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AnonymousGood points & fair enough.
Money serves as a medium of exchange, among other functions. Money is not an investment. Gold? Past generations trusted the metal more than their governments' promises (for good reason, under monarchy). High class art was a good way for the aristocracy to display and store wealth - in the event heads rolled, and armies marched: bust it out of the frame, roll it up, cross the channel, and sell it in London while waiting out the passing storm.
Baseball cards? Bush wins, the cities burn (so some professors in school, say), revolt breaks out (again, so some know-it-all partisan profs, say) and you take your baseball memorbilia to ... ahhhh ... ahhh ... well, wherever you go, and sell it for ... ??? ... Maybe they buy that stuff in Mexico City or Venezuela or Tokyo or Korea?
Theory says something like: in a liquid market with perfect information, all other factors unchanged, the next price observed for any stock is its last price. It's sometimes extended to the best prediction for tomorrow's closing price is today's. The baseball card market is liquid? OK, maybe more today than in the past. You know and I know that it'd be tough to get the last price since the baseball card market is unregulated (eBay rules? no way!) and we'd have to search for willing buyers.
A bond has a general claim on cash flows and assets. A stock has a residual claim on cash flows and assets. The purchase of a stock or bond is to directly or indurectly take a position in a producer. The long term aim is income or capital gains. One can hold stocks or bonds without sale and still obtain cash through dividends or coupon interest.
A baseball card is a piece of paper that will generate no cash flow unless sold; To get cash the baseball card is sacrificed. Buy a baseball card, stick it in some dark place and wait for a price rise, no cash flow, no entertainment value; to me, that's risky speculation.
Hey, open a museum, charge admission, then the baseball memorabilia generates a cash flow. I'll buy that argument. The baseball cards are an investment in a for-profit entertainment business.
Enjoy. I see the historic returns on high quality baseball cards (those the general pop know about). But common baseball cards (that's most of them in my mind) as a financial asset? A good way to perform major tax avoidance, if anything. In the meantime, I'll eat tuna and scrimp along with my US Savings Bonds; I'll obtain baseball cards with the funds I can afford to lose.