[Exhibitman]

Basketball has been an absolutely brutal market for much of the year. Prices are down 50% or more since they peaked in 2020. Yet the cards that have held their gains the best are the older superstars: Russell, Chamberlain, Alcindor, etc. I think the same will be true of other sports' cards.

One thing that hasn't been discussed are the altered and counterfeit modern cards (and holders). I think we already have experienced a wave of modern card alteration that the TPGs of choice (PSA, Beckett) for modern just do not do a good job of detecting, and we are at the start of the great wave of modern card counterfeiting. Some of the reprints of old-tech modern RCs (like 86 Fleer Jordan) are really, really good and are hard to detect unless you know exactly what to look for.

There's also the question of whether any of these buyers are in it for more than a short term gain or bragging rights among people who are dabbling in the hobby and will readily move on to vintage game cartridges or whatever is the next thing to catch their fancy. Does anyone really think that a Luka Doncic card will inspire the same "from my cold, dead hand" collector mentality as a Ruth or Gehrig RC?

The biggest issue I have with modern is that LeBron James, Tom Brady and Mike Trout are unicorns--Wally Joyner, Kevin Maas and Gregg Jefferies are the norm--but the modern RCs are priced within a matter of weeks as if every prospect is a James or Brady level talent. They are also abundant in top grades, as we see with the Jordan RC, and very volatile; just ask the schmucks who paid over $700K for that card and watched prices drop by 50% in a few months. Buying and selling modern seems like a game of speculative hot potato and I believe that whoever is left with the card at the end is gonna get burned. Vintage has definitely taken some major price leaps forward in the last several months but relative to modern seems a better deal. A Foxx RC sells for a fraction of a Doncic RC? W.T.F.