Are Baseball Cards Destined to Slowly Diminish in Value?

[barrysloate]

Larry- I've always been wary of judging the soundness of any collectibles market by looking at the prices of extreme rarities. Most collectors don't buy 1802 half dimes; they more likely are buying coins, cards, or anything in the $50-250 range. In fact, I'll bet 90% of the transactions are for these moderately priced items. Studying those might give a more accurate picture of the strength or weakness of the market.

[Rich Klein]

Both Larry and Barry are correct

The very hiigh end material is not always indiciative *sic* of the market however, when the high end stuff goes up in price and gets noticed then in many cases the rest of the material goes up as well

2nd --- yes most of the trading is obviously done on a lower end, since we're talking about rarities, they just don't show up that often

And one other issue to go with why we don't have many 18-29 year old here (in addition, usually at that age we don't have the perspective that we gather a biit later)

The other issue is that beginning with the true movement of the hobby to a focus on adults after the BB Strike of 94-85, there ended up being an insane growth on number of products.

That culminated in 2004 when we had approximately 90 products issues or one ever 4 days. About 20 years earlier -- we really had maybe 5-6 major products for a year which also allowed collectors to go backwards in time easier.

That's another story for another day -- but the current monopoly in baseball cards by Topps is not neccessarily a bad thing because it controls the number of products issued. If, let's say Panini was granted a licence again to print BB cards --- then there would also have to be a limit on combined products from the 2 companies.

This is a different story, but we'll go more into this later as well

Rich

[benderbroeth]

i have to jump on the money bandwagon one of the reasons why i do not buy cards in packs today is the huge cost...and remembering when i used to but packs get that great card currently worth $50..i keep it and 4 months later the fad has passed and i am sitting with a piece of junk that no one wants..i still have tons of shaq rookies....this being said i have always loved old collectibles and for my money i would rather own the $450 1953 mantle than the 450 $1 shaq rookies i want to throw away...that is why i collect the older cards, i was burned to much on packs..and now do i rally want to spend $5 a pack??????

[grundle20]

Yes, Larry, very well put. Additionally, after looking through the posts and giving a "thumbs up or thumbs down" vote, you were also in the minority in feeling that the hobby will continue to see an upward trend.

[ls7plus]

Great! That means increased opportunity in the short term! As well-respected coin dealer/proflic author Q. David Bowers once said about the 1936 Cincinnati commemorative half dollars (a not really rare item, with a total mintage of 5,005 sets), after they had taken a cyclical downturn in the early days of their collectability in 1939 from $50.00 per three-coin set (one example from each of the three mints) to $15.00, that was the time to buy them--a nice, hand-picked MS-65 set subsequently did quite nicely, appreciating fairly gradually over the years until it soared to $7,000 in 1987, at the time of a speculative boom. A set currently lists at $2175 raw, unslabbed. And by the way, Barry, the more common but still truly collectable coins also went up, but at a lower rate over the last 20 years, in direct proportion to their surviving mintages and popularity of their series. Sort of like '60's stars in PSA 8--nice and collectible, but a lot of them out there. ECON 101 in action. These types of cards will probably demonstrate the characteristics of their counterparts in coins, and be more cyclical in value, which is allright too. Just be aware of their price history.

The lesson I learned from the coin analogy was to buy rare, and buy significant (HOF'ers, and preferably upper echelon HOF'ers). There are newly emerging cards that fit this bill, and not just those that are currently at the top end of the market--does anyone think that the last Lections Ruth that sold will set the high water mark for this card for all time? If it does, then the one I bought for $6200 some years back from Mastro is in trouble. If they do think that, then how do they explain a 1933 Buttercream Ruth going for $111,000 at one of the REA auctions a few years ago? Broken down into the simplest terms, each of these cards have two things going for them: They're Babe Ruth, and they are extremely rare! IMHO, the 1907 Dietsche Fielding Cobb, barring a discovery of a hoard of them, is still in the process of emerging into a well-respected and significant great rarity, as are several of his other true rookie postcards (love the Wolverine News portrait, but haven't run across one at a time when finances would have permitted its purchase, in light of other recent buys). I see great longterm futures for each of these cards, and others like them. Hell, the 1914 Baltimore News Ruth was just emerging a bit over 20 years ago, when it might have been easy to simply dismiss its ability to draw collectors' dollars out of their bank accounts as a fad--after all, the '33 Goudey's were where the real Ruths were found then. Ditto cards like the '23-'24 Exhibit Ruth for prospective exponential growth, where the toughest part should not presently be buying but finding one (although I might be surprised at the price, should one come on the market)!

Look outside the envelope, think outside the box, and analyze and imagine what can likely be, rather than simply looking at what the market presently is (my philosophy is definitely that the glass is half full, rather than half empty--I've found that I've won quite a few court cases that otherwise would have been lost through abandonment thinking that way). But really, all value concerns aside, sometimes you just have to buy what you like, and those are some of the best buys you'll make in your heart. And if your purchases substantially increase in value and provide significant financial security for very rainey days, all the better! Immensely interesting thread.

Best wishes,

Larry