Is it just me...or are pretty much all card sales falling off?

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Posted By: JK

Barry,

Im no doctor, but I dont see how a little blood letting could hurt

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Posted By: James Feagin

I don't pretend to know the science of global warming. However, I'm pretty sure the wasteful culture of most "advanced" nations in this world isn't doing much to help the earth.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

I think that the slight warming in the world's temperature as of late is part of longer-term climate cycles and has nothing to do with man-made causes. Just as Al Gore can trot out his scientists so can those who think that it is a natural occurring phenomenon.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Ted and Jim- I think it's reality check time. But I won't let this drift into a poltical debate. Just please don't blame global warming on the liberals. Thank you for your understanding.

Josh- good one!

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Posted By: T206Collector

...of the global warming concept, if it results in us relying less on foreign oil. Even if it is exclusively a politically motivated concept in order for us to use more reusable resources, and punish big oil, etc., then I am all for it.

I do think it is ironic (and hypocritical) that the US was the big polluter during the industrial revolution 100 years ago in order to get ourselves to developed nation status, but now we are telling countries that are entering their own industrial revolutions that they can't pollute like we did. We got to the top of the mountain and then changed the rules in a way that keeps other countries from continuing their ascent.

Finally, while these boards should not be subject to political discourse, it should be noted that given our bent for collectibles originating in the United States and dependent almost exclusively on US collectors, the political dialogue will not include contributions and perspectives from around the world. And so it will always be myopic.

But again, if you find yourself typing the phrase "global warming" on a baseball card forum, you might want to find yourself a nice politics message board someplace else.

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Posted By: Pennsylvania Ted

This Earth is a very resilient planet. It has withstood many "traumas" to it. Everytime there is a monster Volcanic eruption
on this earth, there is more atmospheric pollution than any amount of humanly devised technological pollution.
Just in the past 3500 years this planet has recovered from these horrendous volcanic eruptions.....

1500 B.C........Santorini (Aegean Sea).....the "Grandaddy" of recent eruptions.

79 A.D...........Pompeii (Mt. Vesuvius in Italy)

Late 1800's.....Krakatoa (Indian Ocean)

Early 1980's.....Mt St. Helens (Washington, USA)

And, many more.

TED Z

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Posted By: T206Collector

...there's any doubt that the earth will survive whatever we throw at it. And the question is not really whether human life will endure whatever we throw at it. The question is, are we ready for the lifestyle changes that may result as the atmosphere changes for whatever reason.

[edited out politics portion in compliance with board rules.]

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Posted By: Joe D.

"I don't think
...there's any doubt that the earth will survive whatever we throw at it."



you just jinxed us.

I hadn't worried about it - until you just said it out loud!

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

"Politics and religion are also not permitted on the board and posts concerning this subject matter will be deleted."

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Posted By: andy fischer

The flaw with the 200 ft ocean rise and saying everything under 200ft elevation will be under water, is the fact the the area of the ocean will expand as well. going back to the cup example, if you had a glass of water and added ice to it, it would raise the level. If you dumped the water from that glass and put it in a slightly wider cup (which would be like the water extending to the land all over the world) , it wouldnt raise as much. You cant just say a 200ft raise, you have to take into account the expansion of the oceans as well.

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Posted By: T206Collector

...question.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Ted- I never made it to Santorini, but I know it's a beautiful island.

And of course we will survive as a planet, but we still need to do a much better job.

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Posted By: leon

Lets do get back to cards.....I do think the market is softer on mid level stuff. I won a ramly common last night, nice card, in a 3 holder, for about $175 on ebay. A year or two ago that was a $275 card......Please no more global warming or policital views.......

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Posted By: barrysloate

Getting back to cards:

If a PSA 3 Ramly dropped from $275 to $175 in a year, that's a pretty precipitous fall. Of course, it's also a small sampling. Another 3 could go for $250.

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Posted By: Dave F

Barry..I think that Ramly price is a pretty good example of what I've been seeing.

I sold a E103 common SGC 30 on ebay the other day...it went for $207 I think...PSA 2's were in the high $300's a few weeks ago.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Last month I sold an E103 in SGC 10 for over $200. But are individual sales reliable indicators? If the market is really dropping that quickly that is truly a bad sign.

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Posted By: leon

All of these individual sales start to add up to not being individual sales . E103's are notorious for having nice fronts and damage on their blank backs. I have seen 10's that look like 60's .....Even my type has a nice front and low grade due to the back. As I have said I think the 25%-30% drop off on many cards is about what I feel is happening. A lot of folks in this thread are saying the stuff they are winning and otherwise bidding on hasn't gone down. I have yet to see one of these folks say they are paying more for T206 vg's or other fr-vg more common cards. That is my whole point. regards

edited grammar a bit

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Posted By: barrysloate

Well VG T206's are extremely plentiful. I have been selling a lot of Old Judges on ebay lately in the SGC 10 to 30 range. In total, I am very happy with the prices. But if you look at them one at a time, prices are all over the place.

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Posted By: Martin Neal

I have sold around 45 graded and ungraded T205s and T206s over the last couple of weeks. The Hofers went a little less than I thought they would, but not by much. Everything else was about what I expected.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Since this thread is veering to and fro anyway, I thought I would add to its meandering manner! I have an article, actually a cover story, from a mid 1970's Newsweek warning of the danger we face from global COOLING. The article is full of bar charts, weather maps showing trends and patterns, officious testimonials from scientists and so on. Interesting. IMHO I don't think we have been around long enough, historically speaking, to fully understand or be able to accurately measure what could be evolutionary or even revolutionary scientific trends. Like I said, just my opinion.
I can scan the article and add to this post tonight - Some pretty cool stuff from the 70's in there anyway. Leon?

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Posted By: steve

I believe this to true of our hobby:

With the benchmark set, T206's, you are not paying more now than you did a year ago.

aka - most vintage items in most grades are down a little.

Buy low, sell high.

steve

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Posted By: Joe D.

for the rest of the world (not N54) - this is baseball's offseason.

I am not discounting softening (which I attribute to the fickle nature of collectors / sets go in and out of favor)....

but it is important to note (and was probably mentioned before in this long thread)... -
there is a little seasonality going on as well.

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Posted By: T206Collector

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/27/news/economy/consumer_confidence/index.htm?postversion=2007112711

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Makes me nervous. Good news is, these things always go in cycles.

Sitting here dreaming, I could imagine having a Confidence Index of some kind for the vintage baseball card market, that would be updated monthly or so. It could be based on average selling prices for some representative classes of cards -- for example T206 major league commons in EX condition, and something representative of the more expensive range such as 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards in NM. The trick would be to pick appropriate bellwether card types as indicators, where there would be enough data included to be meaningful, yet without averaging too many things together within a single measure. Sounds like a job for Bobby Binder and VCP, who have access to a wealth of data on realized sales prices. I'm sure Bobby has nothing else to do.

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Posted By: NickM

by burning large quantities of late 1980s and early 1990s cards? :-D