Liquidity & Investing vs collecting

[botn]

I have never needed a card to trade constantly in order to ascertain it's value and I have been dealing and collecting successfully for 25 years. I also do not define liquidity in this market as something which is based on the frequency that item trades. Liquidity and market efficiency has never really been a problem in the hobby for me as a buyer or a seller.

As for your example of the 86 F Jordan vs the 34 G Gehrig I would feel much safer placing my money in the Gehrig but I do think your comparison is like comparing apples to oranges. Historical pricing, before 2015 on both of those cards would support my reasoning. If my memory is correct the Jordan 10 USED to be a 100K card. Regardless this post sounded more like a commercial for the 86 Fleer Jordan...

[pokerplyr80]

A BGS 10 Jordan has sold for 100k. I believe this sale took place when a PSA 10 Jordan was in the 10-15k range. They're much more rare.

Whether or not the PSA 10 Jordan is still a good investment at it's current all time high valuation remains to be seen and is an interesting topic for a discussion. I think it is.

[BeanTown]

its all about risk/reward. Gehrig would be a slower more stable investment for long term. Jordan will have huge price jumps in both directions depending on the current market when the card is sold. Both players are special and very Iconic to their sport they dominated while playing. The Population from Gehrig is ten times more rarer than the Jordan, but we all know scarcity doesn't always mean value. One last thought, is Gehrig's story is over and his Legend continues, and Jordan is still writing his. If the unthinkable happend to Jordan where he got caugh in a scandle or committed a violent crime... Then that would really affect the value on his card too. I love both Jordan and Gehrig and I actually have both their rookie cards.

[kickitup]

It's not a commercial for Jordan cards... None of which I even own.

It's an example that although there are a large number of a certain card available doesn't mean that is bad. It also doesn't mean it's not still under priced.

How many people are going to pay 300k right now for a PSA 9 1934 Lou Gehrig (10x the Jordan card) ?? Maybe 5-10 people max. That doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have the Gehrig card... All I am saying is that if I have 300k to 'invest', 10 Jordan cards might be the better investment. Why u might ask?

Ok say another awesome cardboard wonder comes along that you can't do without? Are you going to call you card broker to go sell that Gehrig? Or are you going to send Brent at Pwcc a couple Jordan PSA 10s to pay for that Ernie banks PSA 8 and George Brett PSA 10? Cards like Jordan rookies are almost as good as cash... They are liquid. Rare high end cards are too, but they are way tougher to move in a pinch.

These cards are becoming commodities with real value ... Real liquid value with someone like Pwcc taking them as payment for winnings .

[markf31]

Originally Posted by kickitup

It's not a commercial for Jordan cards... None of which I even own.

It's an example that although there are a large number of a certain card available doesn't mean that is bad. It also doesn't mean it's not still under priced.

How many people are going to pay 300k right now for a PSA 9 1934 Lou Gehrig (10x the Jordan card) ?? Maybe 5-10 people max. That doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have the Gehrig card... All I am saying is that if I have 300k to 'invest', 10 Jordan cards might be the better investment. Why u might ask?

Ok say another awesome cardboard wonder comes along that you can't do without? Are you going to call you card broker to go sell that Gehrig? Or are you going to send Brent at Pwcc a couple Jordan PSA 10s to pay for that Ernie banks PSA 8 and George Brett PSA 10? Cards like Jordan rookies are almost as good as cash... They are liquid. Rare high end cards are too, but they are way tougher to move in a pinch.

These cards are becoming commodities with real value ... Real liquid value with someone like Pwcc taking them as payment for winnings .

We have a perfect example going on right now related to this argument.

Here we have a 1915 Cracker Jack - Joe Jackson on Ebay being consigned through PWCC:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1915-Cracker...0AAOSwNsdXSg9R

The current bid on the card is $63,800 with over 13 hours still to go (as of this posting)

This exact same example was purchased in a 2009 Heritage auction for $41,825 (incl BP).
http://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-ca.../a/714-81128.s

It was purchsed again in a 2011 Paragon auction for $55,612 (incl BP).
http://paragonauctionsite.com/LotDet...nventoryid=375

Since the current PWCC listing reached a bid of $55,555 (which for this argument I will say is close enough to equal to the previous Paragon sale including BP) there have been 9 unique bidders on the PWCC eBay listing. To your point about how many people might be interested in such a card "Maybe 5-10 people max" this listing is currently right inside your estimate but with 13 hours still to go the number of unique bidders above that mark could increase.

We can revisit this specific example tonight once the PWCC listing ends, but the fact we have a relevant example to study and apply in this discussion is interesting.

[packs]

Anyone who is willing to put $300K into cards as an investment in their future is nuts. The only people spending $300K on cards are high rollers who don't even need to see a return. I would say the same is probably true for everyone who's purchased that Joe Jax card too. I would be very surprised to hear about anyone laying out their life savings on a card who was just a normal person who managed to save 60K.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

Anyone who is willing to put $300K into cards as an investment in their future is nuts. The only people spending $300K on cards are high rollers who don't even need to see a return. I would say the same is probably true for everyone who's purchased that Joe Jax card too. I would be very surprised to hear about anyone laying out their life savings on a card who was just a normal person who managed to save 60K.

Why nuts? I would guess if you took a basket of elite graded cards and compared the rate of return on them to the stock market or most other investments over the last 20 or 10 or 5 years, the cards would have a better rate of return.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Why nuts? I would guess if you took a basket of elite graded cards and compared the rate of return on them to the stock market or most other investments over the last 20 or 10 or 5 years, the cards would have a better rate of return.

My personal experience agrees with you wholeheartedly.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by packs

Anyone who is willing to put $300K into cards as an investment in their future is nuts. The only people spending $300K on cards are high rollers who don't even need to see a return. I would say the same is probably true for everyone who's purchased that Joe Jax card too. I would be very surprised to hear about anyone laying out their life savings on a card who was just a normal person who managed to save 60K.

+1. IMHO, the big bucks spenders are NOT purchasing for investment--money is the least of their concerns. They are buying legitimately desirable items, are not concerned with cost, and are simply trying to put together the very best collections possible for purposes of pride and enjoyment.

Happy collecting,

Larry

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

+1. IMHO, the big bucks spenders are NOT purchasing for investment--money is the least of their concerns. They are buying legitimately desirable items, are not concerned with cost, and are simply trying to put together the very best collections possible for purposes of pride and enjoyment.

Happy collecting,

Larry

You either haven't been reading the board or didn't understand what has been plainly said, imo. They ARE purchasing for investment.
Put a very high grade '52 Mick out there or a T206 Wags....or many, many of the high grade HOF rookies and there are a LOT of investors.. not buying for collecting and unfortunately they barely know what they are buying except pieces of paper in plastic. The cards are almost secondary to some....AND NOT for enjoyment.

A board member investor who has shown hundreds of thousands of $$ in cards on this board asked another board member, privately yesterday, what a flip was. Not quite a collector I would say.... But maybe what ALL of my friends in the hobby are telling me is wrong. (and many see who is bidding as they are auctioneers) Don't be foolish, there are a ton of investors in the hobby right now.


ps. Congrats on the CJ Bob...

.

[begsu1013]

Originally Posted by markf31

We can revisit this specific example tonight once the PWCC listing ends, but the fact we have a relevant example to study and apply in this discussion is interesting.

i snagged the cj jax. im sure there is some flawed history to this example, several will claimed it's altered/trimmed, gasp at the price, tell me that i am a fool or all the above.

in reality, i could care less. ive always wanted this card and wasn't gonna settle for one that i wasn't visually happy with. my chances dont come up very often.

tell me im an idiot and i'd probably agree, but in less than 3 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the card itself and the '19 world series and the idiot will have it and smiling.

study long, study wrong.

edit: typo change '16 to '19...leaving the retarded verbage of the 100 yr anniversary to prove the idiot part though.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by begsu1013

i snagged the cj jax. im sure there is some flawed history to this example, several will claimed it's altered/trimmed, gasp at the price, tell me that i am a fool or all the above.

in reality, i could care less. ive always wanted this card and wasn't gonna settle for one that i wasn't visually happy with. my chances dont come up very often.

tell me im an idiot and i'd probably agree, but in less than 3 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the card itself and the '16 world series and the idiot will have it and smiling.

study long, study wrong.

Last year was the 100 year anniversary of the card. I think you mean that in 3 years it will be the 100 year anniversary of the Black Sox scandal.

In any case, congratulations.

[begsu1013]

yes. it's late, it was a long thread, im tired.


oh. and f the peanuts, gimme some cracker jacks.

[pokerplyr80]

Congratulations on the pick up. I think the price was pretty reasonable given the quality of the card.

[botn]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

A BGS 10 Jordan has sold for 100k. I believe this sale took place when a PSA 10 Jordan was in the 10-15k range. They're much more rare.

Whether or not the PSA 10 Jordan is still a good investment at it's current all time high valuation remains to be seen and is an interesting topic for a discussion. I think it is.

Was referring to a time before you were in the hobby, not since VCP has reported sales--2015. I was wrong however, the Jordan did not used to sell for 100K but when it was a much lower population card it was selling for over 40K. There was a dentist who used to post ads in SCD buying certain cards from the set for obscene numbers. This was probably 15 years ago.

[Peter_Spaeth]

There was a dealer back in the day who used to bring his Jordan 9s (among other things, he had huge volumes of cards) to the Parsippany NJ show and he told me they would always bump a certain percentage of them into 10s. The show bump phenomenon made me pretty cynical about grading at least at the upper levels.

[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by botn

Was referring to a time before you were in the hobby, not since VCP has reported sales--2015. I was wrong however, the Jordan did not used to sell for 100K but when it was a much lower population card it was selling for over 40K. There was a dentist who used to post ads in SCD buying certain cards from the set for obscene numbers. This was probably 15 years ago.

Yea that's pretty crazy. That dentist could have been buying up PSA 8 52 Mantles for 40k instead of the Jordans at that time. It looks like a few years later in 2006 they were going for 5k.