Looking for cardboard investment

[SAllen2556]

I understand the OP's intent isn't to spend his kids' inheritance here, but as a simple collector I've always found the idea of "investing" in this hobby to be an interesting topic. Investing in baseball cards feels similar to investing in art - risky at best and very foolish if you're not an expert in the field. What cards have truly out-performed the safer investment markets like the stock market, bonds, etc.? If you had $50k to invest, who in their right mind would invest in sports cards as their primary investment? I'd much rather own a piece of property, for example. It seems like some people use the "investing" justification to fuel what could best be termed an addiction! (Again, I understand this was not the intent or situation of the OP.)

If you went back to, say, 1985, what cards could you have purchased that would have beaten the stock market or real estate over the last 30 years? I think of my parents' house in 1985 worth about $50k then, that today would sell for around $200k today. Could you have beaten that with sports cards? Wagner and Mantle come to mind, but who back then would have believed the prices today would be what they are? Just think if you'd purchased $50k worth of 1985 Topps baseball cards…yuck!

What if you had purchased the entire 1914 Cracker Jack set, or every t206 card except the biggies back then, would you, in fact, be ahead? It's fun to think about the whole time-machine thing and what you could have invested in vs. what you actually did. In 1978 I paid $5 for a 1953 Topps Al Rosen because I was 12 and it was the first "old" card I'd ever seen and I had to have it. It had two holes in it and today is worth about….$3, maybe.

[T206Collector]

It all depends on circumstance. In 1997, I bought two raw T206s from a friend - a T206 Bender Portrait for $150 and a T206 Matty White Cap for $350. Today the Bender is in an SGC 50 holder and worth about what I paid for it nearly 20 years ago. The Matty is in an SGC 60 holder and worth about 3 times what I paid for it 20 years ago. It's all in the details!

[btkpath]

I am clearly partial, but the 1914 Cracker Jacks offer a beautiful, iconic set that will be challenging, but not impossible, contains some of the hobby's iconic cards and which is in a mini-slump at the moment, with lots of inventory available at this point and coming up in future auctions.

[Leon]

If I had 10k to 15k a yr to spend, and wanted to complete a set with a lot of variables and interest, I would look at T205. It is doable and has so many ways to collect it you can do almost anything you want to. Come to think of it, I think it might be the most interesting and beautiful set I can think of. I have always thought that though, from my first T205 Johnson in a PSA 7 holder (from my auction partner when I barely knew him) around 15 yrs ago.....to today. Just a great set. As for it being an investment, buy the right cards at the right price and I don't think you will lose money. And I couldn't be happier than knowing this Cobb (from my collection just sold) ended up in one of my favorite hobbyist's collection.

[Bosox Blair]

For me, if you want upside you have to avoid cards that have already recently run up - so that rules out T206 and 1914CJ.

I agree with Leon: I think T205 would be interesting to collect and prices are low now. On the E-card side there are lots of good options - E-card pricing is generally way down from its all-time highs 8-9 years ago. As the OP indicated E95 would be a good set to build in very nice shape for not a great amount of money. Or an E93 or E92 set (but not the super-tough ones like Nadja or Red Crofts).

Have fun (and patience)!

Cheers,
Blair

[Mick]

I've decided to do the T205. As Blair said, they have been extremely flat for a number of years, are fairly available for less than knee bucking prices and are freakin sweet to look at.

I scored my first one today. A Chance PSA 6.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by Mick

I've decided to do the T205. As Blair said, they have been extremely flat for a number of years, are fairly available for less than knee bucking prices and are freakin sweet to look at.

I scored my first one today. A Chance PSA 6.

Great choice mick! Alot of info on them in this forum and the arcived areas. Good luck!

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by Mick

I've decided to do the T205. As Blair said, they have been extremely flat for a number of years, are fairly available for less than knee bucking prices and are freakin sweet to look at.

I scored my first one today. A Chance PSA 6.

Nice choice, a great looking set. Should I decide to try to build a set again this would be near the top of my pre-war list.

[Mick]

Well it turns out I DIDNT buy a 6. The seller had mixed in photos of a graded 6 with close ups of his raw, terrible card.

I've bought hundreds of cards, and missed the subtleties of his scam.

At least I didn't pay!

[begsu1013]

key word is "investing".

time is money. multiple shipping charges costs more money. when time to sell, all those scans/listings take more time and money...unless you consign.

if your primary focus is the investment side, keep it simple. 1 card. highest possible grade you can afford.

51/52 mantle comes to mind. again, for investment purposes.

if you want to build a pre-war set for fun, then that's a completely different animal.

don't mix investing and pleasure.

if you're looking for pleasure, find a roulette table. preferably one w/o the double 00. throw it down on black and lemme know how ya did.

[the 'stache]

Mick, good choice with the T205 set. The cards are beautiful, and you should get a lot of enjoyment from them while you own them.

As others have alluded to, you need to exercise caution when buying. This Chance auction had all kinds of red flags--2 feedback, nothing sold within the last year, obviously no history of selling cards from the same era, and pictures that anybody could find on the internet. Not only that, but there are two different cards pictured. One in a PSA slab, and another in a top loader. A cursory inspection of the two pictures shows it's clearly not the same card. Look at the left inside border. Look at the wear patterns, and different blemishes.



This is an auction you should run away from as fast as you can. It's not surprising that the seller is getting confrontational now. They're scam artists.

Don't ever hesitate to ask questions before you bid/buy. Ask the seller to provide a picture of their business card, or their EBay user name alongside the card. If they are unwilling to do this, that's a red flag. As the consumer, you need to be proactive, because while this was "only" $350, there will be more expensive cards out there. You want to establish good buying habits. They will serve you well.

The BST here is an excellent resource. If you buy off site, and are unsure if the card(s) you are considering are legit, ask questions of the members here. We all try to police the hobby, and help each other out.

Good luck with your collection!

Bill

[rjackson44]

buy what you like😀😀😀

[aljurgela]

Generally I would be reluctant to buy JUST for the hope of making $. Unless you get "lucky" with a low price (rare these days), you have substantially more transaction costs when selling through eBay or auction houses. Basically, if you buy a set for $10k today and you need to sell it tomorrow, you will need to get $11.5k just to break even on your fees.

If you are looking at a 10% return in a year, you need to identify something that will increase by 25% in a year. That is tough.

This said, if you want to look for the long term, I would go with something that is "relatively" undervalued. I could post again my thoughts on a "market cap" dynamic that I believe will balance in time, but we do not know when that time is. In general, my market cap philosophy goes as follows...

If you believe that Babe Ruth is the best player ever, the combined value of his cards should be worth more than anyone else. Of course this theory does not lack for holes (some of the more notable: availability of issue, entry price point can exclude certain would be purchasers - which is why companies have stock splits and Berkshire Hathaway has two classes of shares, beauty of the issue, etc.). But in general, if there were only 10 Ruth rookies and 10 Mantle rookies, you would expect the Ruth rookies to be "valued" more... right?

I have done some math on the # of graded cards of some key HOFers and my analysis generally leads me to the conclusion that certain players are over-valued and some are undervalued.

In general, players from the 50's (Mantle, Mays, Clemente, Aaron) tend to be over-valued from this perspective as do some "outliers" like Wagner and Plank (for obvious T206 reasons). Ruth is still cheap (at least the rookies) in my opinion as are a number of Negro Leaguers (I am very biased here, but the data supports it).

Sets are tougher to do this with. I would focus on ones that you can easily sell, if need be. The Cracker Jacks and T206 recommendations are "safe" from my opinion, but there are a number of cool options.

Best advice is get what you like as you may be "stuck" with it.

Best of luck.