Skyrocketing Card Values Lately - Theories?

[MailboxBaseball]

Yes these are ALL very good points and thanks for the replies.

Do you think once people are less bored and all the sports return, that certain Kobe and Lebron cards will still be so absolutely sky high? Or could we see a decline in these values as we return to normalcy in life globally? Or will they continue to rise until a Kobe rookie refractor is literally more than a t206 honus wagner? Because the Kobe rookie refractors are already doing close to 50k-100k.

[swarmee]

I expect a plummet. There are a lot of sneakerheads (Collectors of basketball shoes) and bitcoin kids and gamblers who are getting in on baseball cards because they're following baseball card savants like Vegas Dave, Gary Vaynerchuck, and other people you've never heard of on Twitter. Most of them are buying up card segments, then telling their followers what is hot, and then seeing their cards skyrocket when those newbies blindly trust what they're being told.

Look at Topps Project 2020 as an example. Cards with print runs of 40K copies started selling for $200 each even though they were printed by Topps days ago. Now they're dropping to $150 > $130 > $100 > $80 > $60 over the course of two weeks. EBay sellers who sold those cards at $140-200 are getting refund requests because these kids didn't think cards could go down!

They're also the reason you can't get any blaster boxes at Wal-Mart and Target; they're buying them up when they hit the shelves (or supposedly extorting the middleman to force them to sell to regional managers instead of ever hitting the store shelves) and then reselling them online for quadruple or more. It's a huge bubble market right now and you can already see the bubble bursting. Now that those kids' PayPal credit cards are due and they're underwater, it's only going to keep sliding.

[MailboxBaseball]

Swarmee,
Thats an interesting take and thanks for providing a specific example and rationale for an upcoming dip in prices potentially.

Thanks for the reply.

Do you think the Lebron insanity taking place in eBay right now is a bubble also?
No joke, some of these cards have seen their values MULTIPLY BY 4 in only 3 months. And the sports not even on right now! Madness.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by MailboxBaseball

Do you think the Lebron insanity taking place in eBay right now is a bubble also?
No joke, some of these cards have seen their values MULTIPLY BY 4 in only 3 months. And the sports not even on right now! Madness.

Current superstars may take longer to drop back than retired guys. This new blood even made nearly worthless sets (like 2012 Panini Prizm Baseball with no MLB logos) have huge gains just because the basketball Prizm cards are valuable. I think once they have sports they can gamble on and stores they can camp out to buy shoes from, they'll take their money elsewhere. Kobe is sky high since he just died at the beginning of this coronavirus stuff, and once he enters the HOF, I think his stuff will gradually drop. They're basically running out of new buyers, and they have to resell their product to afford to buy more.

[irv]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I expect a plummet. There are a lot of sneakerheads (Collectors of basketball shoes) and bitcoin kids and gamblers who are getting in on baseball cards because they're following baseball card savants like Vegas Dave, Gary Vaynerchuck, and other people you've never heard of on Twitter. Most of them are buying up card segments, then telling their followers what is hot, and then seeing their cards skyrocket when those newbies blindly trust what they're being told.

Look at Topps Project 2020 as an example. Cards with print runs of 40K copies started selling for $200 each even though they were printed by Topps days ago. Now they're dropping to $150 > $130 > $100 > $80 > $60 over the course of two weeks. EBay sellers who sold those cards at $140-200 are getting refund requests because these kids didn't think cards could go down!

They're also the reason you can't get any blaster boxes at Wal-Mart and Target; they're buying them up when they hit the shelves (or supposedly extorting the middleman to force them to sell to regional managers instead of ever hitting the store shelves) and then reselling them online for quadruple or more. It's a huge bubble market right now and you can already see the bubble bursting. Now that those kids' PayPal credit cards are due and they're underwater, it's only going to keep sliding.

It was either you, John, or someone else who wrote a post about that? I haven't been following along much but I am not the least bit surprised to read what you just wrote.
I seen these cards on EBay shortly after the last post about this and seen prices in excess of a thousand dollars asking and it just made me shake my head.
Personal opinion, I thought the majority of the cards sucked, but then again I am not an artist by any stretch nor am I a follower of these supposed new wave artists.

[Directly]

Banks paying .002 percent interest offering a whopping 1 percent interest for four years and with the stock market volatility, flipping cards and new boxes making 20-50 percent is attractive right now--?

[sreader3]

White collar men ages 30-70 make the vintage baseball card market. Most are gainfully employed or comfortably retired and many have more cash than places to put it to work right now. You can’t get much ROI in bonds or real estate. Stocks are trading at historically high valuations. So alternative investments like vintage baseball cards are attractive. That seems unlikely to change for a while.

Sure, the vintage baseball card market could crash for a host of reasons. But I heard many of the same arguments in 2008-2009. What happened then is that the market in “commodity” vintage baseball cards (i.e. low- to mid-grade commons) got soft for a couple of years before roaring back. Hall of Famers never dipped much at all. I will add that I have personally sold quite a few mid- to high-grade T206 cards to young professionals in the last couple of years. There is fresh blood in the hobby—and with this fresh blood comes fresh resources.

No doubt current prices are strong. But I think prices are more likely to plateau than drop precipitously. Heck, prices may even continue their relentless ascent. Aside from David Hall’s rare backs, I have not seen a lot of quality T206 offerings come to market recently. Or offerings in other sets for that matter.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I expect a plummet. There are a lot of sneakerheads (Collectors of basketball shoes) and bitcoin kids and gamblers who are getting in on baseball cards because they're following baseball card savants like Vegas Dave, Gary Vaynerchuck, and other people you've never heard of on Twitter. Most of them are buying up card segments, then telling their followers what is hot, and then seeing their cards skyrocket when those newbies blindly trust what they're being told.

I think there is a lot of truth to this. I noticed prices creeping up over a year ago. I am primarily a vintage set builder and I mainly get cards through local card shows and from Greg Morris on eBay. My rule of thumb was I'd pay 30-40% of Beckett high book for cards in EX/NM condition. I used to pick up 10 to 15 cards at a crack, from GM, sticking to that rule. Last year, I was lucky if I could get 2 to 3 and often I would strike out completely. All the other factors mentioned above certainly contribute. But, it all seemed to start with Gary V.

One example really sticks out in my mind. I am three cards away from finishing 1970 Topps. One of those cards is #550, Frank Howard. Beckett shows this card has a $8 high book value. In one recent Greg Morris auction, that card went for nearly $49. I will grant it was NM, but it's centering was 60-40 at best. That is just nuts.

I am also 6 cards from finishing 1968 Topps, one of which is the Ryan rookie card. Right now the prices are outrageous. I have a BGS 4 1956 Mantle that I could probably trade straight up for one. But, I'm more content to wait for the bubble to pop.

[Dpeck100]

On February 28th there was a thread started on this main page about the stock market decline and I was one of the loan bulls on the card market. I remain as bullish as ever.

People just don't understand how many new buyers have entered the market. The number of watchers on marque items have exploded and bid lists are as long as ever.

There has been a fundamental shift in the market and while cards that have gone up 700% in a few months will naturally correct there are other cards that have been in steady long term up trends and have broken out and keep making new highs.

You are not going to see every card go back to even close to where they were and some will just keep going much higher.

I collect wrestling and prices on legends have just exploded. Just when you think they can't go any higher they do. One of the more common sets is the 1985 Topps WWF set. A Hogan 9 has gone from roughly $50 to $300 with numerous sales in the past few months. Will it hold the peak? Maybe. Maybe not but it isn't going back to $50 under any circumstances.

If you look at just the fundamentals of the market and forget about what you think the cards should sell for, it is the strongest the market has ever been in the ten plus years I have been super active. Nothing goes cheap. Anything that anyone thinks should have some value goes at full price or higher. It is what it is.

Those predicting some massive collapse were the first ones last year to say the end was near. Only to be so wrong it is not even funny. Prices that were supposed to collapse for high grade cards did nothing but explode. How anyone can take their predictions seriously is beyond me.

The bottom line is people like cards and will always like cards and when you have a dramatic shift in the demand curve and there isn't an ability to have a dramatic shift in the supply curve you have exploding prices. Then once prices rise people want the stuff even more and you have the perfect storm.

I have always said that prices are predicated on bragging rights and once something is perceived to have value the interest increases and prices go even higher. This is exactly what is taking place.

Will a Jordan 1986 Fleer have a correction of some kind? Sure but it isn't going to get even close to retracting its recent gains and longer term is only going higher.

The bull market is only gaining steam and prices just keep going for so many different cards. Gary V as I stated has certainly helped the market and has brought in so many more eye balls through Twitter but he isn't the only thing driving it. People see rising prices and love hard assets and this game is far from over.

[BobbyVCP]

StockX people are now in the card game like they do with Sneakers. And basketball is their sport of choice 1980-current

[MailboxBaseball]

Originally Posted by BobbyVCP

StockX people are now in the card game like they do with Sneakers. And basketball is their sport of choice 1980-current

I wasnt aware of that, but if its true (and I dont doubt you), then that could also play a factor now and/or in the future.

StockX is hugely popular at least in my area of North Jersey and New York City. Not sure about other places, but I assume theyre pretty well known all around. Thanks for the information!

[glchen]

I've seen this crazy rise, and agree with what most of the other folks in this thread have said. I think some cards will go down (e.g., Mike Trout RC, how good are his career stats going to be if he loses a season in his prime if most of this season is cancelled?) The rest, however, I think are going to stay at the current level with only modest drops, if at all.


The reason behind it is what most of the others have said. If you are employed, with a decent savings/investment account, where else are you going to put your money? This is a lot of the same reason why it seems the stock market is irrationally high even in a deep recession. The Fed is printing money like crazy, yet interest rates are near zero with little inflation. I think folks are treating baseball cards like gold because there are only "limited" quantities of it. And the fact that the values keep going up feeds more of the buying frenzy. If you've had your collection for a few years, it's most likely worth considerably more than what you paid for those cards. So if you sell some of them to lock in the profit, what do you do with that money? I have the feeling that people are just plowing that money right back into buying more cards.

[MailboxBaseball]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

On February 28th there was a thread started on this main page about the stock market decline and I was one of the loan bulls on the card market. I remain as bullish as ever.

People just don't understand how many new buyers have entered the market. The number of watchers on marque items have exploded and bid lists are as long as ever.

There has been a fundamental shift in the market and while cards that have gone up 700% in a few months will naturally correct there are other cards that have been in steady long term up trends and have broken out and keep making new highs.

You are not going to see every card go back to even close to where they were and some will just keep going much higher.

I collect wrestling and prices on legends have just exploded. Just when you think they can't go any higher they do. One of the more common sets is the 1985 Topps WWF set. A Hogan 9 has gone from roughly $50 to $300 with numerous sales in the past few months. Will it hold the peak? Maybe. Maybe not but it isn't going back to $50 under any circumstances.

If you look at just the fundamentals of the market and forget about what you think the cards should sell for, it is the strongest the market has ever been in the ten plus years I have been super active. Nothing goes cheap. Anything that anyone thinks should have some value goes at full price or higher. It is what it is.

Those predicting some massive collapse were the first ones last year to say the end was near. Only to be so wrong it is not even funny. Prices that were supposed to collapse for high grade cards did nothing but explode. How anyone can take their predictions seriously is beyond me.

The bottom line is people like cards and will always like cards and when you have a dramatic shift in the demand curve and there isn't an ability to have a dramatic shift in the supply curve you have exploding prices. Then once prices rise people want the stuff even more and you have the perfect storm.

I have always said that prices are predicated on bragging rights and once something is perceived to have value the interest increases and prices go even higher. This is exactly what is taking place.

Will a Jordan 1986 Fleer have a correction of some kind? Sure but it isn't going to get even close to retracting its recent gains and longer term is only going higher.

The bull market is only gaining steam and prices just keep going for so many different cards. Gary V as I stated has certainly helped the market and has brought in so many more eye balls through Twitter but he isn't the only thing driving it. People see rising prices and love hard assets and this game is far from over.

I think you may have hit it on the head here man! Well stated. Thanks for the thoughts.

[Fuddjcal]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I expect a plummet. There are a lot of sneakerheads (Collectors of basketball shoes) and bitcoin kids and gamblers who are getting in on baseball cards because they're following baseball card savants like Vegas Dave, Gary Vaynerchuck, and other people you've never heard of on Twitter. Most of them are buying up card segments, then telling their followers what is hot, and then seeing their cards skyrocket when those newbies blindly trust what they're being told.

Look at Topps Project 2020 as an example. Cards with print runs of 40K copies started selling for $200 each even though they were printed by Topps days ago. Now they're dropping to $150 > $130 > $100 > $80 > $60 over the course of two weeks. EBay sellers who sold those cards at $140-200 are getting refund requests because these kids didn't think cards could go down!

They're also the reason you can't get any blaster boxes at Wal-Mart and Target; they're buying them up when they hit the shelves (or supposedly extorting the middleman to force them to sell to regional managers instead of ever hitting the store shelves) and then reselling them online for quadruple or more. It's a huge bubble market right now and you can already see the bubble bursting. Now that those kids' PayPal credit cards are due and they're underwater, it's only going to keep sliding.

Darn fool kids