Depressing

[MattyC]

Originally Posted by orly57

But Matty, would you be smiling at Gooden and Strawberry and Mattingly if you had dropped 15k on them during their heyday when they were looking like sure-fire hall of famers? You can smile at the Bo Jackson that you saved up your allowance to buy for a whopping $20. It's a nice memory. But that isn't the case today.

I will be in that exact 15k analogy/boat with my Aaron Judge collection. Will definitely smile at the cards no matter what they are worth down the line. I could sell them at a profit today, but that is not why I collect them. With all baseball cards, I go in thinking of them as sheer expenditures/luxury goods bought for pleasure. If I want to swap some out to buy others down the line and can sell some for profit or breakeven or anything at all, sure that is always nice and optimum, but never the expectation or desire going in. Basically, I walk into Vegas expecting to lose the whole wad.

Originally Posted by Big Ben

Ok. I get that. I use that rational when I purchase a pre World War II card. I fully understand the price fluctuations that can happen in the hobby. But if you paid let’s say $1,000 for a newer card and the value drops precipitously in the following years after the purchase, will you be enthusiastic about spending that type of money on a newer card in the future? Personally I would not.

If I am enthusiastic about the player, want him represented in my collection, want the specific card, and can afford the pricetag, I would be fine pulling the trigger again if another modern card I bought lost its value.

There are certainly prospectors and flippers who are into modern solely for a sort of "day trading," if you will. They time their buying and selling with the ebb and flow of achievement/hype/excitement/expectations around a player. In contrast I just collect modern guys I like. It does strike me as odd, the way a prospect's toughest cards will sometimes be priced as if he has already achieved Ruthian status in MLB. But if a seller can get that price, then more power to him. I have seen prices on modern cards for unproven players that dwarf the price of a nice Mantle or other elite HOFer. I don't agree with it, personally, but not my place to say other than in the holstering of my wallet. But I holster it for some PreWar or PostWar cards that are considered amazing and valuable. Just personal preference, end of day.