card price trend by grades/condition

[Leon]

With the Registries and collectors mindsets I am not sure these correlations can easily be made. One day we see a set up and the next day it's down. A lot of it has to do with market timing. The more thinly collected the card or set the more volatility there can be. In type collecting, as I do, even one player leaving can drastically affect "a" card price. I paid around 3500 for this one, then a bunch more came out. I would be lucky to get 1000 for it today. On other cards I have done opposite.

[Econteachert205]

Thanks for the replies. If I use this scenario in a classroom setting I'll be sure to discuss only widely available, common items like 1970's-80's topps base sets.

[glchen]

I think pricing w/ baseball cards, especially prewar, is very volatile because of low volume. That is, there is very low supply, but there is also very low demand. (That is, it's not like there are 10,000 people actively collecting zeenuts. There are probably less than 50 people actively trying to set build w/ most collectors just trying to pick up one for a type set or if it's a big card like a HOFer.) Therefore if just 5-10 new collectors start collecting the set actively, this can really swing prices. However, if 5-10 existing collectors drop out and decide to sell their sets w/o any new ones coming in, the drops can be substantial as well. I think this is true w/ a lot of prewar sets which can explain some of the huge volatility that can go on some time.