Sportscards and Inflation

[barrysloate]

Colt- I'll offer two reasons why we see dips in the market. They are unrelated, and I'm sure there are others:

1) the economy stinks and people don't have enough extra money to buy baseball cards.

2) Certain key bidders who have an enormous influence on prices drop out and change the landscape dramatically. About five years ago there were two collectors who were competing heavily for rookie Hall of Famers. The price for these cards skyrocketed. For example, lower grade E107 HOFers, most of which are rookie cards, went from the $1000 range per card, to the $5000-10,000 range in the blink of an eye. All the other rookie HOFers, and ultimately HOFers in general, followed suit. Then they both sold their collections, and prices for many key cards took a dive.

So both a bad economy, and the absence of certain serious collectors, will negatively effect the market.