxes of Gregg Jeffries rookie cards they're still waiting to be able to retire on. Baseball is one of those unique things that is permanently embedded in the fabric of American life, that crosses and embraces all generations, and is growing more and more on the international market as well. Soccer may be the current biggest international sport, but baseball seems to be rising and growing. like basketball has. And unlike soccer, baseball was invented and started in the U.S., so we have an even more intrinsic desire and affection for the sport, and their related collectibles, cards, and history. So, does anyone really think there wouldn't be an extremely viable, potential market for people to buy into such an idea as owning a piece of the 100 greatest baseball cards of all time. And how many times have I seen/read on this forum, people telling/advising others to look to buy the nicest condition cards, of the greatest players, from the most widely collected sets they can, if they want to have the best possible chance to grow the value of their collections? And now how many of these 100 greatest cards that Golding is supposedly coming out with do you think will exactly fit that investment advisory advice and goals?
And such an idea would likely appeal to an even larger part of the population that wouldn't normally think of collecting baseball cards at all. Now you've got people investing in the idea of Americana, Mom, and apple pie, along with potentially making a buck or two down the road...........