Baseball card bubble?

[Fjd133]

I bought myself a few little cardboard Christmas presents in early December and, after taking a small break, looked again at prices today and was amazed at the increase of all cards over even just a month!

Does anyone remember what happened in 2008 with the Great Recession? Did prices go down then? Hold steady?

I’m gonna be back to buying “junk wax” because that’s all I can afford.


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[dio]

more like vintage has been undervalue for so long , ppl finally realize it's way undervalue. Look at how crazy moderns go. Some of the modern collectors just begin to flow into vintage market. If one of those so call card collector KOL do some pumping on vintage , it will skyrocket even more
And the way fed keep printing money doesn't help either. Everything goes up big except for your salary

[Seven]

Originally Posted by Fjd133

I bought myself a few little cardboard Christmas presents in early December and, after taking a small break, looked again at prices today and was amazed at the increase of all cards over even just a month!

Does anyone remember what happened in 2008 with the Great Recession? Did prices go down then? Hold steady?

I’m gonna be back to buying “junk wax” because that’s all I can afford.


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Similar discussions have been had on the board on other posts/threads, I believe the overwhelming consensus is that the normalization of the card market will only return in a post COVID world meaning, after the overwhelming majority of the population receives the vaccine and people start going back to physical work, instead of mostly being remote.

Some cards will come down, the Hobby Icons though, your Cobbs, Mantles, Ruth's, etc, might see a very small correction but their prices are likely here to stay.

Hope this helps.

[gustomania]

I agree with this post.

The bubble isn’t just Baseball, other collectibles such as Magic have seen huge returns.

Originally Posted by Seven

Similar discussions have been had on the board on other posts/threads, I believe the overwhelming consensus is that the normalization of the card market will only return in a post COVID world meaning, after the overwhelming majority of the population receives the vaccine and people start going back to physical work, instead of mostly being remote.

Some cards will come down, the Hobby Icons though, your Cobbs, Mantles, Ruth's, etc, might see a very small correction but their prices are likely here to stay.

Hope this helps.

[dio]

Originally Posted by gustomania

I agree with this post.

The bubble isn’t just Baseball, other collectibles such as Magic have seen huge returns.

Remote workforce is here to stay. Companies saves ridiculous amount of money on office space, amenities. Work productivity is not affected at all. There's no reason to put force ppl back into work. Maybe only on occassion

[Seven]

Originally Posted by dio

Remote workforce is here to stay. Companies saves ridiculous amount of money on office space, amenities. Work productivity is not affected at all. There's no reason to put force ppl back into work. Maybe only on occassion

There are jobs though that physically require you to be on site. Additionally Many people like the structure of an office job or being in a physical work place. We need in person interaction, humans are social creatures.

[dio]

Company mgmt only care about the bottom line $$$.
Finance will not approve budget for office space amenities security cleaning just for their employee want to social. They can social all they want after work on their private time. Zoom meeting can get pretty much done and social interaction. People just need to accept the reality things had already changed and there's no way back

Not saying every single job will. But we won't see it to live work like before covid.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by dio

Company mgmt only care about the bottom line $$$.
Finance will not approve budget for office space amenities security cleaning just for their employee want to social. They can social all they want after work on their private time. Zoom meeting can get pretty much done and social interaction. People just need to accept the reality things had already changed and there's no way back

The "expert" has spoken. Looks like there is no further discussion needed.

Good thing I work for the Department of Defense. I have to be at work in my office to be of any real value. Love to see all those auto mechanics and bartenders and manufacturing plant employees working from home as well. Maybe it's going to be that way in your niche, dio, but for the majority of U.S> jobs, they can't be accomplished via telework.

[Seven]

Originally Posted by swarmee

The "expert" has spoken. Looks like there is no further discussion needed.

Good thing I work for the Department of Defense. I have to be at work in my office to be of any real value. Love to see all those auto mechanics and bartenders and manufacturing plant employees working from home as well. Maybe it's going to be that way in your niche, dio, but for the majority of U.S> jobs, they can't be accomplished via telework.

The Bakers and Chefs will be serving food over zoom as well. Electricians and Plumbers will face time you and walk you through how to fix your leaky faucet and wire a ceiling fan

[dio]

For computer repair at our work. Instead of like apple store type of help desk. We have a vending machine where you can badge in to get a replacement and they will send to remote location to fix

Mechanic ar essential worker. They always at work. There's no difference between now and vaccine

Plant workers . Many new plant already have ai automation that eliminates a lot of human last couple years

Restaurants workers. Starting to see more automated food delivery system. More in asia. Will process more in the states in the next few years

I'm njust telling you. Things are definitely changing. You might not agree that's fine

[gustomania]

Disagree to an extent. Many big companies are reviewing WFH vs office and while WFH sounds great, companies are seeing decreased employee engagement, more Performance issues, etc etc thus having an impact on client service and accuracy.

While many won’t go back FT in the office, many top leaders and upper mgmt are looking at a hybrid approach or SOME flexibility but not nearly what you would think.

So, while we are passionate about our collectibles, if your speaking from an investment standpoint it’s irresponsible to think this will continue in this capacity.

It won’t.

Originally Posted by dio

Remote workforce is here to stay. Companies saves ridiculous amount of money on office space, amenities. Work productivity is not affected at all. There's no reason to put force ppl back into work. Maybe only on occassion

[Exhibitman]

How people work is irrelevant; how they play is the key. We are all stuck at home doing jack-squat right now. My dining, concert, movie, event, etc., money is available and I am bored AF. You can only watch so much Netflix before you go nuts. Hence the turn to hobbies made all the more potent by the rise of virtual communities like this one. The test will be how many stick with it when they can go out again.

[Fjd133]

So as to bring this back to post-war baseball card collecting... did prior market corrections correspond to decreasing card values of older cards? I guess I was asking for a historical perspective.


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[swarmee]

I know that high grade PSA 8-9 1952 Topps cards crashed right around that timeline based on some research I did when PSA first opened up the Auction Prices Realized tool.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...light=realized

One card dropped from $10K to like $800.

I’ve worked remotely for nearly 20 years but it has had no effect on my hobbies. Work is work no matter where you do it from. Probably the bigger factor is people don’t have as many opportunities to go out to eat, drink, party, sports etc and that money and time is being poured into hobbies instead. I suspect once social events, sports and gatherings are back some activity in different hobbies will fall off.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by dio

Remote workforce is here to stay. Companies saves ridiculous amount of money on office space, amenities. Work productivity is not affected at all. There's no reason to put force ppl back into work. Maybe only on occassion

Remote work is a trend that is cyclical. My dad was remote in the late 80s early 1990s, in Montana. Boss out of Spokane. Then in 1996 the company decided to centralize managers, so my dad was relocated with the same job title to Spokane. Then circa Great Recession, same company decided it was time to go remote again.

However, if the $2000 stimulus checks pass, card prices are going to go wacko again.

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[hcv123]

The values of any "commodity" is primariy dictated by supply and demand. What is going on right now in many cases is demand is outpacing supply causing upward pressure on price.

The comments related to remote work only factor in as much as how people heading back to work will affect supply and demand (if at all). While there are certainly anomalies, my opinion is there will be no "crash" - possibly some pockets of weaker demand in some spots though.

[mferronibc]

Guys - I think the recent explosion of prices has only a little to do with "Joe Blow" collector (like me) with some more time on his hands and maybe some additional funds because we're not going out to dinner, buying clothes, paying for gas etc.

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

[Chicosbailbonds]

Originally Posted by Wimberleycardcollector

I’ve worked remotely for nearly 20 years but it has had no effect on my hobbies. Work is work no matter where you do it from. Probably the bigger factor is people don’t have as many opportunities to go out to eat, drink, party, sports etc and that money and time is being poured into hobbies instead. I suspect once social events, sports and gatherings are back some activity in different hobbies will fall off.

This, and people who are not working are buying up all of the retail and flipping them.

[swarmee]

Well, some of these people are now getting a rude awakening with their 1099 forms from PayPal... hopefully they've been saving some of their profits.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

I agree the bubble will be resilient. I'm bullish agreeing 3 years. That hurts to say, since I'd like to buy more items, not less. Though I don't deal in high priced items, the trickle down effects are affecting my lower priced items.

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[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

Guys - I think the recent explosion of prices has only a little to do with "Joe Blow" collector (like me) with some more time on his hands and maybe some additional funds because we're not going out to dinner, buying clothes, paying for gas etc.

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

You may be onto something. Not being able to go to a concert, movie, or dinner might explain the cost of a junk wax boxes doubling or tripling in the last 11 months...but likely not the cards going up by thousands or millions (unless ya’ll go to way more expensive concerts than I do).

[jchcollins]

Selfishly, I would like to see both prices and participation in vintage go back to normal levels. I don't expect this to happen in the near-term future. While I have individual cards that will no doubt benefit from the bubble, I'd like to be able to continue to get more of them long before I'd consider selling...

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by todeen

However, if the $2000 stimulus checks pass, card prices are going to go wacko again.

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I think there is still some debate about if there is another round whether the checks will be $1400 or $2000 per person AND it may not go to everyone the way the previous rounds did. But if everyone gets an extra 2K, there is good reason to believe today's "high prices" will be tomorrow bargains.

Rich

BTW -= Topps is not really raising the prices of the boxes of the cards you see at the big box stores but reducing the quantity within. Think of the last couple of Topps products in those stores as something similar to the candy bar size reduction process. That might also stop some of the retail explosions.

[jchcollins]

Biden is also now floating the idea of $3k stimulus checks per child. So if that happens a lot of kids are probably getting vintage baseball cards...

[mferronibc]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

I think there is still some debate about if there is another round whether the checks will be $1400 or $2000 per person AND it may not go to everyone the way the previous rounds did. But if everyone gets an extra 2K, there is good reason to believe today's "high prices" will be tomorrow bargains.

I promise I don't have any political underpinnings to this just curiosity. I don't really understand why stimulus checks drive the card market. 1) I would imagine the people capable of dropping many hundreds/thousands of dollars on cards even before the pandemic (the real drivers of the bubble right now) make way too much money to qualify for a check. 2) I realize I have no bearing on telling people how to spend their money but isn't the intent of stimulus checks now to help people struggling to pay rent, bills, put food on the table? If that many people use $600-2000 instantly to buy baseball cards when they have all of those expenses what does that say about people's spending choices? (regardless of any trickle down effect to the overall economy)

[Seven]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Selfishly, I would like to see both prices and participation in vintage go back to normal levels. I don't expect this to happen in the near-term future. While I have individual cards that will no doubt benefit from the bubble, I'd like to be able to continue to get more of them long before I'd consider selling...

I think this is the view more than a few of us have. Most of us want to collect, and don't treat the card market, like the stock market. I'm glad to see prices go up to an extent, In case if I do ever decide to sell off some of my cards to fund other purchases, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind prices coming back down to earth a little bit.

Per the talks about stimulus checks affecting the card market, It's very possible. The first round of checks had such a broad net that people that weren't even in dire financial straits were getting checks. Not that any of us would complain about free money from the government, but that's obviously going to affect what we're going to be able to purchase.

If the 3K per child check actually happens, well I better start working on having some kids

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Seven

The first round of checks had such a broad net that people that weren't even in dire financial straits were getting checks. Not that any of us would complain about free money from the government, but that's obviously going to affect what we're going to be able to purchase.

Precisely. I'm not sure where we fall on the threshold, but I can tell you my wife and I didn't really need the money we got in the first stimulus. Sock it away for a rainy day, sure - but the method for distributing checks is not the most exact science in the world.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

This same scenario played out in the 1990's-2000's with the Class III MG market. Early 90's an M16 was had for $3k with ease. Now, $40-$50k all day long. It pulled all the low rent MG's up into the $7-$8k range.

Population reports from the likes of PSA are problematic because it takes little market knowledge to corner it. A card with only 10 or 20 high grade examples can be scooped up quickly.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

I promise I don't have any political underpinnings to this just curiosity. I don't really understand why stimulus checks drive the card market. 1) I would imagine the people capable of dropping many hundreds/thousands of dollars on cards even before the pandemic (the real drivers of the bubble right now) make way too much money to qualify for a check. 2) I realize I have no bearing on telling people how to spend their money but isn't the intent of stimulus checks now to help people struggling to pay rent, bills, put food on the table? If that many people use $600-2000 instantly to buy baseball cards when they have all of those expenses what does that say about people's spending choices? (regardless of any trickle down effect to the overall economy)

In very simple terms (and because this is a generality this does not apply to everyone in the same way), many people who did not need money had

1) More time on their hands as either having time off from work or transitioning to Work From Home (WFH)

2) Had their old cards in the closet and realized what fun they had as kids during the boom market and went back

3) Realized the market was in an upswing and people like getting into an up market.

4) Was BORED with watching a screen all day for work and liked a distraction.

5) Without the hobby stores being open, the big box stores you went to for groceries or other items were also the primary place to purchase new boxes. Yep, more competition for a growing up sells more cards.

I'm sure there are more but these are pretty good reasons

Rich

[Exhibitman]

I seriously doubt that investment funds are driving the prices of vg Jackie Robinson cards. Just lots of new collectors, returning collectors, and long-time collectors, all with time and money on their hands, and in the latter case, a good dose of FOMO-better-get-it-now-before-it-goes-up-more. And these virtual communities and chat boards and blogs add to the momentum by allowing us some sorely-needed social contact in these days of isolation and boredom.

The real question is whether the bubble will pop or deflate, and to what extent. I don't see prices dropping back to pre-escalation levels on many cards. That has never been the case, as anyone who has waited 40 years for a price break on a 1952 Topps Mantle will tell you. Way I figure it is that a $900 card in 2019 that is $5,000 today may see $3,000 again but will go back up again unless some sort of catastrophe wrecks the overall economy for years. Baseball cards I sold for 'ridiculous' prices a few years ago are at or below market now. I'm not sorry I sold, just aware that this is cyclical with prices generally trending up over the years on quality materials. Similarly, I have very few quality baseball cards that I am sorry I 'overpaid' to get a few years ago.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I seriously doubt that investment funds are driving the prices of vg Jackie Robinson cards. Just lots of new collectors, returning collectors, and long-time collectors, all with time and money on their hands, and in the latter case, a good dose of FOMO-better-get-it-now-before-it-goes-up-more. And these virtual communities and chat boards and blogs add to the momentum by allowing us some sorely-needed social contact in these days of isolation and boredom.

The real question is whether the bubble will pop or deflate, and to what extent. I don't see prices dropping back to pre-escalation levels on many cards. That has never been the case, as anyone who has waited 40 years for a price break on a 1952 Topps Mantle will tell you. Way I figure it is that a $900 card in 2019 that is $5,000 today may see $3,000 again but will go back up again unless some sort of catastrophe wrecks the overall economy for years. Baseball cards I sold for 'ridiculous' prices a few years ago are at or below market now. I'm not sorry I sold, just aware that this is cyclical with prices generally trending up over the years on quality materials. Similarly, I have very few quality baseball cards that I am sorry I 'overpaid' to get a few years ago.

Good take. There is a similar debate going on over on the Blowout forums right now, but there people seem to think that it's mostly flippers / speculators over and above collectors. I'd like to believe things more the way you describe them.

[Wanaselja]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Good take. There is a similar debate going on over on the Blowout forums right now, but there people seem to think that it's mostly flippers / speculators over and above collectors. I'd like to believe things more the way you describe them.

I think the answer probably sits between the two. Both flippers and new collectors. Each forum speaking to what they know. BO seems like there are way more pumpers over there. This Forum is definitely collector focused.

[Schlesinj]

Nothing new to add, but interesting to see Bill Simmons and his podcast network are making a card podcast. Social media will keep things going for a while. FOMO is a big cause.

[ullmandds]

Originally Posted by schlesinj

nothing new to add, but interesting to see bill simmons and his podcast network are making a card podcast. Social media will keep things going for a while. Foma is a big cause.

foma?

[Wanaselja]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

foma?

I think he meant FOMO (fear of missing out).

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

In very simple terms (and because this is a generality this does not apply to everyone in the same way), many people who did not need money had....

Rich

A lot of the first two rounds of stimulus checks ended up in various investments - including the stock market. Many stocks and bonds require XXXX number of dollars. When that magically showed up in the spring, people could buy into Apple, Tesla, Amazon....you name it. Investors are already warning a third round of stimulus, worth $2000 might be detrimental to the stock market. I think that's baloney, because people want to buy low, but we'll see. At least for me it would help my retirement funds which work on averages.

People may have other bills to pay, but they also were looking ahead to their future. And I always think that's a good thing.

[Exhibitman]

My wife and I had a meeting with our financial planner this afternoon and I chided him that my performance with cards was far outstripping his with stocks.