Health of Asset Class - Over/Under 1955 Topps Koufax PSA 9

[BobC]

As an alternative way to look at things in regard to atypical or non-ordinary types of investments, at least with sports cards you still have an actual physical asset to back it up, totally unlike things like NFTs or digital currencies. Is that really any different than the vast number of publicly traded company stocks existing today that never have, and likely never will, pay any of their investors any dividends? When you own shares of such publicly traded companies you technically own a piece of all the physical assets that make up that company. Is that really any different than if you own a fractional piece of a sports card(s)?

Now if you say the big difference is that the publicly traded company is operating and is in business, and can therefore grow its value by expanding and making more money, while the sports card(s) doesn't grow or produce anything, that is true. But then the publicly traded company also has a much greater chance of having a major downturn in business, reducing their value, or changes to technologies and markets, that will eventually negatively affect them. Just look at retail companies like Sears or J.C. Penny, and how changing technology and markets impacted businesses like them. Meanwhile, I don't think anyone has to worry about Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb suddenly getting injured or having a bad year, so that the interest and demand for their cards go down. So on some levels, investing in such "blue chip" sports cards may actually be a lot smarter, and maybe even more conservative, than investing in many companies on the stock markets.

But then what about investing in things like precious metals, gold for example. Gold in and of itself doesn't produce or generate any income whatsoever, unlike the ability a publicly traded company has. In that respect, gold is really no different than a sports card, and its value is totally subject to the whims of the public at large. (However, I do realize that gold does have an industrial application and multiple uses as an actual metal, but that its value would be considerably less than it is if that were the only factor in determining what gold is worth.) Gold prices fluctuate on perceived market value by the public at large. And what is also interesting is that the supply of gold is ever growing. To my knowledge, there is still gold being found and mined today. So, in the ever-present law of supply and demand, one would normally assume that as more gold is mined, once the industrial demands have been satisfied of course, that any excess production would cause gold prices to continually drop over time as there is constantly more and more of it available in the world, and unlike other resources such as oil or coal, it is not a consumable resource. And another question to then ask, why is gold (and silver to a somewhat lesser extent) viewed as such a universal currency/commodity? Why did humans originally pick and assign this value to gold (and silver), and not so to other elements and resources, like say zinc, iron, or copper, that all have much more practical and useful purposes in our society today? Is it at all possible because early humans found gold (and silver) deposits, and even though they didn't really have any practical uses for them at that time, they liked and were attracted to them because they were shiny, and early humans liked to collect and keep such shiny things that for some reason made them happy? And then over time, as more and more early humans started populating the Earth, this somewhat universal desire and attraction to these shiny metals they all liked to collect (and you can include the shiny stones (diamonds, rubies, etc.) as well) turned into some of the first forms of universally recognized currency among these early humans. And because the human animal, and all its instincts and traits, are really no different today than it was back then, this intrinsic and instinctual desire to collect and hold such things, shiny or not, is still embedded in our human thinking and being today. And those early human instincts and desires have of course been passed down through the thousands of years, till today. So maybe that is why we all view gold and silver as such valuable alternative currencies today, because early man like to collect the shiny stuff! (And that maybe helps to better explain why the modern card collectors are so attracted to the "shiny stuff" themselves. Card companies finally caught on and invoked those early human animal instincts to attract the new, younger collectors out there. LOL)

Things like gold/silver, and even digital currencies that are still being mined and constantly added to as far as supply is concerned, have made millionaires of countless many people, especially younger people today that have gone full into many of these new types of investments. And people trade and invest in them with no true intrinsic value other than mostly people see them as a type of alternative currency if you will. So why not the same potential view and treatment as such an investment with baseball or other cards that are highly desired and collected among a large part of the world's population? The bottom line is, God forbid we have a nuclear war that destroys most of the human population and that turns the world back into the dark ages, or even worse. But you know what, regardless of how bad things may have then become, some humans will come across a piece of gold or silver jewelry, or maybe a couple of baseball cards (especially the shiny ones LOL) that somehow survived the devastation and destruction, and will grab and keep and cherish them as their valuable and prized collectibles. And then who knows, maybe in future millennia baseball/sports cards end up becoming a universally recognized de facto currency for a new world.

Human nature!!!!!!