Card Prices During Recessions

[paleocards]

I track sold prices on eBay and AHs for all of my "blue chips" (see the other active thread for "blue chip" def'n - haha). Here's some of the average annual sale data I've collected:

T206 Tris Speaker PSA 5 (although this one doesn't go back to the 2008 recession, it's the oldest pre-war in my collection with these data collected)
2010 avg: $914.38
2011 avg: $780.40
2012 avg: $935.75
2013 avg: $1,147.82
2014 avg: $1,068.84
2015 avg: $1,092.89
2016 avg: $1,201.60
2017 avg: $1,183.66
2018 avg: $1,245.96
2019 avg: $2,944.19
2020 avg: $2,007.92
2021 avg: $3,065.00
2022 avg: $3,961.97

1954 #10 Jackie Robinson PSA 8
2007 avg: $813.07
2008 avg: $903.90
2009 avg: $782.68
2010 avg: $773.74
2011 avg: $1,108.24
2012 avg: $1,009.19
2013 avg: $1,176.84
2014 avg: $1,257.32
2015 avg: $1,448.63
2016 avg: $1,624.36
2017 avg: $1,687.01
2018 avg: $1,944.51
2019 avg: $2,660.84
2020 avg: $3,509.34
2021 avg: $7,301.32
2022 avg: $7,883.44

1955 Topps #123 Sandy Koufax RC PSA 7
2008 avg: $882.62
2009 avg: $909.13
2010 avg: $850.15
2011 avg: $915.60
2012 avg: $1,034.23
2013 avg: $1,285.43
2014 avg: $1,249.50
2015 avg: $1,690.90
2016 avg: $3,639.44
2017 avg: $2,632.69
2018 avg: $2,615.77
2019 avg: $2,553.74
2020 avg: $3,357.98
2021 avg: $8,282.95
2022 avg: $7,081.04

1959 Topps #514 Bob Gibson RC PSA 8
2005 avg: $667.04
2006 avg: $619.34
2007 avg: $672.12
2008 avg: $765.71
2009 avg: $854.03
2010 avg: $780.13
2011 avg: $817.88
2012 avg: $838.16
2013 avg: $933.05
2014 avg: $1,262.72
2015 avg: $1,486.38
2016 avg: $2,279.96
2017 avg: $2,018.58
2018 avg: $2,070.23
2019 avg: $2,178.16
2020 avg: $2,749.59
2021 avg: $6,292.13
2022 avg: $6,281.35

The take-away from these data for me are that blue chip baseball cards are a good (long-term) investment. There seems to be a consistent dip in sale prices in the year or two post-recession (2009, 2010) but they all re-gained those losses and continued to appreciate. And of course, the last two years' gains have been unprecedented.