Does the stock market affect card prices?

[Mountaineer1999]

Watching the stock market the last few weeks has been a bit frightening. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the price of cards during a downturn in the market. Do/would people quit collecting and maybe even start selling in a bear market?

[GregC]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer1999

Watching the stock market the last few weeks has been a bit frightening. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the price of cards during a downturn in the market. Do/would people quit collecting and maybe even start selling in a bear market?

I certainly hope so!! Would love to upgrade a number of Mantle's on the cheap haha.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Mountaineer1999

Watching the stock market the last few weeks has been a bit frightening. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the price of cards during a downturn in the market. Do/would people quit collecting and maybe even start selling in a bear market?

I can only speak for myself, but I haven't stopped collecting, just slowed down quite a bit.

In addition to the stock market, I happen to work for an oil and gas engineering company and our industry looks very gloomy for the next year or so. I'm on a project that wraps up in early Spring, but I don't know if I'll have a job after that. There are no new projects coming in. So that, along with the stock market downturn, has put a damper on my spending lately.

[AGuinness]

I think I remember seeing some sort of index for the top 20 modern football cards somewhere (sportscollectorsdaily.com, I believe). It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the stock market (or other market indexes/indicators) and the sports card markets. Anything done would need some sort of selection, whether it's the football card index or something else, but whatever the result, it would be very interesting.

Wish I had the math skills to figure it all out!

[pokerplyr80]

I wasn't really collecting then but I believe values in general went down during the last recession. I would expect the same during a major market correction. I would not expect card values to go up and down with temporary fluctuations in the stock market. If they do I will certainly be looking to add a few cards. I imagine there are people who collect and trade and would consider selling their collection of they lost too much in the market.

[JollyElm]

The market must be completely bullish right now, because Dean's Cards just keeps raising their prices even higher.

[Mountaineer1999]

Thanks for all the thoughts. Looks like today could be a rough market day too. With my own enthusiasm for spending on cards dwindling with each down market day/week I wondered how many like hobbyists felt the same way.

[RTK]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

I think I remember seeing some sort of index for the top 20 modern football cards somewhere (sportscollectorsdaily.com, I believe). It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the stock market (or other market indexes/indicators) and the sports card markets. Anything done would need some sort of selection, whether it's the football card index or something else, but whatever the result, it would be very interesting.

Wish I had the math skills to figure it all out!

... and the time to sort through the data. I think there are value bubbles for some cards and/or era of cards, for various reasons, and more or less steady inclines for others...just a hunch really.

[Volod]

An old cartoon saved from a late 1980's magazine (Reagan-Bush era market crash):

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by Volod

An old cartoon saved from a late 1980's magazine (Reagan-Bush era market crash):

funny cartoon..

basically the stock market losing billions of dollars cant be good for the hobby....can say if its bad or not..but no way going to convince me that its good...

especially if goes down another 20 percent...I just bought collectors universe (PSA company) on friday..i figure ill go down with the hobby literally if the market goes down more.

[Jdoggs]

I believe high end hall of fame rookies will retain their value and could still go up if the market goes down.
In the past high end hall of fame rookies retained their values when the stock market went down.

[MRSPORTSCARDCOLLECTOR]

I say none because how many times has the stock market gone down since 1980?
The good sports cards will always have value. I don`t see the stock market affecting Babe Ruth, or Michael Jordan rookie card market.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by BASEBALLCARDGURU

I say none because how many times has the stock market gone down since 1980?
The good sports cards will always have value. I don`t see the stock market affecting Babe Ruth, or Michael Jordan rookie card market.

right 'the good sportscards' we had this discussion before...how many exactly is that......there are going to be the cards on the fringe that some think are 'good sports cards' and but most others think they aren't that will get hammered since only 'the good sports' cards will always have value..

that's the key...its still not good for the hobby when only the 'good sports cards' have value since 99.9% of cards out there aren't 'good sports cards' including most of my collection