Still crazy prices

[SyrNy1960]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Was looking at the Goldin app this morning and see in an upcoming auction a $37,000 bid for an Anthony Edwards relic card. $45,000 with buyer's premium. Auction doesn't close for 18 days, so maybe this ultimately hits six figures.

Great young player, but people are still spending six figures on this stuff after all that has happened in the last few years? Unreal to me. Same auction has a 48 Leaf Jackie card with a top bid so far of $6,000.

Either I am a dummy and don't appreciate a great investment when its staring me in the face or others are delusional.

I'll never understand it. The insane prices paid for modern stuff can't last, and the current crazy prices won't be there years from now. Or maybe I'm clueless and delusional.

[parkplace33]

I was one of the ones that thought we would we have more of a pullback in late 2023/early 2024.

I am not seeing that on the really good stuff. Not at all. And I don't think those prices are dropping anytime soon.

[Seven]

Modern continues to baffle me. Any one of these players could get hurt, and have a career altering/ending injury. Babe Ruth hit 714 career home runs. Nothing will ever change that.

Not to mention, vintage has an aspect of actual scarcity involved with it. The Goudey Gum Company isn't making a comeback and printing more Ruths, Gehrigs, Foxxs' etc. There are hundreds of different cards for these young stars nowadays, and the rarity is manufactured. A modern card is only a "one of one" because the company says it is!

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by Seven

Modern continues to baffle me. Any one of these players could get hurt, and have a career altering/ending injury. Babe Ruth hit 714 career home runs. Nothing will ever change that.

Not to mention, vintage has an aspect of actual scarcity involved with it. The Goudey Gum Company isn't making a comeback and printing more Ruths, Gehrigs, Foxxs' etc. There are hundreds of different cards for these young stars nowadays, and the rarity is manufactured. A modern card is only a "one of one" because the company says it is!

Or crash a car speeding and kill a few people. Or push a woman down a flight of stairs in a rage. Or be arrested for abusing your children. Or pull a gun on the wrong hombre. The list is long.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

Or crash a car speeding and kill a few people. Or push a woman down a flight of stairs in a rage. Or be arrested for abusing your children. Or pull a gun on the wrong hombre. The list is long.

Let those of us who haven't shot off a half dozen bullets in our garage in a fit of rage throw the first stone!

[packs]

People are always looking for the next Jordan. They found him in Lebron but that was pretty obvious. Everybody invested in Lebron. But VERY few people saw Steph Curry coming and whoever did is making an absolute killing right now.

I think that's what's going on with players like Zion, Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards, Wemby, etc. It might seem crazy to you today, but if Anthony Edwards takes Steph Curry's seat at the table, there is definitely money to be made.

To bring things back to baseball, Ohtani was the biggest name in baseball when he came to the US in 2018. He had a huge season, generated all kinds of buzz, and his cards were priced really high.

Then he got hurt in 2019 and stunk in 2020. I purchased the card below in 2020 for just under $300.

Today, two MVPs later, I can sell it for $4,500 without even trying:

[marcmandel]

I'll start by saying, that if there was any misperception, I am a lifelong collector of vintage baseball product and love my collection and chasing my lifelong grails. I buy cards that are good stores of value and tend to be those cards chased by some of the more sophisticated buyers as they have taught me and I've enjoyed learning from, and in some ways, following their lead.

This doesn't necessarily imply I only buy "expensive cards" and in truth, I have a few big-boy cards and a few more that are far more moderate.

I see the younger guys daytrading in modern and ultramodern (mostly basketball, some football, etc.) and I see some of them rolling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their PC (Remember SashaT of YouTube Fame?) only to be left with pennies now. In many ways, they did this to themselves and stood vigilant as values sank faster than the Titanic.

I think they've lost their minds in what they bought and more so, how much they spent for what they bought.

Why in God's name would I not buy a wonderful Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and see their value preserved and not waste time with the usual day trading? There is real (not manufactured) scarcity of the old and non-shiny stuff and as we all learn in college freshman economics, basic supply and demand will always dictate value and pricing. The modern stuff is vulnerable and susceptible to manufactured price increases coupled with the whiplash of real-world collapses.

I worry that kids who burn a crap-ton of cash on modern shiny stuff in the hope of making long-term returns are simply delusional.

[Leon]

It is the lure of "easy money". The answer to otherwise stupid things, is many times "money."

And almost daily, don't we see self help articles talking about making cards a business, or side-hussle? I haven't seen many ads about collecting for the fun of it. It's always the money aspect. Don't get me wrong, a lot of us have a good bit of money into the cards, but at the end of the day, it's still fun to collect the old, vintage guys. Except on this forum, and a few other places, one wouldn't know it's a hobby rather than only a business.

The card below beats "shiny" every day for me (but probably not for most of the very young collectors).

Originally Posted by marcmandel

I'll start by saying, that if there was any misperception, I am a lifelong collector of vintage baseball product and love my collection and chasing my lifelong grails. I buy cards that are good stores of value and tend to be those cards chased by some of the more sophisticated buyers as they have taught me and I've enjoyed learning from, and in some ways, following their lead.

This doesn't necessarily imply I only buy "expensive cards" and in truth, I have a few big-boy cards and a few more that are far more moderate.

I see the younger guys daytrading in modern and ultramodern (mostly basketball, some football, etc.) and I see some of them rolling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their PC (Remember SashaT of YouTube Fame?) only to be left with pennies now. In many ways, they did this to themselves and stood vigilant as values sank faster than the Titanic.

I think they've lost their minds in what they bought and more so, how much they spent for what they bought.

Why in God's name would I not buy a wonderful Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and see their value preserved and not waste time with the usual day trading? There is real (not manufactured) scarcity of the old and non-shiny stuff and as we all learn in college freshman economics, basic supply and demand will always dictate value and pricing. The modern stuff is vulnerable and susceptible to manufactured price increases coupled with the whiplash of real-world collapses.

I worry that kids who burn a crap-ton of cash on modern shiny stuff in the hope of making long-term returns are simply delusional.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by marcmandel

I'll start by saying, that if there was any misperception, I am a lifelong collector of vintage baseball product and love my collection and chasing my lifelong grails. I buy cards that are good stores of value and tend to be those cards chased by some of the more sophisticated buyers as they have taught me and I've enjoyed learning from, and in some ways, following their lead.

This doesn't necessarily imply I only buy "expensive cards" and in truth, I have a few big-boy cards and a few more that are far more moderate.

I see the younger guys daytrading in modern and ultramodern (mostly basketball, some football, etc.) and I see some of them rolling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their PC (Remember SashaT of YouTube Fame?) only to be left with pennies now. In many ways, they did this to themselves and stood vigilant as values sank faster than the Titanic.

I think they've lost their minds in what they bought and more so, how much they spent for what they bought.

Why in God's name would I not buy a wonderful Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and see their value preserved and not waste time with the usual day trading? There is real (not manufactured) scarcity of the old and non-shiny stuff and as we all learn in college freshman economics, basic supply and demand will always dictate value and pricing. The modern stuff is vulnerable and susceptible to manufactured price increases coupled with the whiplash of real-world collapses.

I worry that kids who burn a crap-ton of cash on modern shiny stuff in the hope of making long-term returns are simply delusional.

I started collecting in the 80s and it has always been this way. Even in the 90s when the 1/1s and such became popular the nobodies sold for more than the later in their career HOFers. I remember paying $400-$600 for the 1/1 Wade Boggs cards and the "prospects" from the same set would sell for 10 times what Wade sold for.

The modern collectors have a huge turn over in both cards and collectors. It is just a faster paced version of vintage without the huge price drops after the universal pump and dump is over. So really modern is better because after the big pump and dump the prices go back down. In vintage we are also constantly getting hit by the pump and dump but sadly they pump and dump and the prices still stay crazy high.

[BioCRN]

The new stuff is a money game.

Sticking to base stuff of non-high end product (like Topps flagship), you have to open $300-ish worth of product to get a complete set that can be bought outright for $50-ish when it's released later as a full box set.

Some people opening the new stuff outright toss all the base because they only care about the "hits."

One of the last reasonably priced and affordable pack break these days is Topps Big League. Unfortunately, they recently started to SP some of their "base." It's still a welcome affordable entry-level product and I appreciate it's out there in the hobby.

[Touch'EmAll]

To some degree it is good people get into modern. Some of these very same people will eventually gravitate to vintage and fuel our segment of the market. But yeah, crazy, er, just plain stupid, that there is so much money pouring into young players that will never pan out.

[theshowandme]

Your average 20-30 year old card bro will tell you that they do not care about players they never saw play.

Their fathers and grandfathers probably never told them stories of players.

It is all about making the quick buck via a flip.

Nothing wrong with making $, but its a game of hot potato on these scrubs (see the NFL quarterback market) and you do not want to be one of the last few to handle the steaming pile of... potato.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

The more things change...

Back when inserts first became all the rage it was really easy to see that this year's inserts were awesome and valuable, until next year's came out. Most of these cards, some of which went for hundreds or even thousands of dollars, go for a pittance now. A few truly iconic things have held value. Donruss Elite aren't worth what they were but still do well. Upper Deck Autographed Heroes still perform and 1993 Finest Refractors will likely never die as they are the grandfather to all parallels.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

To some degree it is good people get into modern. Some of these very same people will eventually gravitate to vintage and fuel our segment of the market. But yeah, crazy, er, just plain stupid, that there is so much money pouring into young players that will never pan out.

I think I'd prefer they stay away from vintage

[Jstottlemire1]

Originally Posted by marcmandel

I'll start by saying, that if there was any misperception, I am a lifelong collector of vintage baseball product and love my collection and chasing my lifelong grails. I buy cards that are good stores of value and tend to be those cards chased by some of the more sophisticated buyers as they have taught me and I've enjoyed learning from, and in some ways, following their lead.

This doesn't necessarily imply I only buy "expensive cards" and in truth, I have a few big-boy cards and a few more that are far more moderate.

I see the younger guys daytrading in modern and ultramodern (mostly basketball, some football, etc.) and I see some of them rolling hundreds of thousands of dollars into their PC (Remember SashaT of YouTube Fame?) only to be left with pennies now. In many ways, they did this to themselves and stood vigilant as values sank faster than the Titanic.

I think they've lost their minds in what they bought and more so, how much they spent for what they bought.

Why in God's name would I not buy a wonderful Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and see their value preserved and not waste time with the usual day trading? There is real (not manufactured) scarcity of the old and non-shiny stuff and as we all learn in college freshman economics, basic supply and demand will always dictate value and pricing. The modern stuff is vulnerable and susceptible to manufactured price increases coupled with the whiplash of real-world collapses.

I worry that kids who burn a crap-ton of cash on modern shiny stuff in the hope of making long-term returns are simply delusional.

Amen!

[packs]

It seems just as reasonable for someone collecting modern cards to ask why you'd spend more money on a Bill O'Hara card because he's pictured on the Cardinals and not the Giants. Or to question why anyone would pay a few thousand dollars for a card of Louis Lowdermilk.