Posted By:
LetsGoBucsStamps were the "baseball cards" of the mid-late 70's....They were widely collected...investors got involved...the prices attracted more collectors...prices went up and up....
The top of the market was thinly traded....several "major" auction houses continually got "breath-taking prices" for top quality and rare material.
What happened?...A variety of things...people that had got on the bandwagon turned their interest to other things....investors fled...the economy wasn't doing too well...and the cycle went all the way south.
I can remember a UN sheet that sold commonly for abot $700 (in 1978 prices) selling two-three years later for $25. Rare Columbian's that sold for thousands couldn't be given away for hundreds.
The stamp market has bounced back somewhat but has never gotten back to where it was....There are still some very expensive items...but a lot fewer than there were. And in today's dollar terms prices on a lot of things have never gotten anywhere close to what it was.
I do think that if fewer and fewer people are interested in baseball, a portion of the well-heeled collectors lose interest, along with a grading scandal - very public one that in on the evening news, that that might trigger a sharp decline. From my own observations its the small collector that will hold on to their stuff.....people with substantial money have lost money before and will still pull the trigger and dump - $500K isn't $1MM, but its twice as good as $250K.
What has triggered the recent runup is that tools like ebay have unlocked demand for items - that is now very transparent - but that is no protection on the way down.
Personally let T206 EX commons be $5 again. I'm ok with that.