Market for Pre War Cards -How far down is down?

[ChiefBenderForever]

I think a lot of it is just an economic correction, along with inflation. The whole 'it just takes one extra bidder' is also a factor that can be the difference of hundreds or thousands of dollars on an item. A lot of it is just luck and timing as well. The T207's that just sold really well could cause someone to think it is a good time to sell them and maybe list them in a week or month and only see half the prices just realized, there is no real explanation. Sales are still strong even though considered soft it is a lot of money being spent no matter how you look at it.

[Exhibitman]

The market remains as it has been for much of the last two years. Great stuff brings great prices. Run of the mill stuff goes cheap. Weak stuff rots. I also find that pricing is unstable--things that sell well one week sell for peanuts the next. I'd say we've "lost" the last 5-10 years of appreciation on most cards.

On the plus side, look at the great stuff that's coming to market as some have been forced to start digging deep to part with rarities they'd accumulated. I've seen more really difficult types this year than any in the last several. I'd say in terms of sheer variety of cards available this was the best National I've seen since I started going every year (2004).

[glchen]

I think I agree with the many comments that it is the economy that is the main factor in driving the prices down. The question would be whether the downturn just popped the bubble down to more realistic prices or whether the cards are now undervalued. I'm sure it depends on each type of card as there are micro-economies at play.

I also think that the economy has decreased the # of bidders which is a big part of it. For example, someone mentioned the high prices the Worch Cigar cards have gotten recently. Frankly, for the recent sale on ebay, I was the #2 bidder on many of those cards, so I'm almost of the opinion if I hadn't bid, those cards might have gone for much lower prices. I bid on every card and ended up winning 3 of them at that time, and I noticed that I was usually constantly outbid by just 1 other bidder, and that bidder won most of the lots. So myself and this other bidder drove up the prices for these cards. And yesterday, I wanted to bid on a 1933 Willard Chocolate common on ebay, but I ended up not getting back home until the auction was over (I tend not to do snipes). The card ended up selling for $7, and I would have paid ~$25 for it, so I'm still kicking myself. These are just examples in my case, but I'm sure others have seen similar situations for cards that they collect.

There was a recent article on NYTimes saying that this downturn has different effects. Basically, if you still have a job, some people are still getting decent raises. So there are a number of people that still have a good deal of discretionary income through their wages or from the wealth that they've built up in the past. These people can still afford to pay top dollar for cards and can scoop up a lot of cards at good prices. However, other people who have lost their jobs or don't have a lot of job security, don't have money to buy cards anymore so they're sidelined right now. Or they're selling their cards even at losses because they need to pay for their day to day living. This also depresses the card market.

Another thing about the market is that like real estate, there are always speculators. Like the Strasburg card, there are people looking to make a quick buck on cards. They were there buying cards in the past, and this was a factor in driving up prices. Again, I think the downturn has gotten rid of many of them (but not all).

Finally, and I'm relatively new here, I wonder if cards have still withstood the recession better than other collectibles. For example, in the latest Legendary auction, I saw lots for comic books, coins, currencies, etc. I'm not sure if this was typical in the past for other collectibles to be a part of sports cards auctions, but I wonder if the interest in cards is still relatively strong compared to other hobbies where auctioneers are trying to piggyback them in the same auction to give them better prices than they would otherwise receive.

[Jim VB]

Bruce,

Please don't bother sending me any PMs. I delete them without reading them.

[tbob]

If it is true that the whales who were in the hobby for their investment portfolios or strictly investment purposes are truly leaving, I say "hurray!" Maybe the value of my collection decreases monetarily somewhat becaue of this and the economy's woes, but I remember leon a few years ago telling a newbie in a post that he needed to collect cards with the understanding that if someday the cards would all be without value, you would still have the joy of collecting and all those great cards you liked. Think it was leon and sorry for paraphrasing you leon.

JIM VB

We'd appreciate if you stop your sarcastic attacks

We hate to take up time and space on the board responding
to your cynical comments- however, if you want to shoot
arrows, we will be happy to return the favor with nuclear
missiles.

In other words stick to card collecting and save your commentary
for your buddies like Keith and Rachel and MSN NBC

Bruce Dorskind
America's Premiere Collector of Ultra Rare Baseball Memorabilia

[steve B]

While the economy and peoples available spending money are certainly a factor I think a large part of it is also a maturing of the hobby.

At one time nearly everything was "inexpensive" witht the exception of a few cards that had something extra going for them. The Wagner, 52 Mantle, Fleer Wiliams #68, stuff like that.

The next phase around mid 80's was a rush toward star and rookie cards as investments. But without understanding why a rookie card might be more valuable.

By the late 80's early 90's every card was seen as valuable, and manufacturers could sell as much as they could print. Everything became hype and image. Except for prewar, which stayed pretty solid and grew very well. Largely because all prewar cards were seen as "rare" or at least hard to find.

Mid 90's manufacturers cut back on production of any particular set, but produced a fast array of sets. Prewar still did well in a somewhat failing market because things were still percieved as being harder to find.

Things slid from there to where we are today, and a lot of the slide for modern stuff is the "Ebay effect" where before you might go to flea markets for a year and not find much that wasn't brand new, now you could go on Ebay and see just how many of anything were actually out there. And for nearly everything the answer was plenty. So modern stuff suffered. If you're not pickyabout condition, nearly any mainstream set can be had with a few mouse clicks.

I think the lower prices for low and mid grade prewar is an extension of that. For a brief time the sense that 33 goudeys and diamond stars etc were uncommon persisted. But people are finally noticing that a large group of prewar cards aren't really all that tough in lower grades. And for most people, if you can buy a particular card pretty much any time you want they'll wait for a deal. Which will lower the price.

The stuff that's actually hard to find may suffer a bit temporarily, but when it does come back, I think we'll see some very impressive prices even for "commons"

I'm partly comparing this hobby "maturity" to already mature hobbies like Stamps and coins, all of which were well developed a long time ago. In US stamps there's very little produced after about 1930 that isn't very cheap. And a lot that was produced before 1930 that's also cheap. And the prices for the common stuff is very static. But the truly difficult items and the difficult and popular items are expensive and likely to get more expensive.


Steve B