Cards as an inflation hedge ?

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by darkhorse9

Not to get too political here, but did you really spend taxpayer money designed to cover paychecks to keep workers from being furloughed on a 1952 Topps Mantle card?

No, I paid payroll with it in the mandated time frame, exactly as the rules required. My point was that no one running a business had any idea whether their business would collapse at the time. When I had two great years instead of a collapsed business, my savings skyrocketed because I worked my ass off while going nowhere and doing nothing. FWIW, I also sold a lot of cards into the surging market and banked the proceeds just in case things did go to shit. After two years I had enough saved up to feel like I could afford a big card purchase again while leaving a nice cushion in my savings.

Now, as far as the investment debate, I've been collecting cards on a serious (e.g., setting up at shows, etc.) basis since the 1970s. In that 45 years of watching the card market, there has been an overall gain in value better than the stock market. I think fifty years is proof of concept. These are an asset class regardless of what we may wish in terms of expanding our PCs on the cheap. My wife asked me recently why I hadn't purchased a few of these mega-cards back in the day. I told her if I'd come home and announced that I put the years' IRA contribution into a Babe Ruth RC she'd have divorced me right then and there, and she knows it.

There are times when prices have pulled back (the early 1980s Reagan-Volcker recession, 1994 baseball strike, 2000 dot com bubble, 2007-2008 Great Recession, 2016 price manipulation) but it has always remained attractive as an asset provided you make the right calls on what to purchase. Now we have serious money stepping into the hobby in all respects: auctions, TPGs, even card production. That means others share that view. I am optimistic about the overall potential for the hobby and especially for prewar and interwar cards. There will be short-term pullbacks (has already happened on many sectors of the hobby, like Jordan cards) but if the pattern of the last 50 years holds, it will come back. It is no smarter, dumber or weirder than art, rare books, coins, etc. I have been a strict 'eat when you kill' collector for a decade now: i only buy cards when the proceeds of sales allow for it. Last two years were so good in that regard that I was able to stop panic-saving every cent and buy some cards.