Money in the hobby

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Not trying to push any political buttons, but we are a country of immense wealth disparity. I spend a decent amount of time down the Jersey shore, in an area that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Every grandma and grandpa bungalow that was destroyed by the storm has been replaced by a mansion 5 times larger. With a pool in the backyard. And it isn't a station wagon in the driveway but 2 BMWs. My wife constantly says to me "are there really that many people with so much money." Yes, there are. At least within driving distance of Wall Street. Some of these people spend $50,000 on a watch. Some have wine cellars with a half a million dollars of wine. Some spend hundreds of thousands buying racehorses. To spend $300,000 on a baseball card thinking (a) its really cool and (b) it very likely will appreciate or at least hold its value doesn't seem like a crazy idea at all. If you can say this is a 1 of 1 or a 1 of 10 of anything, I think it's a fine investment -- if you are rich and diversified. I have no doubt that a good scandal would hit the industry hard. And then it would come back. The racing industry has a scandal every few months and rich people still spend $5 million or more on untested, unproved race horses.

It's not the Mantle cards of the Satchel Paiges or the Babe Ruths that have me scratching my head. But people spending $50,000 on an unopened pack. Yeah, I'm not so sure about that.

As to the first point, the last 30 years have been a great experiment in economics. When you cut taxes repeatedly and create other loopholes for the benefit of extremely wealthy people, they were supposed to put that money to productive use in business and grow everyone's wealth, but the reality is that they buy more toys instead. Supposedly high end cards (I say supposedly because there are so many really bad altered prewar cards in high end PSA holders) are just another rich boys' toy.