HBO's Real Sports Will Cover Baseball Card Boom

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Yep, as well it should be. Things just don't surge naturally the way so many cards have. But enthusiastic participants want to believe they are making savvy buys on an ever upward slope— and that belief is seemingly supported by a reality created by the AH's and TPGs that are in cahoots (and now even incestuously co-owned).

We all long knew of the cozy relationship between AHs and TPGs. The favorable grades given. The direct lines of contact between the AH heads and Orlando. The "Invitationals" where high-volume submitters/doctors were granted physical audience with the graders, where the doctors were actually told what to fix on a card, to get the card into a higher graded holder. All this shade has long been out in the open, so it amazes me there are people who believe the price surges of the past two years are due solely to natural demand and new money. After all, one part of creating a trap/bubble is the drawing in of new money who believe there is a real market developing. That belief is nutured and fostered by the prices that the AHs record.

Is there genuine demand at some level? Of course; it's the mass of collectors who form that key backbone of genuine demand; then the shady AHs and TPGs stand on that backbone to take things to where they are now.

We can only hope something happens to catalyze a massive correction; that may only be collectors all abstaining, which is impossible, LOL. Theoretically, if collectors left the sordid sandbox, that would leave just a bunch of manipulators passing the hot potato around with no marks in sight. Then maybe they'd just leave— and we'd see what prices look like then.

Of course, when collectors returned, so would the manipulators. And as prices rose once again, too many myopic mark collectors would break out their pom-poms to cheer their rising card values, not realizing all else they're cheering for— which includes more money out of their pockets due to higher prices, LOL.

+1 you’re the only other guy I’ve seen on here mention invitationals being able to sit and talk one on one with the grader how shady was that. I hope they stoped doing those.