Goldin 100 auction

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by rlevy

I think you are both correct in that prices are still higher than pre-covid, but have softened a bit lately. Still, hard to tell for sure because so few of these rare jerseys hit the market, unlike 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson or 1952 Topps Mantle cards which are all over the place so easier to spot trends.

It is easiest for me to address the 1955 Koufax jersey as I follow his stuff more closely. It had four things going for it:
1. Koufax jerseys are extremely rare, probably around 10-12 all original jerseys have surfaced to this point.
2. Brooklyn jersey from their only championship year
3. Rookie jersey
4. Condition and originality

I believe the previous high for a Koufax jersey was $750,000 for a 1956 Brooklyn jersey, so $1.8mm blew that number out of the water. But this jersey was the unicorn to high end collectors because of #2 and 3 above, which frankly I don't fully understand in regards to Koufax jerseys.

I'll address #3 first. The "rookie" craze originally started with rookie cards. I understood that the theory back when it started was that we kids played with our cards (flipping them against walls or putting them in our bicycle spokes), damaging them, but you didn't use stars for these purposes. And rookies were expendable because we didn't know who they were, and thus years later were harder to find in good condition. Along the way, somehow the concept of a premium for rookie got applied to rookie jerseys, which makes no sense to me because all teams sent all jerseys down to their minor league teams for further use where they often underwent team name or number changes, or were lost or destroyed. So any jersey from that period stood the same chance of damage or disappearing. So why the premium for a "rookie" jersey just because it is a rookie jersey? Which leads me to #2 above.

Re #2 above. I also don't understand the premium placed on Brooklyn vs LA for Koufax. Sandy did absolutely nothing to help Brooklyn win the title in 1955. I get the "Brooklyn" premium for Snider or Hodges since they were at the tail end of their careers when the team moved to LA and most of their success was in Brooklyn. But to me, a Koufax jersey from Brooklyn, where he wasn't successful and contemplated quitting the game, is less desirable than one from his dominating years in LA 1961-66. It has been a while since one from these years has surfaced, but if it did, I imagine it wouldn't come close to the 1955 jersey sales price.

But I'm probably boring you.

Rick

Hi Rick,
Excellent analysis and FWIW, I couldn't agree with you more on what you shared with the others.