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

[jsfriedm]

As far as the really high end, I don't think this was an isolated incident. In Heritage's August auction, they had a 1952 Topps Mantle SGC 9 for which they had an estimate of $6 million+. They started the bidding at 2 mil, and three days before closing it had only reached 2.35, when they posted a 4.5 million reserve. Half an hour before the end of the auction they suddenly reduced the reserve to 3.75 and got one bid, so they could say it sold, for 4.5 million. In the same auction, they had a 1933 Goudey Ruth 144 PSA 8.5 with an estimated value of 1.5 mil+ that barely made it to 1 million. I do think there are signs of softness at the high end.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by jsfriedm

As far as the really high end, I don't think this was an isolated incident. In Heritage's August auction, they had a 1952 Topps Mantle SGC 9 for which they had an estimate of $6 million+. They started the bidding at 2 mil, and three days before closing it had only reached 2.35, when they posted a 4.5 million reserve. Half an hour before the end of the auction they suddenly reduced the reserve to 3.75 and got one bid, so they could say it sold, for 4.5 million. In the same auction, they had a 1933 Goudey Ruth 144 PSA 8.5 with an estimated value of 1.5 mil+ that barely made it to 1 million. I do think there are signs of softness at the high end.

Those are some fun data points.

I think for those of us that are chasing a lot of high end stuff, there's sometimes a bit of confirmation bias. We're chasing some nice stuff down (even just tracking it for market research purposes), and it always seems to sell for a crazy price. We see a few other pieces that go to the moon, and our lazy minds just assume that everything at the top end is going for all-time highs. If we see something that sells for less than the last few comps, we discount it as an aberration.

Obviously the data points you highlighted help to paint a more nuanced picture.

[Rhotchkiss]

I agree the AH likely had little to do with the pricing. I also think the Mantle and Ruth examples above indicate that there is some softening for high-end commodity cards, which I think makes sense. I also think it may something to do with the fact that this was the 5th PSA 9 to trade in two years, 3 of which have sold in the last 6 months, adding validity to the theory that the "other bidder" wasn't there on this one to push the price to nearly $400k. Or perhaps that extra 1-2 bidders were not there because its much more attractive to have cash like that liquid, earning 5%, than in cardboard that may be sitting at top-of-the-market values.

Personally, I think its all of the above, but mainly I think we are seeing a sensible repricing on commodity-cards, which I note, tend to still be well above where things were before the pandemic (thus Adam's point).