What I Don't Understand about Baseball Card Economics

[benjulmag]

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

Hey, we are on the same page, I agree with you: it is a bubble and I have no problem with it bursting. By “too big to fail” I didn’t mean to literally say PSA can’t ever go under. I just meant that if you want to understand why it seems to defy gravity despite the constant scandals, complaints and sheer insanity of the market for 9s and 10s, you need to analyze its position in the market from that perspective. The wealthy end of the market has a lot invested in PSA stuff and a lot to lose if they go under. If a really massive scandal or other event breaks the spell, then of course they’ll cut their losses and jump ship. But short of that, they have tied their fortunes to the PSA bandwagon and are pretty incentivized to keep things the way they are, no matter how insane it looks to the rest of us.

I don't disagree with what you said. The only twist I would put on it is that because IMO the bubble is built on a fiction (unaltered high grade slabbed cards), the bubble inevitably must burst. You are correct there are powerful forces incentivized to keep it going and to prevent it from bursting. And that could very well prolong how long it will take. But as we have seen with other bubbles, eventually the forces of fact will overcome the forces of fiction.