Pre-War and Vintage

[Touch'EmAll]

The past few months I have been cruising the internet for articles and videos about older baseball cards and their future. Seems like most people are tagging vintage as strictly post WW2, often referring to 1952-1980. And 90+% of what I find is about Vintage. Upon basic internet search, there is almost no pre-War current articles/videos.

Generally, the Vintage market is doing well compared to Modern. A couple sites mention the last year to be break-even to down 5% for Vintage prices. Modern has dropped like a rock, but then Modern did spike more to begin with during the pandemic. I haven't seen such data on pre-War, and I imagine it depends on the cards you have - from which sets, top tier HOFers vs lower HOFers vs commons. From what I have, I am going to guess during the last year, nice pre-War was generally up 5-10%.

One video mentioned that as many of the older Baby Boomer collectors pass, we will see an influx of raw Vintage hitting the market and getting newly graded by their heirs. Supposedly, many of these collectors may not have jumped on the Grading Bandwagon and have retained their cards as raw. They speculate this influx may put a damper on the Vintage market and values may actually drop. OK, yeah, I see the argument here. My thought is that yes, a lot of Vintage cards will come to market, but how many will be high end caliber - PSA 8 range? A boatload of 2-5 grades, perhaps most likely. If so, might that do the opposite and push high grade up even higher?

Now move to pre-War. do these same older Baby Boomers have binders full of raw pre-War sitting around for heirs to take to market and get graded? Gee, I don't know - what do you think? If heirs don't find quantity of pre-War, we could see a larger separation between Vintage and pre-War with the Cobb's and Ruth's and such continuing to escalate substantially. What do you think?

Regardless, I love pre-War. the vast majority of what I have is pre-War. I am thinking selling Vintage and Modern (not that it's a lot) except for a few special super nice handful and seeking a solid pre-War want list card (T206 Cobb, bat off).

Enough rambling, cheers y'all!

[Leon]

There is enough money, dealers and collectors to absorb any new pre-war collections coming to market, without there being a glut of cards and devaluation.

and a pre-war card....thanks again Peter!
.

[Zach Wheat]

Interesting thoughts. I collect mainly pre-War. New collectors whom I have had discussions and have collected strictly modern cards previously say they are slowly discovering older cards. I am not sure what this means for their appetite for pre-war cards and understanding all of the little quirks in sets like the T206. However, this is how I got hooked. One of my first pre-war acquisitions was made as an afterthought. I was hooked from that point forward.

[JustinD]

Personal opinion -

As the aging baby boomer collectors pass, there may be a slight boost in prewar in the market but I would not foresee a crash in values. That said, I do not see long term gains exceeding inflation but stability in those values with the occasional couple year blips of ups or downs like history always shows.

Personally, I would be more concerned about shrink in the vintage 50s-60's as the ungraded held quantities are likely vast and those will appear at greater numbers during liquidation of estates. Also, prewar has a miniscule handful of people holding childhood cards of players they watched. The baby boomer generation is core for demand of childhood heroes at the specific moment in that group. The market has much more volume of assets and the growing collectors may very likely not absorb that volume without a value leveling.

Ultra-modern currently is seeing a crash due to overproduction and the shrinking numbers not picking up the slack with growth after the pandemic. We are sitting quite firmly in the second junkwax (and junkslab) era.

[rjackson44]

And the huge loses with the ultra modern scary

[benge610]

Originally Posted by Leon

There is enough money, dealers and collectors to absorb any new pre-war collections coming to market, without there being a glut of cards and devaluation.
.

Agreed.
... and there is only so much; original, circulated material that has survived; especially in the E World; BSF (skewer of E98 numbers) not withstanding.
(I would rather say, "The hell with BSF" but I am not that kinda collector, I think.)
Ben

"I love baseball history backstory; especially when it involves cards."

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by rjackson44

And the huge loses with the ultra modern scary

Scary but not unexpected

And there is such a demand for pre war that anything that comes to market will be easily absorbed

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Interesting thoughts. I collect mainly pre-War. New collectors whom I have had discussions and have collected strictly modern cards previously say they are slowly discovering older cards. I am not sure what this means for their appetite for pre-war cards and understanding all of the little quirks in sets like the T206. However, this is how I got hooked. One of my first pre-war acquisitions was made as an afterthought. I was hooked from that point forward.

Zach,

Just curious - what were the first prewar acquisitions that got you hooked? How long ago was that and how much has the price of your first pre-war acquisitions increased? If you started today, would you be hooked on it based on the valuations of today?

I wonder what these new collectors will think if/when they start researching prices in pre-war and find out how they feel about the price run up of the past several years and then having that feeling of missing the boat. Do you think some might just say screw this?

A decade ago, putting together a basic T206 set seemed somewhat possible, now the HOFers and a few others will really cut into your collecting budget and the commons (unless trashed) will not be that cheap anymore.

[BioCRN]

Anecdotal...nonetheless...

We saw a huge bump in everything, especially modern and ultra-modern, from the investor class more associated with sneaker collectors and adjacent non-traditional investors (digital coins, etc).

A lot of those those people are holding or exiting, or have already exited.

We also saw a lot of people returning to the hobby of their childhood during the COVID shutdown times. Junk wax suddenly became relatively valuable (especially well graded stuff) as they recreated what they once had or never could get when they were younger.

A lot of these guys are sticking around and gravitating toward vintage and pre-war. They realized they could finally get a T206 and caught the bug. Some started learning about other releases outside of the T206s. Many are still learning. They want a Cracker Jack card. They want a T205. They're trying to figure out caramel, bakery, etc cards (which require a bit more of a deep dive).

I don't know how long they'll stick around, but guys I saw chasing 1989 "F-Face" Billy Ripken cards and Griffey Jr rookies are totally getting into that pre-1980s stuff.

[lampertb]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Personally, I would be more concerned about shrink in the vintage 50s-60's as the ungraded held quantities are likely vast and those will appear at greater numbers during liquidation of estates.

Agreed. There are probably tens of millions of ungraded '66 Topps cards not yet in the market, to use an example.

[obiwan1129]

Don't discount the damage of natural disasters. There are only so many pre-war cards still around, but as we've seen with wildfires and flooding, many of those collections can be lost forever.

[packs]

This board has a large audience of pure collectors. I don't think any of us would be upset if the vintage market was flooded and prices came down. I can only hope for as much.

[Exhibitman]

https://adamstevenwarshaw.substack.c...start-the-year

According to Card Ladder, prewar it tracks was way up for 2022. Postwar vintage was down 5%.

Not a surprise. Mainstream postwar is 90% demand driven. There is plenty of it available at all times, unless you are looking for PSA 9-10 or a tough regional.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by packs

This board has a large audience of pure collectors. I don't think any of us would be upset if the vintage market was flooded and prices came down. I can only hope for as much.

Did you really type that in this thread? I'm looking forward to the day when the price of cardboard is back to being the price of cardboard and not the price of gold. We can only dream of the big 2023 vintage card price meltdown.

Ok, let's read about how/why that's not going to happen...

[packs]

Is anyone who collects T206s because they enjoy pre-war cards really going to lament the coming hoard of potentially affordable Ty Cobbs?

Or will there be a panic when Ruth Goudeys drop a thousand dollars?

Not for me. That'll be one of my finest hours.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by packs

Is anyone who collects T206s because they enjoy pre-war cards really going to lament the coming hoard of potentially affordable Ty Cobbs?

Or will there be a panic when Ruth Goudeys drop a thousand dollars?

Not for me. That'll be one of my finest hours.

+1. I doubt it happens, but a complete collapse would be awesome. I could build my sets for much cheaper. It would also mean we wouldn’t have the same 3 or 4 money threads ten times a week and would have to find something else to talk about.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by G1911

+1. I doubt it happens, but a complete collapse would be awesome. I could build my sets for much cheaper. It would also mean we wouldn’t have the same 3 or 4 money threads ten times a week and would have to find something else to talk about.

Oh, I seriously doubt that we would stop talking about it.

The conversation would merely shift to whether the market would come back in time for all of us to retire.

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by Fred

Zach,

Just curious - what were the first prewar acquisitions that got you hooked? How long ago was that and how much has the price of your first pre-war acquisitions increased? If you started today, would you be hooked on it based on the valuations of today?

I wonder what these new collectors will think if/when they start researching prices in pre-war and find out how they feel about the price run up of the past several years and then having that feeling of missing the boat. Do you think some might just say screw this?

A decade ago, putting together a basic T206 set seemed somewhat possible, now the HOFers and a few others will really cut into your collecting budget and the commons (unless trashed) will not be that cheap anymore.

I will answer some of your questions, but other questions I have to leave unanswered. I was always a collector. I didn't really concentrate on pre-war until I got a T206 Johnson as a throw in on a purchase of some cards from the '50's. The T206 Johnson had well rounded corners. About the same time, I saw these funny looking fold-over cards (T201's). I bought a bunch including one of Zach Wheat. Those cards really started the journey. I ran in to Lew Lipsett and bought his book (Encyclopedia of Baseball Cards) which was a great learning tool. I still reference his book.

Yes, I would still be hooked on collecting pre-war today. I just thought it was neat to have a piece of history and started learning about all the players. There are still a number of opportunities for collectors new to pre-war. As Ted Z has shown there are numerous ways to collect T206 given all the subsets.

IMO, the 1952 Topps set is the post-war equivalent of t206 and presents a great opportunity even in today's market. However, acquiring a complete set of the mid-series gray backs is not likely to be completed.

[Fred]

I bet T206 was the gateway card/drug that pushed a lot of people to get hooked on vintage.

One way to look at the crazy price valuations is to compare minimum wage to the price of a Cobb T206. I think minimum wage was about $2 and change at the end of the 70s. A VG T206 Cobb was probably $25 (thereabout, possibly a little less) around that time. Let's call minimum wage about $15/hour today and then look at the price of a F-G Cobb in today's market.

I can't imagine trying to start a collection on a tight budget with today's card valuations. It's sad because unless you have a good amount of resources, then trying to collect sets today is near impossible. Niche collecting is about the only way to go with limited resources. In my opinion, that just makes it less enticing to want to enter the hobby. If you're a kid and want to start collecting then having a parent that collected when they were younger certainly helps, otherwise the collection will be a lot less than it was for a bunch of us older geezers that started when we were kids.

[parkplace33]

Two things I have noted during the run up about prewar.

1. It was crazy that beat up T206s commons were selling for $20-$30. That has subsided, which is great.

2. The T206 Cobb price explosion has also subsided.

My only wish is that newer collector learn that, for the most part, T206 commons and even some star cards are not that rare.

[rjackson44]

im paying $80 to $90 dollars for really nice t206 psa 2s god help me lol