The Economist Baseball Card Article

[Exhibitman]

The article is accurate insofar as shiny crap goes...accurate but entirely derivative of many earlier analyses. What I find shocking is that the writer did little to no research into the most basic market issues. He made no effort to differentiate blue chip stock from penny stocks, so to speak, and ignored entirely the TPG issue which can still make shiny crap into gold. I also found the focus on Pete Rose irksome because it completely ignored the damage done to his card values by his gambling and lifetime ban. Of course his cards were going to drop when he was shamed and given the heave-ho.

What all of these articles either miss or skip over intentionally is that not everyone got hurt. Dealers who turned their inventories quickly did just fine with even the most speculative rookie cards. It was only the naïve buy and hold types who ended up holding the bag.