More T206 price escalation?

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

Any way you slice it, many aspects of the "hobby", including high grade T206s, is moving more toward being an investment and attracting a new audience of investors or bringing back an old audience of collectors who are now buying for investment too.

For sure, but I think that sustained investment capital will not continue as long as auction houses are permitted to bid on their own lots and fraud is still so rampant. There are easier investment waters to navigate.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by calvindog

For sure, but I think that sustained investment capital will not continue as long as auction houses are permitted to bid on their own lots and fraud is still so rampant. There are easier investment waters to navigate.

I agree AH's shouldn't be able to bid in their own auctions. That said, and as devil's advocate.....and beside the point they get to see the bids (my main reason they shouldn't be able to bid as well as paying commissions), why? If I am a consignor and you bid 1000 and the AH bids 1100, why is that bad for me? I am getting more for my consignment. Again, just being devil's advocate. I absolutely agree though.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by Leon

I agree AH's shouldn't be able to bid in their own auctions. That said, and as devil's advocate.....and beside the point they get to see the bids (my main reason they shouldn't be able to bid as well as paying commissions), why? If I am a consignor and you bid 1000 and the AH bids 1100, why is that bad for me? I am getting more for my consignment. Again, just being devil's advocate. I absolutely agree though.

I'm not suggesting that fraud/AH's bidding on their own lots while seeing the bidding hurts the consignors. It will keep rich guys who may want to invest heavily in the hobby away, because they know these are not true auctions but instead just give the appearance of chance when in truth the AH's are fixing the bidding when they deem appropriate. And while the consignors may win in the short term with this sort of AH fixing, in the long run we all lose because keeping out major investment dollars from the hobby will keep values down.

[Touch'EmAll]

The higher T206 prices - remember its demand relative to supply (or vice versa, haha). To us here on this board, yes, T206's seem high supply compared to other cards we collect. However, I argue there is still not that many nice T206 HOFers really out there compared to a lot of stuff (1950's everything, 1960's everything). And the fact that A LOT of folks would like to own the fabled T206's, demand, is really high. Higher than any other pre-war set. I can easily imagine a new investment collector coming into the market - what are they going to look at - probably starts with nice HOFer T206's, no?