Same SGC 7 Mantle Sold 4 times in 15 months

[Rhotchkiss]

I realize this is not PreWar (although close). But it is “state of the market” driven(ish). Please move if not appropriate in this section.

There is a very pretty SGC 7, 1952 Topps Mantle in the current Heritage auction. I was interested in comping the card, so I went onto VCP to see results of prior sales (pictured below). There are 5 reasonably current comps, but 4 of them are the same card. The card pictured below has (allegedly) been sold 4 times in 15 months, 3 times by PWCC (including a $550k BIN from the vault) and once in Goldin; the Memory Lane sale is a different (very nice but off center) Mantle. As you can see from the prices, the card is way down (almost 50%) from the initial $550k BIN. Plus, three sales by PWCC and then one by Goldin. What are your thoughts on this card?

I think the first PWCC BIN is a fake. I think the second PWCC sale is real. I bet the buyer is a pure investor/flipper because (1) they buy from PWCC, and (2) they resold the card less than 6 months later. I will go further and speculate that the buyer borrowed against cards in PWCC’s vault (or elsewhere) and was forced to sell because the value of the collateralized cards went down and interest rates were starting to go up; the Fed started increasing rates around the third sale. I expect a similar situation with the third buyer, for the sale reasons. Although I note that it was sold the 4th time in Goldin, not PWCC. That is either bc the 3rd buyer sent it to Goldin’s vault and/or they are a investor/flipper and not a collector, bc they buy from PWCC and sell through Goldin, which I think is different from the collector/investor who would buy and sell from REA and Memory Lane. Now the 4th buyer owns the very pretty card at about 50% of what it “sold” for 15 months prior and at $35k less than where the one in Heritage is at with a week left. Hopefully the card has more than a cup of coffee with this 4th buyer and it becomes a major part of someone’s collection.

[calvindog]

Ryan, I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. And I think it's not only not a great look for the hobby, but suggests a troubling trend in high end cards.

[Johnny630]

Ryan it’s played musical chairs from auction house to action house...no good collector I’ve known who loves the cards sell it this many times in such a short period...I agree first sale def bs...whomever is left holding the bag maybe the same initial owner... it probably never really sold for cash.

I believe a lot of these sales in auction houses may have been Kabuki Theater Over the past 3 years...

I’m glad you did this post.

[Exhibitman]

How do the AHs benefit from fake sales, Johnny?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

How do the AHs benefit from fake sales, Johnny?

IF it's the consignor buying it back they may have to pay the vig. Otherwise, looks good on the resume, and price umbrella effect.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

How do the AHs benefit from fake sales, Johnny?

Lots of ways….increased revenue from new consignments coming in due to higher prices realized…high prices on the high grades caused a spike in the undercards….1-4’s in vintage 7’s and 8’s in modern say the 93 SP Jeter or 86 Fleer Jordan….could it be the investors drove up the price of the higher grade key cards to gain major accurate revenue from the undercards…I 100% believe the real money was possibly made on the undercards…I often wondered if one or multiple major auction houses allowed their investors/certain consignors the ability to win their cards back by paying only on the final sales bidder premium, not the actual hammer.

[Fred]

Great post!

Good work and reporting.

Makes you wonder if someone bought the card as an investment got out of it before it was too late.

Who's going to get caught holding the bag or not have a chair when the music stops.

That Alan Parsons Project song title seems to fit. "The Turn of a Friendly Card"

"...the game never ends when your whole world depends on the turn of a friendly card"

Could you still enjoy the card if you paid $500K for it and knew it wasn't worth more than half that now? It's a beautiful card, but a sad commentary on the state of the "hobby".

What's next, rookie Fleer Jordans?

[Snowman]

All of what you said is certainly plausible. But there are numerous other scenarios that are just as plausible, if not perhaps more likely.

As someone who deals with data for a living, it is often helpful to pretend that certain data points that came from a period of time where something extraordinary happened just didn't actually happen. At least when making projections about the future is the goal. As an example, if I were tasked with building a model to predict the hammer prices of future 52 Mantles at auction, I would overwrite all sales data from at least the first half of 2021, and use values that were projected through that time period instead, as something definitely happened that caused the market to spike artificially and then quickly return back to earth. I've had to do this numerous times when building models in the medical industry with respect to COVID data.

As you can see from the CL50 Index plot below (Card Ladder's 50 most "important" cards in the hobby index), there was a massive spike right around that time. The peak of this plot is on March 7, 2021. That Mantle SGC 7 sale of $550k was on March 11, 2021. So it easily could have been a valid sale where some poor sucker just lost his pants.

Cliff Notes: I would ignore that $550k data point. It may or may not have happened, but the fact that it is an outlier does not indicate that it is necessarily a fake sale. It is more helpful to disregard sales from this narrow window of time if trying to draw conclusions about long-term trends in the market.

Unless, of course, your goal is to try to figure out what happened during those few months, which I would argue is a completely different conversation (or perhaps this is precisely the conversation you're trying to have here... in which case, I'm all ears lol)

..

[Johnny630]

Here’s another good case study card the 59 Clemente PSA 9 Slusser Collection Sold in Heritage 1/27/23 for $56,400.....now less then 10 month past the card is Currently is in Leland’s....take a look at what other 9’s recently sold for over the past two years? Nowhere close to 56k and they’re arguably much better looking then the Slusser 9 which is badly centered for a PSA 9...this card would never grade a 9 today. Leland’s will bring in my opinion will bring the real true value number.

[BobbyStrawberry]

Lots of hot potato going around in this hobby it seems. Spend half a million bucks on a piece of cardboard if you want, but don't be surprised if it's worth way less than that in a short while.

[JimC]

Or, buy 500K worth of cards in 2017 and sell them for 1.5M in 2022.

[maniac_73]

Originally Posted by Snowman

All of what you said is certainly plausible. But there are numerous other scenarios that are just as plausible, if not perhaps more likely.

As someone who deals with data for a living, it is often helpful to pretend that certain data points that came from a period of time where something extraordinary happened just didn't actually happen. At least when making projections about the future is the goal. As an example, if I were tasked with building a model to predict the hammer prices of future 52 Mantles at auction, I would overwrite all sales data from at least the first half of 2021, and use values that were projected through that time period instead, as something definitely happened that caused the market to spike artificially and then quickly return back to earth. I've had to do this numerous times when building models in the medical industry with respect to COVID data.

As you can see from the CL50 Index plot below (Card Ladder's 50 most "important" cards in the hobby index), there was a massive spike right around that time. The peak of this plot is on March 7, 2021. That Mantle SGC 7 sale of $550k was on March 11, 2021. So it easily could have been a valid sale where some poor sucker just lost his pants.

Cliff Notes: I would ignore that $550k data point. It may or may not have happened, but the fact that it is an outlier does not indicate that it is necessarily a fake sale. It is more helpful to disregard sales from this narrow window of time if trying to draw conclusions about long-term trends in the market.

Unless, of course, your goal is to try to figure out what happened during those few months, which I would argue is a completely different conversation (or perhaps this is precisely the conversation you're trying to have here... in which case, I'm all ears lol)

..

Hit the nail on the head from my fellow silicon valley tech bro lol. Throw out the outliers and you always have the true price

[Fred]

I don't follow PWCC, Goldin or other businesses that appear to have credibility challenges.

Are any of these companies on the verge of going bankrupt or having serious cash flow issues that could result in the companies going out of business?

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by Fred

I don't follow PWCC, Goldin or other businesses that appear to have credibility challenges.

Are any of these companies on the verge of going bankrupt or having serious cash flow issues that could result in the companies going out of business?

I don’t believe so, there seem to be more consignors than ever.

What I am shocked at is that pwcc hasn’t rebranded yet. I would have thought they would have changed names or something sine the sale.

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Ryan it’s played musical chairs from auction house to action house...no good collector I’ve known who loves the cards sell it this many times in such a short period...I agree first sale def bs...whomever is left holding the bag maybe the same initial owner... it probably never really sold for cash.

I believe a lot of these sales in auction houses may have been Kabuki Theater Over the past 3 years...

I’m glad you did this post.

The first sale is suspect, but ahs run the show now. Don’t dare question it

[mrreality68]

Love these types of threads and the variety of thought process.

Also shows insights into using VCP and various auctions houses

It is a beautiful card and it is a shame it is not in someone’s collection

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by mrreality68

Love these types of threads and the variety of thought process.

Also shows insights into using VCP and various auctions houses

It is a beautiful card and it is a shame it is not in someone’s collection

Looks trimmed.