Are We Slaves To The Registry?

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I was dumbfounded what people were paying; the thing was the Tigers that came out of the sealed inner pack (he was on the bottom) usually had some corner wear so it wasn't like you could buy a set and be assured of a 9 or 10, not even close. But pay they did. To put it in perspective after his recent win they rebounded from worthless to the low 100s.

I was just having the conversation yesterday with my twin brother about cards and how one of the draw backs from collecting wrestling is that it is obviously a work so you don't have that ability to speculate on their performance like you do sports cards. The closest thing to a real competitor in the true sense of the word is Brock Lesnar and his cards haven't really moved in any significant fashion.

The recent surge in many of these top star cards can directly be attributed to their actual performance and that correlation is quite appealing to people.

There is a guy on Twitter Gary Vee that has recently been pumping sports card collecting from the investment angle and it seems reasonable that this past performance just like in stocks is going to bring in new money. This guy appears to be buying large lots of various cards and it doesn't take much of this activity to send prices soaring.

I don't know if it is a good sign or a bad one when speculators like this come in with gobs of cash because on one hand it is bullish on the other it could lead to a serious imbalance in the market and an eventual serious decline.

People do like to speculate and these enormous gains have really been incredible to watch. It is pretty remarkable that a Tom Brady card sold for 400k.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Jeter hasn't played in years and his cards have surged tremendously in the past two months. Baffling to me. Maybe it's Gary's doing?

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Jeter hasn't played in years and his cards have surged tremendously in the past two months. Baffling to me. Maybe it's Gary's doing?

It could be.

Obviously everyone by now knows who Evan Mathis is but to my knowledge he is the only high profile collector/dealer that was a professional athlete that is really known in the hobby. I am sure there are others but he is pretty visible. If more athletes or entertainers ever get involved it will get really crazy.

Lets say someone comes to me with their million dollars and says Dave I want to get this put to work right away. You can buy this sum of almost anything in the financial markets and not move it too much unless it is a micro cap stock and that wouldn't involve me anyway.

You can't say the same thing in cards. I could see "investors" coming in and saying lets get some cash put to work and if a Jeter used to be 4k they could easily move it to 6k just by trying to allocate some funds. The price elasticity of cards is really high and fresh capital can create a tidal wave.

Look at that guy Nat Turner with basketball. He has clearly moved cards in that market.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

It could be.

Obviously everyone by now knows who Evan Mathis is but to my knowledge he is the only high profile collector/dealer that was a professional athlete that is really known in the hobby. I am sure there are others but he is pretty visible. If more athletes or entertainers ever get involved it will get really crazy.

Lets say someone comes to me with their million dollars and says Dave I want to get this put to work right away. You can buy this sum of almost anything in the financial markets and not move it too much unless it is a micro cap stock and that wouldn't involve me anyway.

You can't say the same thing in cards. I could see "investors" coming in and saying lets get some cash put to work and if a Jeter used to be 4k they could easily move it to 6k just by trying to allocate some funds. The price elasticity of cards is really high and fresh capital can create a tidal wave.

Look at that guy Nat Turner with basketball. He has clearly moved cards in that market.

Clearly in 2016 people moved prices on certain rookies quite significantly. And not to say it yet again, but man did I take grief from certain people in making the claim that the market was being manipulated or whatever verb you want to use.

[Dpeck100]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Clearly in 2016 people moved prices on certain rookies quite significantly. And not to say it yet again, but man did I take grief from certain people in making the claim that the market was being manipulated or whatever verb you want to use.

Some of those cards will never sell for those prices again. Others are in the process of rebounding and in the case of Jeter new highs have been made.

Once something is off the ground it can take on a mind of its own. What is the difference between 10k and 11k? Obviously $1,000 but it is only 10% at that point. How does one determine if something is worth $10,500 to them or $10,800? Beats the hell out of me.