Best memorabilia investment out there

[bigfanNY]

Originally Posted by Chris Counts

I see flannel jerseys as the pinnacle of baseball memorabilia, but not necessarily the best investment, since their prices are sky high.

I believe caps are the most undervalued genre of baseball memorabilia. They're at least as rare as flannel jerseys, but they're relatively affordable — '50s and '60s flannel jerseys routinely sell for thousands, while I've paid just a couple hundred dollars each for many of my best caps from the '50s and '60s.

Jerseys and caps are tough to find and make the great display items. I don't find bats and gloves nearly as interesting. People love to show off their stuff, and I believe the best display items will always be in demand.

I love publications, but I see their values headed south as the sheer number of the them available dwarfs the number of potential collectors in the future. I also like autographs, but they're such a rabbit hole of potential fraud that many collectors are scared off by them. As for pins, they are definitely rare and desirable, but overpriced.

Chris I am on the other end of the spectrum. I too like to display my items but I find that Bats are much easier to display than my caps. In fact I recently sold a nice Mike Trout Hat after I put up a bat display with my Mike Trout Bat. I also Love Love Publications and belive that scorecards and publications before 1910 are very undervalued and are in extremely short supply. Now as you move further on the supply increases. Take world series programs as an example. Easy to put together a collection from 1950 on but as you go back decades they get tougher to the point most WS collectors stop in the 20's. The first 5 are beyond scarce and even at current valuations I think under priced.
As for pins they have never been a focus of mine. Although I did collect PX7 Domino disks for a bit. But the earliest examples like Luxello's are beautiful and rare so again like publications. Early examples I think are undervalued. Funny but as I write this I seem to be saying that most memorabilia categories with examples before 1910 are scarce and undervalued. And you could make the same case for cards. Old Judges have always in my opinion been undervalued with a small group of collectors focused on those sets. Most vintage collectors like myself are satisfied with a few examples maybe a Hall of famer or two. Imagine if everyone who collects baseball cards ( shiny stuff included) decided they needed to have an old judge HOF in their collection the prices would rocket. But then most of us me included would be priced out of collecting stuuf we like. Which has happened to me more than once in the past 45 years of collecting.