The Baseball Card Index - 2017 Vol. 2

[jhs5120]

Hello all,

The original "Baseball Card Index" post can be found here.

The "Post-War Index" was entirely comprised of $100-400 post-war cards. The purpose of the index was to explore auction trends for mid-tier baseball cards. I believe the $100-400 post-war market is primarily comprised of set collectors, player collectors and casual baseball card enthusiasts, i.e. the bedrock of the baseball card market. The "Post-War Index" measures the overall health of market.

Recently there has been a trend in the post-war market, outside collectors and "investors" have been purchasing key rookies and "staples." I wanted to keep these cards (and index) separate from the "post-war" index because they have two entirely different audiences. The new index (the "High-End Index") measures the health of the baseball card market occupied by "investors" and these outside collectors.

The High-End Index is comprised of key rookies, hall of fame staples and overall important post-war baseball cards. The general value of the cards is in the $1,000-3,000 range. I selected the following cards:

• 1948 Bowman Stan Musial PSA 7
• 1948 Bowman Yogi Berra PSA 8
• 1948 Leaf Babe Ruth PSA 6
• 1949 Bowman Richie Ashburn PSA 8
• 1949 Bowman Roy Campanella PSA 8
• 1950 Bowman Jackie Robinson PSA 7
• 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle PSA 1
• 1951 Bowman Willie Mays PSA 3
• 1952 Topps Willie Mays PSA 5
• 1952 Topps Willie Mays PSA 5
• 1952 Topps Yogi Berra PSA 7
• 1952 Topps Jackie Robinson PSA 4
• 1952 Bowman Mickey Mantle PSA 6
• 1953 Topps Willie Mays PSA 6
• 1953 Topps Satchel Paige PSA 7
• 1953 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 6
• 1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1954 Topps Willie Mays PSA 8
• 1954 Topps #1 Ted Williams PSA 7
• 1954 Topps Hank Aaron PSA 5
• 1954 Topps #250 Ted Williams PSA 7
• 1954 Topps Jackie Robinson PSA 8
• 1954 Topps Ernie Banks PSA 7
• 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente PSA 5
• 1955 Topps Sandy Koufax PSA 7
• 1955 Topps Harmon Killebrew PSA 8
• 1955 Bowman Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1956 Topps Roberto Clemente PSA 8
• 1957 Topps Brooks Robinson PSA 8
• 1957 Topps Frank Robinson PSA 8
• 1958 Topps Roger Maris PSA 8
• 1958 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1958 Topps Ted Williams PSA 7
• 1959 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1959 Topps Bob Gibson PSA 8
• 1960 Topps Willie McCovey PSA 8
• 1960 Topps Carl Yastzremski PSA 8
• 1961 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1962 Topps Roger Maris PSA 8
• 1962 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 7
• 1962 Topps Hank Aaron PSA 8
• 1962 Topps Lou Brock PSA 8
• 1963 Topps Pete Rose PSA 7
• 1963 Topps Willie Stargell PSA 8
• 1963 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1964 Topps Pete Rose PSA 8
• 1964 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1965 Topps Jim Hunter PSA 9
• 1965 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1965 Topps Joe Morgan PSA 9
• 1965 Topps Willie Mays PSA 9
• 1965 Topps Steve Carlton PSA 8
• 1966 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1966 Topps Willie Mays PSA 8
• 1966 Topps Jim Palmer PSA 9
• 1966 Topps Hank Aaron PSA 9
• 1967 Topps Roberto Clemente PSA 9
• 1967 Topps Rod Carew PSA 8
• 1967 Topps Tom Seaver PSA 8
• 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 7
• 1968 Topps Johnny Bench PSA 9
• 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8
• 1969 Topps Reggie Jackson PSA 8
• 1969 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 9
• 1970 Topps Thurman Munson PSA 9
• 1970 Topps Reggie Jackson PSA 9
• 1970 Topps Roberto Clemente PSA 9
• 1970 Topps Hank Aaron PSA 9
• 1971 Topps Thurman Munson PSA 8
• 1971 Topps Reggie Jackson PSA 8
• 1971 Topps Roberto Clemente PSA 8
• 1972 Topps Carlton Fisk PSA 9
• 1975 Topps Mini George Brett PSA 9
• 1975 Topps George Brett PSA 9
• 1975 Topps Robin Yount PSA 9
• 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan PSA 9

There is a total of 77 cards capturing 7,721 sales from January 2013 through today.

Currently (December 2017), the index is at $1,528.16, down 22% from December 2016 ($1,953.70) and down 41% since it's peak in July 2016, when it reached $2,592.78.

Unlike the "Post-War Index" the "High-End Index" is much more volatile (see below comparing the two indexes).

Some trends between both indexes remained the same; prices peak during baseball season:

Jan 1,413.27
Feb 1,455.85
Mar 1,433.79
Apr 1,489.39
May 1,567.05
Jun 1,724.56
Jul 1,775.30
Aug 1,630.82
Sep 1,655.84
Oct 1,629.69
Nov 1,566.30
Dec 1,422.66

The above stats are heavily influenced by the July 2016 spike, so take it with a grain of salt.

When comparing sales by eBay format, there was an interesting difference between the indexes:

Auction 1,571.72
BIN 1,619.52
Best Offer 1,513.74

In the "Post-War Index" buy it nows and best offers were identical - here we see BIN and Auctions neck-and-neck, while best offers trail behind. A likely explanation for the higher auction price averages would be PWCC:

pwcc_auctions 1,776.73
probstein123 1,548.23
eBay Other 1,346.57
Auction House 1,705.50

If you have a $1,000 baseball card, don't sell it yourself. PWCC averages 32% higher prices than the average Joe. Holy heck.

If you do try to sell it yourself, don't auction it off on a Friday:

Ebay Auctions excluding PWCC and Probstein
Mon 1,369.31
Tue 1,280.47
Wed 1,398.55
Thu 1,277.00
Fri 1,257.13
Sat 1,364.98
Sun 1,384.82

There is a slight difference between the "Post-War Index" and the "High-End Index" for auction ending dates. For the lower end cards, Mon-Thurs were preferable over the weekend. With higher end cards, Sun-Wed are best. I believe the high realized prices for Saturday can potentially be explained by the number of sales for each day (eBay auctions only):

Mon 849
Tue 768
Wed 660
Thu 864
Fri 182
Sat 170
Sun 1,271

Saturday clearly has the fewest - the high realized prices may be caused by scarcity or it could very well be an issue with sample size (who knows).

When picking an auction house, this may be helpful:

REA 1,987.59
Goodwin 1,911.38
Mile High 1,788.05
Heritage 1,749.41
Memory Lane 1,661.21
Greg Bussineau 1,395.54

I am only including auction houses with at least 90 sales - again, there is likely an issue with sample size, I would prefer 200+ sales before drawing any conclusions. I am not trying to make any claims regarding these auction houses, I have dealt with all of them and have nothing bad to say. This is purely an observation.

When comparing the number of sales:

pwcc_auctions 1833
probstein123 746
Heritage 262
Memory Lane 166
Goodwin 133
Greg Bussineau 112
REA 96
Mile High 93
Huggins & Scott 45
Goldin 35
Clean Sweep 28
Sports Card Link 20
Legendary 14
Love of the Game 12
Sterling Sports 5
SCP Auctions 2
Small Traditions 1

PWCC literally has more sales than all other Auction Houses combined!

That's it. If anyone has any questions or wants me to pull any additional data, let me know. Next, I am going to try to make a "Commons Index."

Thanks!

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Really an amazing amount of work you do on these.

[Topnotchsy]

Thanks for sharing. This is very informative!

[Bigdaddy]

Was the July spike a result of a rising tide or just a few cards spiking in price? - maybe due to some stiff competition in a bidding war or a couple of new investors entering the market.

Many of these players have passed away already, but it would be interesting to track individual stocks (cards) and see if there is data to show correlation between the prices and certain events. For example a player's death, or election to the Hall of Fame or if they are 'trending' in Google searches. One might imagine that Roger Maris's cards received more interest when McGwire was chasing his record or Hank when Bonds was chasing the all-time HR record. Or Bench, Mays, Koufax and Aaron when they were named the greatest living ballplayers in 2015.

Lots of data here to be analyzed - and to learn from.

And even though this is historical data, what would your curve have looked like if you had attempted to draw it before looking at the data? No absolute values, just trends. Was the hobby aware of the July spike and how things were climbing before that and how they've decreased since?

[Leon]

That is absolutely great information. Thanks for doing it and thanks for sharing it.

[renoch01]

That is very interesting looking forward to your common index. 😎

[Mdmtx]

Could someone post a link to the volume one info? Love the analytics!