Poll - The Stock Market and Vintage Sales

[Snowman]

Absolutely mind blowing that 65% of the respondents so far in this thread think that people won't spend less when they have less money to spend.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Absolutely mind blowing that 65% of the respondents so far in this thread think that people won't spend less when they have less money to spend.

I think most of the responses here are more about their personal plans, and less about what they think that others will do.

But even so, count me as skeptical that a big hit to the stock market wouldn't impact the average cardboard collector.

I suppose we can debate the line where the average collector starts to feel it, even subconsciously. At 5% maybe not. But as you inch your way up to 10% and beyond, at some point, it seems like there has to be some impact, even if it's merely subconscious and psychological and just causes you to be a little less carefree and unfettered when it comes to bidding like drunken sailors in every auction that comes your way.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Do we have any idea who this "average collector" is? What they earn, what they spend, what they buy, how much they have invested in the stock market, what their overall financial picture is? If we don't know, how can we make any generalizations?

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Do we have any idea who this "average collector" is? What they earn, what they spend, what they buy, how much they have invested in the stock market, what their overall financial picture is? If we don't know, how can we make any generalizations?

By definition, they should be everyone that isn’t at the extremes of all of those elements. I guess I would also limit it to just the vintage cardboard world, as the modern world is a whole different bag o’hamsters.

If you want to throw out a band, then I could get behind the middle 50%, and throw out the top 25% and bottom 25%. If you’re feeling frisky, you could even widen your net a little. And obviously we’re primarily talking about Americans, with apologies to the collecting Canuks out there, and the smattering of collectors from further abroad.

If you sort of frame it around that fat piece in the middle in terms of invested assets and age and income level, it’s not that hard to sort of imagine in your mind’s eye what a decent slice of these average collectors have in terms of income and investments and investing horizon, etc.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

By definition, they should be everyone that isn’t at the extremes of all of those elements. I guess I would also limit it to just the vintage cardboard world, as the modern world is a whole different bag o’hamsters.

If you want to throw out a band, then I could get behind the middle 50%, and throw out the top 25% and bottom 25%. If you’re feeling frisky, you could even widen your net a little. And obviously we’re primarily talking about Americans, with apologies to the collecting Canuks out there, and the smattering of collectors from further abroad.

If you sort of frame it around that fat piece in the middle in terms of invested assets and age and income level, it’s not that hard to sort of imagine in your mind’s eye what a decent slice of these average collectors have in terms of income and investments and investing horizon, etc.

You seem to have a better sense of it than me. Can you put some ballpark numbers on what you're thinking?

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

You seem to have a better sense of it than me. Can you put some ballpark numbers on what you're thinking?

All right.

Let's start by positing that the average vintage collector is around 50 years old. We can argue about whether that's too low or too high, but I'm guessing it's not too far off the mean.

Here in the US, if you look at incomes for people who are that age, at the 75th percentile, you're at $112.5k, and at the 25th percentile, you're at $38k. Naturally, if you're in a high cost area, these numbers will shift up, and probably not by a little in some cases.

For the most part, you're looking at a 10-20 year investment horizon before they start drawing on their assets, although in some cases they might need those assets for upwards of 50 years. So not crazy conservative in their horizon.

In terms of retirement assets at that age, the stats I'm seeing suggest that the 75th percentile has about $300k invested, and the 25th percentile has about $1k invested. Obviously this is going to exclude things like your personal residence, etc, and just be focused on more traditional retirement assets. For those who are fortunate enough to have one, I can also strongly suspect that these stats don't include the value of a pension.

A bit of a caveat - I'm inclined to suspect that the venn diagram circles for the Average American and the Average Vintage Cardboard collector don't overlap perfectly, as we probably skew a bit more towards the top of the range rather than the bottom, simply because we have a nonzero amount of cash to blow on frivolities like old cardboard.

How do those stats strike you? Aside from the 25th percentile of Americans being totally hosed on their retirement savings (which might describe more of us than we're willing to admit), and my supposition that we skew a bit more towards the top of the range, I would guess that those stats are generally in the right ballpark for average.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by raulus

How do those stats strike you?.

I mean there's a lot of play in it, but what you say makes sense. So is someone in that range going to change their buying habits because of a bad month on Wall Street, do you think?

[Casey2296]

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I'm still waiting for the value of my NFT's I bought from Fanatics/Candy Digital to come roaring back.

Ba Dum Tss..
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[BioCRN]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Do we have any idea who this "average collector" is? What they earn, what they spend, what they buy, how much they have invested in the stock market, what their overall financial picture is? If we don't know, how can we make any generalizations?

There's so much more, too, like the type of collector they are.

I aim for nice looking "lower" grades of stuff that fits my personal taste (I'm a surface/clarity fan moreso than even centering). I don't own a single card worth 10K+ and I don't really have to think much about adding a card to my collection.

Some guys in my same savings/earnings realm aim much higher and their ability to build wealth and spend big are tied together much more than how I collect.

[Brent G.]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Do we have any idea who this "average collector" is? What they earn, what they spend, what they buy, how much they have invested in the stock market, what their overall financial picture is? If we don't know, how can we make any generalizations?

The "average collector" is not on this site and has limited knowledge of the things discussed in this thread.

[Gorditadogg]

I guess if the market went up I would feel rich and buy more cards, but it's not and I don't so I'm not. In other words, count me as a Yes.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Absolutely mind blowing that 65% of the respondents so far in this thread think that people won't spend less when they have less money to spend.

I'm on mobile and can't see the poll. But the title of the thread is about the stock market. Most people don't have less money to spend when the stock market is down. Most of us aren't living day to day on income from the stock market. I have the exact same money to spend when the market is up as when it's down.