Cornering the market on one card?

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Posted By: Brian

James,
When I was growing up my parents had an Obak and a Zeenut that my great-grandmother had left to them and I was always fascinated with those, so I am sure that is part of it. The other part is that it is nice knowing these will be in the family. At some point my collection will be distributed to my sister and cousins, and all of their kids.
I think you are right about this strategy setting an artificially high price. If I were to dump all my cards onto the market at once, they would probably sell for $25 instead of the $200+ they are going for now.


Brian,
Congrats! Where did you end up finding it?

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Posted By: Brian

I have had it for 3 or 4 years, its SGC 5 or 6 -- can't remember.

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Posted By: Steve Murray

Skinned to the bone but I got one

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Posted By: Addie_Joss

why not just have a few of your grand-father's cards? i still don't understand why you have to have ALL of them.

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Posted By: Jim Dale

Well I don't want to mention, but its not vintage anyway.

Hoarding only matters if the card is part of the registry and there is heavy registry competition; why else would anyone care if you had "all' the cards. That said the PSA registry says there are 11 PSA 9's of my favorite player from the mid 70's and I have 7 of them. Problem is the other 2 are in 100% complete sets....argh. So I doubt I will ever see those two which makes my venture worthless (though since he's my favorite player its still fun).

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Hoarding also matters in the raw card world. I forget the player but somebody in the 90's was buying up every '58 Topps cards of one individual (I think on the White Sox). There was an SCD article on it and it explained he had over 400 examples of the same card. It was affecting the supply of that card from what I remember. This happens with other Topps cards too, like the 65 Murakami (sp?) rookie that got hot when Ichiro came to Seattle. That card was hoarded by 3 or 4 individuals and it quadrupled in price quickly from what I can remember.

In the pre war world, the T206 Doyle Hands above head was hoarded (and that hoard largely lost to the hobby) and it has affected prices.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

especially if the cards aren't that easy to find anyhow and they aren't on too many cards to begin with. My cousin is on 3 cards: 1928 Exhibit, 1927 York Caramel E211 and 1951 Ringside. I have the only E211 I've ever seen of him. I'd never bother with a 1951 Ringside hoard; I could likely amass them into three figures and still see more, so I am not worried about not having a ready supply of them (as it is I have a nice one slabbed, a lower grade one that fits my raw set and an autographed one I recently acquired, but short of an uncut two-card panel or an ad panel version, I'm done). But with tough cards like Obaks or Zeenuts or other prewar cards, I suppose the thinking is that there can't be that many out there and your extended family might want them some day, so you grab what you can. At least that's how I rationalized my purchase of a duplicate 1928 Exhibit in a color and back combo I already had.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Matt

Question for the economists:
When attempting to hoard a card, as the market finds them to be more scarce due to buying up, the cost of acquisition will increase. Once hoarding is finished, presumably, the price you will get for selling the first 1, would be proximal to what you paid to buy the last one, since the scarcity is virtually the same at that point (actually, it might bring in less, since the most aggressive bidder has retired). Of course, as you sell out the rest of the stock, the market will return back to earth and you'll end up selling them for about what you bought in for in the first place.
The question is, where is the money to be made?
Unless you have a way of cornering the market that won't have anyone notice, please explain how you could sell the cards in a manner that would bring in significantly more then you paid for them.

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Posted By: Todd

under the scenario you described, the hoarder will likely have to wait, and will have projected time as his ally. Since supply is theoretically fixed, he can only make money if demand increases (unless some fool or two bid amounts that don't reflect market sales). So he waits for player collectors, team collecors and set collectors to bolster their collections to the point where they are looking very hard at acquiring this particular card and are having trouble finding it, then he releases one and waits for the feedng frenzy. Of course, all this assumes that other economic factors, especially overall disposable income, remain substantially the same.

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Posted By: Matt

Todd, but as he releases them, won't the demand decrease as well?

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Addie,Brian answered the question above pretty good.He said he wants to eventually give one to basically everyone in his family,thats hard to do if your family is bigger than the amount of cards you have.

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Posted By: Todd

certainly, demand is decreased by one with the release of every card. That is why the hoarder either needs to make his killing in the first few sales or hope that the number of collectors (demand) has increased so much over time that there will be competitive bidding all the way through the sales of his cards. BTW, I made at least one probably inaccurate assumption--that the economy stays the same. I believe that vintage cards have historically increased in value and will continue to do so; thus, the hoarder in general should receive a higher price than what he paid for each card (although I make no comment on the return vs. other investments nor do I account for inflation).

I recognize that not all or maybe even most hoarders are in it for the money, as there are other reasonable motivations in play as well.

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Posted By: LetsGoBucs

Depends on the steepness of the demand curve.

Hypothetically the "price" of a card is at the intersection of the supply and demand curves. At a certain price more people will sell their cards (increasing supply) and at lesser prices more people will hold their card as they prefer the card to the money.

If at the top end of the curve there are individuals who would pay many times what the market price is then you have the potential to earn "economic rent" - or profits. Your challenge though will be to find those buyers at the top and you have to assume they remain in the market over time.

The poster who said you'd have to use time as one of your elements is correct. New buyers represent new points on the demand curve and they will view the market differently that older buyers.....there is a "stickiness" to prices because existing buyers have an emotional element about seeing prices change. New buyers are less emotional about the price as they have no previous reference point.

Cornering the market and profiting is difficult to do. You really need to find a good that is either providing much greater value to the consumer or a key component in a high margin product produced by businesses. So if some material xyz was a key component in making widgets but only made up 5%of the cost of the widget, and widgets had a gross margin of 80%, businesses would still pay four or five times the existing price for xyz (assuming no substitute). On the consumer side, substitution usually results as consumers buy something else to give them enjoyment or take care of whatever task the item helps them with.

In the example of the Lindstrom card, most people simply accept their sets complete without it and move on with life - I would expect that the same is true with most cards.

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Posted By: Todd

while I don't disagree with your explanation as to various points on a demand curve, I believe the infusion of additional collectors, particularly on any meaningful level, shifts the entire demand curve to the right/upward, thereby increasing price. Also, it is possible that supply/demand analysis could be impacted by a Veblen effect, particularly this hobby

I haven't had to use many of these concepts in conversation for thirty years, and would defer to those who do this for a living.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

and an econ class broke out.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Rawn Hill

My only motive is to buy all of the cards of my favorite player that I can. I have never sold a card in 30 years of collecting. I am of the opinion that you collect what you enjoy. I started in this "hobby" only for the enjoyment of collecting the things that I thought deserved to be preserved. I had no idea that this would turn into a sports stockmarket.Therefore I will continue to pursue my love of this "hobby".

Rawn

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Posted By: Brian

http://www.hugginsandscott.com/cgi-bin/showitem.pl?itemid=8261

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Posted By: dodgersin9

I closely follow the 1971 Topps market and I came across this:

http://www.vintagecardprices.com/card-profile/index.php?card_id=136761&a=1&grd=8&grdr=PSA

Seems that someone is trying to buy up all the PSA 8 Blyleven RCs. It makes me wonder what is the buyer's motivation.

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Posted By: Ray

I'll never corner the market on these, but I pick them up when they're cheap. I have a handful of raw ones I need to scan, too.

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Posted By: Sean BH

I'm guessing the buyer of the Bert Blyleven cards is thinking he will make the hall of fame?

Considering how high the prices are now I doubt they will go up too much higher if he makes it.

sdbh