assessing vintage card scarcity

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Using selling prices as an analog for scarcity assumes (1) a perfect marketplace where all buyers have equal access to information, (2) a market in which the same buyers are repeat performers with unchanging motivations, and (3) a direct correlation between price and scarcity. None of these assumptions are valid.

Card prices vary due in part to lack of information on the part of sellers. For example, I recently picked up a Piedmont 460/42 card for a common price from a dealer who obviously did not know that back commands a premium. That sale would not tell you anything about scarcity.

Card prices also reflect non-scarcity human desires and needs. The most obvious example is when two people people desperate to finish a set fight over a card. I recently paid about 5x "book" on the last "common" card I needed to finish a boxing set (actually, the card is scarce, as are all cards in the set; it is a common player in the set). Now that I have that card, the engine that drove the prior deal is gone and the same card surfacing later on will probably sell for the "normal" price. My drop from the market will completely alter the dynamic. Remember what Copeland did to the prices of cards for a while there?

You also cannot assume that prices per se account for only scarcity. In actuality, prices are affected more by demand and perceptions about condition than pure scarcity. As compared to Zeenut HOFers, there are lots of 1952 Topps Mantle cards out there, yet they command prices far in excess of those commanded by Zeenuts HOFers. The Mantle has a cachet to it, one that drives its price into the crazy zone. According to this week's SCD, a BVG 5 1952 Mantle sold online for $8,000. Would you prefer to own that mid-grade Mantle or all four T206 Cobbs? Which do you think is harder to find? There is also condition or, more accurate, the hyping of condition by people in position to profit handsomely from a little hype. How many clowns have we seen paying thousands for "9" and "10" commons from the 1960s and 1970s? Since the difference between 8-9-10 often is the equivalent of pornography ("I can't tell you what it is but I know it when I see it"), does that price reflect scarcity or something else (perhaps small male genitalia?)?