Investment Potential

[Leon]

Originally Posted by drc

One thing is to make sure your initial purchase price is good. A rising market value can be killed by originally paying too much. And, on the other hand, you could still turn a profit on a stable or falling market value if you originally purchased at a bargain.

This is what I was thinking as I read the answers. This statement can not be overstated .

[packs]

I don't think 3-5 years is long enough to make any kind of substantial profit. If you think about it, most of these cards have had to wait nearly 100 years to acrue the value they have. Your friend will have to be more patient.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by packs

I don't think 3-5 years is long enough to make any kind of substantial profit. If you think about it, most of these cards have had to wait nearly 100 years to acrue the value they have. Your friend will have to be more patient.

I think plenty of 100 year old cards have gone up quite a bit in the last 5 years; had one invested wisely 5 years ago they would have done quite well.

[uffda51]

All good advice. By all means, don't invest in 1981 Donruss.

I would stick with dead guys. There is nothing new to be learned about Mantle, Ruth or Cobb that could cause their prices to plummet. Current players? Who can say?

[FrankWakefield]

I like what Bruce said. I think that streets, buildings, parks and the like should not be named after folks that are still alive...

Tell your friend that a hobby is a hobby... invest in investments: ie stocks, bonds, an education, home, real estate, mutual funds... delusional to consider cards as investments. It matters not that they have in the past, or might in the future, accrue in value. Might as well buy a new Corvette, jack it up off its wheels, inject oil in the cylinders, cover it, and consider that an investment.

[mintacular]

What if you don't want to invest in other assets (or already have) and decide that cards is where you want to sink some $? If so, which direction do you go? I think if you hold the long view then the pre-war T206 HOFers in nice shape is a safe bet. If you are looking to flip something quickley than perhaps there are other routes to explore. I also think you should consider players that hold popularity beyond just baseball, maybe someone who broke barriers, had historical impact. Jackie Robinson, Clemente come to mind.

[FrankWakefield]

Go right ahead... invest in matchbook covers, too. I have a few old Matchbox cars. And some Dinky toys, mostly military, and mostly pre WW II. I don't consider those investments. Golly, invest in sterling silver state spoons... or cut glass stemware. Jelly glass jars. Happy Meal toys (unopened, of course.)

I taught some eBay classes for a community program a few times. A few 'buying' classes, and a couple of 'selling' classes. One lady was earnestly serious about learning to sell on eBay. As she was getting the hang of it, I asked her what she wanted to sell. She told me she had all of these plate block # commemorative stamps from the 70s and 80s, that she'd bought, and she figured she could sell them for lots of money. I suggested we search a few that were for sale, knowing what we'd find. For the most part, most of them barely sold over face value. She was shattered, but stayed with the class. Plate block commemorative stamps weren't a very good investment, even if that was where she wanted to invest. So if they truly are a friend, steer them away from ball cards.

[ctownboy]

mintacular,

Be careful "investing" in baseball cards. I once had an old time collector (who owns a T206 Wagner and whose collection would be valued well over $1 million dollars now if he still owns everything he did when I was in almost daily contact with him) tell me that he was worried about cards becoming a bubble situation.

He watched what happened to coins after they started to be graded (a bubble and then a crash followed by only true rarites keeping ahead of the inflation rate) and what happened to stamps (especially Hawaiian issues). For a short period of time, they skyrocketed then crashed and only a small percentage have regained the value they had 30 or so years ago.

He was worried that cards wouldn't be collected as much in the future and thus not be as valuable because children were NOT as dedicated to baseball or collecting cards then (2002) as they had been when he was young (late 1940's and early 1950's) or when I was young (mid to late 1970's).

This man was worried that graded cards would skyrocket in value and because of that, the "average" collector would be priced out of the market.

He was also worried that graded cards would increase in value and that would, in turn, cause people to trim cards or do other things to falsely cause cards to go up in price. He said if enough of this happened and too many people got burned then the trust in cards and graders would be gone and people would dump their "investments" and never return (like they had done with stamps years before)..

He said this would ESPECIALLY be true of people who "invested" in cards instead of just being happy in collecting and owning them for what they were.

He advised me that if I was accumulating cards just for financial reasons then I should either get totally out of cards or only put into cards what I felt I could be comfortable with losing if their value fell to zero.

The last time I saw him was the Summer of 2007 and he was selling a LOT of his cards because he saw the economic crisis coming and wanted to be prepared for it and sitting in cash.