Posted By:
CatI don't look at this as investing at all. As such, I overpay all the time. When I want a card, I often do not have the patience to wait until the next one comes along because in my mind it could be a long time before that happens. Not that long ago, I paid $6,200 for a '52 Topps Mantle PSA 4. Damn, I was the first person I had seen pay that much for that grade. Sure, it was a nice "4" but that was a lot and I had buyers remorse for a looonnnggg time ... at least two days. Well, I don't know what the PSA 4 Mantles are going for right now, but the last couple have easily been in the $8,000s. I remember paying $1,000 for a Goodwin Champions Anson. That was maybe five years ago, and again I thought "Damn, that was a lot of money to spend on a card." I sent it to PSA and it came back in a "3" holder. I actually had a little higher hopes. Well about a month ago, a PSA 3 Goodwin Champions Anson was put on EBay with a BIN of $2,400 and it lasted about 3 hours before someone bought it. So although the good stuff continues to have high inflation and everytime I have buyers remorse I quickly realize I shouldn't, here is why I do not consider it investing:
I started collecting again to teach my kid about the game of baseball or at least about baseball players. I fully expect that these cards will be his or his childrens cards. Therefore, whatever the value of the cards, I will likely not ever see the end result of that increase in value. Certainly, if a crises happened, I COULD sell the cards, but hopefully that will not occur. Any asset cannot be viewed as an investment, if in the end, you are not going to convert it to currency. That is my situation and probably the situation of a few others on the board.