Are Baseball Cards Destined to Slowly Diminish in Value?

[glchen]

I think the prices of modern cards won't hold up even with the chase cards. I think it's going to be function of supply and demand. There are just too many shiny cards out there. Even a Jeter or Pujols rookie, there are thousands upon thousands of those cards. For the chase refractors like the Strasburg phenomenon last year, I think people will realize that those cards really aren't that valuable. I think people will continue to collect, but they will still be drawn into prewar and vintage cards since the supply is so much less than modern. Therefore, I think these older cards will still hold their value. Now, I don't know if they can continue a strong uptrend like before. I think you could have purchased a T206 Green Cobb 10-15 years ago during the dot com boom still considerably less than you can right now with high unemployment. There may still be gradual appreciation, but I don't know if you can still expect exponential growth like before. I also don't know about card condition at the high end. There is so little difference between PSA 8 and 10 (or SGC or whatever), is the price difference really worth it? That I don't know.