[Rhotchkiss]

I realize this is not PreWar (although close). But it is “state of the market” driven(ish). Please move if not appropriate in this section.

There is a very pretty SGC 7, 1952 Topps Mantle in the current Heritage auction. I was interested in comping the card, so I went onto VCP to see results of prior sales (pictured below). There are 5 reasonably current comps, but 4 of them are the same card. The card pictured below has (allegedly) been sold 4 times in 15 months, 3 times by PWCC (including a $550k BIN from the vault) and once in Goldin; the Memory Lane sale is a different (very nice but off center) Mantle. As you can see from the prices, the card is way down (almost 50%) from the initial $550k BIN. Plus, three sales by PWCC and then one by Goldin. What are your thoughts on this card?

I think the first PWCC BIN is a fake. I think the second PWCC sale is real. I bet the buyer is a pure investor/flipper because (1) they buy from PWCC, and (2) they resold the card less than 6 months later. I will go further and speculate that the buyer borrowed against cards in PWCC’s vault (or elsewhere) and was forced to sell because the value of the collateralized cards went down and interest rates were starting to go up; the Fed started increasing rates around the third sale. I expect a similar situation with the third buyer, for the sale reasons. Although I note that it was sold the 4th time in Goldin, not PWCC. That is either bc the 3rd buyer sent it to Goldin’s vault and/or they are a investor/flipper and not a collector, bc they buy from PWCC and sell through Goldin, which I think is different from the collector/investor who would buy and sell from REA and Memory Lane. Now the 4th buyer owns the very pretty card at about 50% of what it “sold” for 15 months prior and at $35k less than where the one in Heritage is at with a week left. Hopefully the card has more than a cup of coffee with this 4th buyer and it becomes a major part of someone’s collection.