OT but front page worthy Jordan card ebay

[barrysloate]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Well one difference is the modern manufacturer is creating scarcity to create a speculative secondary market in its product and to create the illusion it's a financially valuable commodity. Neither of which were the goals of the President of the Goudey card company. The old scarcities are rare today because they are scarce, not because someone set out to make them desirable on Ebay.

This sums up my feelings. When vintage cards were printed some hundred years ago, there was not one iota of thought by the manufacturer that one day these cards would be valuable. They were printed for one reason only: to help sell a product associated with it. It would take generations for collectors to discover that some were genuinely rare and worth a premium. It would take generations to determine that some were hard to find and in great demand, and that somebody would be willing to pay a lot of money to purchase them.

Modern cards are different. In the case of this Jordan, a bunch of guys in suits sat in a boardroom and came up with a strategy to manufacture a rarity that current collectors would pay a huge premium for. You can collect whatever you want and pay whatever you want, but a vintage card that became rare and expensive over time is a completely different animal than a modern card that was planned from the outset to be a chase card for collectors.

I don't acknowledge the latter, but apparently there are collectors who do. Chances are in the long run they will lose money on most of these manufactured rarities, but that is their choice and it is their money