State Of The Hobby

[yanksfan09]

Overall I think the hobby seems quite healthy by all measurements. I do wonder about the ultra high end of the modern market though. The gem mint Brady's, Jordans, Lebrons, Trouts, etc... When you start talking about the 6 figure cards there. Also the price of the rare prospect rookies make you shake your head too at times. For every Mickey Mantle coming up there's 1000 or so Ruben Riveras or Todd Van Poppels. It's certainly a lottery ticket with prospecting. Even the Mike Trout's of the world could have a career ending injury tomorrow.

I don't know how sustainable some of those astronomical prices are when you get into the PSA 10's selling for large multiples of 9's in some cases and when you have 30 different parallels of the same card with the most limited going bonkers.

But who knows maybe those (or at least some of them) will have lasting power too in the hobby but with many of them the quantity(especially combined quantity of different parallels) is too much to sustain the prices in the long term I think.

I still think the scarce - ultra rare HOF pre-war cards and rookies seem to still be a great buy in many instances, even with increasing prices. Especially when compared to cards like the recently auctioned 1997 Metal Green Jordan (PSA Authentic) that goes well into the 6 figures. When compared to cards like that or 6 figure Lebron and Brady RC's, some of these cards seem like bargains still.