T210 Avails, Etc.

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Posted By: Jay

Even the casual observer will notice that there are alot of T210s in the current Mastro and REA auctions. Now it appears that there will be a group of about 500 appearing in the upcoming Goodwin auction. Any thoughts as to why all these cards are coming out now and do you think the market can support this amount of material?

Also, in the current SCD there is an article raising the possibility of the Fritsch collection being sold over time through Mastro Auctions. I believe that this is the largest collection currently in private hands. What impact do you all think this will have on vintage card prices? Same question as before--can the market support this material?

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Posted By: Patrick McHugh

As to the T210'S my guess would be price. In any market higher prices bring temptation to sell. If the other collection comes up for sale prices should still be high. Condition and rarity dictate price and there are certain cards that will always be in high demand. It's very interesting as auction houses keep bringing more supply and greater items the prices just keep rising. My thoughts are we are in a very strong bull market for cards right now. It could go on for 1 more month or 10 more years. There seem to be enough people collecting and more entering the market everyday to keep prices rising.

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Posted By: John S

I find it increasingly difficult to believe that prices will continue to escalate. The auctions are a tell-tale sign that the market is exerting pressure on collectors to sell items that they probably anticipated holding onto forever. It seeems that each auction tops the last with quantity and quality of material. Where is it all coming from? Don't tell me that every Grandma decided to clean out her attic in the last two years. Dealers continue to complain that their supply of vintage is drying up. If you have saved any of your old catalogs take a look at the inventory from as recent as the late 90's compared to now. The internet and its ease of accesibility has destroyed most dealers. A 16% consignment fee or $5 on eBay is much easier to swallow than a dealer offering 50% of book. The internet has made auctions much more attractive as well. I'm sure most of you remember making countless telephone calls with equal amounts of busy signals before internet bidding. As all this material enters the market, demand will decrease. Fewer new vintage collectors (or maybe more appropriately, investors) will be attracted to the hobby because values will plateau.

Personally, my wantlists, which I thought would never be completed, have been ammended two or three times over the last five years. In 1996, if someone would have shown me my current inventory I would have laughed. It has nothing to do with finances. It has everything to do with how the internet has made everything, including vintage cards, much more accessable.

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Posted By: jay behrens

The obvious answer is price as to why all these t210s are appearing. I too wonder if the prices can be supported. I love the set and the look, but outside of Jackson and Stengle, the set has little appeal most collectors beyond owning a type card. Apart from the look, the set also interests me because there are many major leaguers in the set that do not appear on any other card. Sadly, Series 8 cards have gotten so ridiculously expensive that I ended up changing my collecting goals. Trying to acquire 72 cards of marginal major leaguers at $500 each just isn't a realistic option on my budget.

In the end, big prices always bring out more material. The more read and the more I follow acutions and prices, the more I am convinced I am reliving the mid to late 80s card boom all over again. This bubble will burst, just like then. That burst will seperate the collectors from investors, just as it did in the early 90s.

Jay

I like to sit outside, drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home, I would be arrested. So, I go to baseball games and fit right in.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Hey, Jay. I'm confident it was the high prices realized from the lots in the Goodwin auction. Goodwin sold a T210 Stengel in his previous auction, which sold very well. The card owner was quite tickled with what it brought, I talked with him face to face about the sale.

He then consigned his other T210 cards to Mr. Goodwin, with the cards broken into 8 lots, one for each series. Most lots had 3 or 4 serious bidders, a couple of lots only had 2 serious bidders. But 2 is enough. And again, the seller was tickled at the great prices. The only thing that troubled him was the size of the check he wrote out to the IRS, 'cause he has little faith in the wisdom of our government, doens't think much of how government spends money, and figures that those dollars are going to an entity incapable of spending it wisely. But I digress...

The high prices have changed how I've thought about my T210s... can I collect more at those high prices? Would I not be better off to sell the ones I have at those prices?? And might JB above be right about the "bubble", could I sell the cards now, and then wait about 10 years and buy them back for less than I sold them?

I gave up on collecting all of them about 3 years ago, and let go of several cards then to focus on series 6. I now lack 7 cards. Some the T210s I sold generated funds for filling out T206s, and getting some Goudey cards. Now, with these high prices, I don't know if I'll get those remaining 7 T210-6s.

It really is a great set. If you start reading through the old Spalding Records (red books, not those nasty green Guides), you see the movement of minor leaguers up, and then back down. Folks supported local minor league teams better, there was no internet, TV, or radio coverage of the major league games. And imagine 100% daytime baseball! If you start reading about these guys you really get attached to the cards. Fred Toney won 139 ML games pitching for the Cubs, Reds, Giants, and Cardinals. He was born in Nashville, an hour away from me. In May of 1909, for Winchester of the Blue Grass League, he won a game, going the distance, 17 innings. He did not allow a hit. In his next start he pithed another 3 no hit innings. I think he won that next game, too, but gave up one hit in the 4th inning. 17 innings of no hit out door daylight baseball, that is pitching. And that is one tiny reason I collect those little red border cards. Or I used to, before the price skyrocketed.

So the price has brought them out. And part of that price was that in times past we seldom saw that many for sale at once. I think the price will settle down a bit, but not a lot.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

irrational exuberance.......

Kinda like the T207's you gotta have an affinity for them. They are difficult as well in any real nice condition. Just think that there are 3-4 people collecting them who have the coin to push the prices up. Same for T209's and T211's.

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Posted By: barrysloate

It still all comes down to supply and demand. The recent hobby trend has been that a fair amount of vintage material has gone on the auction block and there have been enough collectors willing to pay the price for it. There is no question that the amount of material that is currently available has escalated. Only time will tell if the buyers can absorb it all. If the balance tips so there are more sellers than buyers, then prices will fall. No one can say for sure if this will happen, but if there are too many people trying to capitalize all at once on this red hot market then we all know what will eventually happen. If we could predict the future we wouldn't need day jobs.

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Posted By: robert a

The market can support it.
I believe that there are more collectors that would like to acquire a large group of T210s then there are large groups of T210s available. And man would I love it if the market for T210s became saturated and groups of 500 became cheap. Not going to happen.

On the other hand, if a dealer were to buy a large group of t209s/t210s with the intention of selling them one by one, I don't think he would make very much on them. Also, one can not expect to look at a sale like the recent T209 sale and expect to make that kind of $ if they sold their own group. There are always the collectors out there that remain patient and realize that these cards might be rare, but they will appear again down the line.

The fact that recent auctions have offered large groups together (the group goes into one collection) adds to the popularity of the set in my opinion. T210 is a large set and is dynamic in that several of the series within the set are tougher than others. It's very inviting for a minor league collector (especially an entry level minor league collector) to have a chance at a fairly large group without having to worry about which individual player within a series might be tougher than another. Unless you've been chasing this set for years, you won't know who's really tough within each series, but won't have to because someone has already done that for you.

Robert

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Posted By: barrysloate

That may or may not be true of the T210 set, but what about the market in general? I love the Robert Edward Auction but I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of rare material. It makes me think that either vintage material isn't as rare as I once thought or that there simply are an awful lot of sellers. Again, I can't answer my own question. Only the market can answer it.

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Posted By: HandsAtNeck

Although they will not be an indicator of scarcity, utilities of the CardPricer type will soon tell us how frequently those cards presumed to be rare actually change hands. What is startling about recent and past sales is the depth of the buyer marketplace. And their willingness to accept what is perceived to be hobby opinion (ie. the Ruth PROOKIE while he was still in the minors, being touted as his actual rookie card; and the Jackson PROOKIE similarly listed as his rookie card, while he was with New Orleans, although a fine historical city, it is not the site of a Major League team, and the Baltimore team for Ruth, was in the International League). There is a difference between a player's first card and his rookie card, and sometimes I think that no one else cares about that. Afterall, who cares that Mantle's rookie year was not 1952?

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Posted By: jay behrens

When I talk about the bubble bursting, I don't mean that the bottom fill fall out the prices. What will happen will be simislar to when the bubble burst in the early 90s, prices will flatten out and maybe dip some, and you will see a lot less material come up for sale.

The days of buying a card on eBay and flipping it 4-6 months later for a 20%+ profit cannot last forever.

Jay

I like to sit outside, drink beer and yell at people. If I did this at home, I would be arrested. So, I go to baseball games and fit right in.