Are Pre-War Baseball Cards "Solid" Investments?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

When you guys get done reflecting upon the constant gains in prices of old baseball cards, please think about what you consider an investment....

An education is a good investment. A college education, for you, a spouse, or a child.

A home can be a good investment. Tax laws really facilitate this, if you live in the house long enough, you can sell it and avoid taxable gains in certain situations.

World War II fighter aircraft have really appreciated in value. Planes that could be bought for a few thousand dollars in a third world country twenty years ago are now worth half a million, or more. But I don't think such aircraft are a good investment.

Moon rocks... a few are out there. As they have changed hands over the years they have done really well.

Paintings?? Chagall works have done well. Degas is sound. DaVinci drawings have soared. As have anything from the hand of Michelangelo Buonarotti.

It seems to me that the biggest "investment" gambles around are petroleum tanker ships, off shore oil platforms, then motion pictures, then race horses. Although you can get into horses in a little way, buying a fractional share.

The tax laws don't deal with the buying and selling of baseball cards as investments. And when you get done talking about how the values have risen, baseball cards are still not investments. Come on now... are you a baseball card collector, or a baseball card investor???

Abrams once said something to the effect that every day on Wall Steet millions of shares of stock are bought and sold. For each buyer of a share, there is a seller. One decided to sell what he had, the other to acquire the very same thing at that same moment. It is likely that one of them has made the wrong decision... His point was that we knuckleheads who work for a living will be in the wrong half of that decisionmaking unless we get some expert advice. So get some advice... go to an estate planner, an investment counsellor. They will tell you about mutual funds, specific stocks, franchises, buying and selling of residences, money market accounts, maybe even fast food franchises and commodity futures. They won't tell you about baseball cards, not even graded cards.

If you are in this for an investment you are screwing up the cost of collecting for the rest of us.