Anyone Else Feeling Marooned on Vintage Collector Island??

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by jingram058

I keep waiting for reality to sink in and affect the pricing of cards, memorabilia and the like.

I think reality is already priced in when it comes to vintage blue chip items. The reality is that career-issued Ruth cards and the like are no longer the purview of budget-conscious collectors. The prices on them are not going to revert to the prices of 10 years ago or more. I expect that they will beat inflation over the next 10-20 years even after the high returns of the last 3-4 years. The holders of these items have better access to information and sales channels and lots of wealthy buyers, so they don't need to cater to budget-conscious collectors. Also, with all of the data and opportunities out there, anyone knowledgeable isn't going to fire sale anything good. You either have to find it in the wild, get very, very lucky with a sale that falls through the cracks at an auction house or a mis-priced item at a show, or correctly anticipate the next area of growth, get in there now, and then use the appreciated items to trade into cards and other items.

I sold a number of blue chip cards several years ago for what I felt was a very high price at the time; today, they would be worth anywhere from 5x-25x what I got for them and I wish I had them back.