Posted By:
warshawlawIt is impossible to answer because the value of any tangible item is relative and shifting. A card is worth whatever two people are willing to pay for it. I wish I'd put every cent I ever spent on 1974 and newer cards into 19th century and prewar material. The relative valuations of these items have shifted so markedly that I would be sitting on a big nest egg if I had.
In terms of overpayment, what is an overpayment? I have a few cards that I paid whatever it took to get a hold of. They are rare and obscure and I treasure them to the extent that I can treasure a possession, far more than their relative values. Is the 1930 Exhibit Jim Thorpe movie card that cost me $275 but that is extraordinarily rare and that I spent years searching for worth more to me than my PSA 7 1954 Aaron that cost me over a grand but that I could replace in a week? Yep. If I had to choose which one to race out of the house with in a Chinese fire drill, Jim is with me and Hank is toast, and I respect, admire and am a big fan of Hank (since both are in the vault, it is bad example, but you get the idea).
Collectibles are the only commodities I know of where there is a pleasure derived from the wanting/having that is entirely apart from and in addition to the pleasure derived from their values. When the two converge, you get a sale of something at a price that seems wacky but isn't; someone simply decided to part with something dear to them at a price they could live with. I've sold a number of cards like that, where I put them out there at W-T-F prices and the dang things sell. I've rarely regretted it (once for sure, and I replaced the set I sold for 40% of the sale price, so it came out well in the end).