Ok, I'll throw in the unthinkable to some people on this thread. I believe that there will be a rotation away from T206's as the prices of those cards peak.
I very much agree with a previous post about grading firms coming under greater scrutiny.

In general, I believe the long term trend will always be that good vintage sports collectibles will appreciate in value. There will undoubtedly be short term swings up and down, but I believe the long term trend will always be up.

At a minimum, I would expect most quality vintage cards to keep pace with inflation. More likely, I would expect the "good stuff" such as rare pre-war cards and high quality vinatge HOF cards that were produced before the mass production era, will outpace inflation considerably.

As for the 1952 Topps Mantle and Mantle cards in general, I believe they will always be in demand and perform just fine as an investment over time. Did any of us see most of the pre-war HOF players that we place such a high value on play the game? No. I did not see a baseball game until 1976, but I still love to collect cards of famous players going back to 1800's.

Regardless of how this plays out, I would rather have my money in old cardboard than the dollar bills that are being printed by the US Gov't at an astonishing pace. The only thing better would be if baseball cards were printed on precious metals like gold, silver and platinum.

I think the guys like Bruce Crandall and the collectors of highest ended slabbed cards will suffer the most. I also think collectors buying cards like the blue Old Mill will see a serious downward spiral in years to come.
As a baby boomer, I see a time in the next 15-20 years when much of my collection will be sold at auction as will the collections of many other baby boomers. This will depress the prices with a glut of cards coming on the market. The flip side is true collectors will be able to afford more of the cards they love.
I plan on enjoying my cards until the day I pass and hopefully a lot of other collectors will do the same. Personally I don't care if my 1909 Obak set is worth $25,000 or $250. I love the cards and that's why I got in the hobby in the first place. Sure it would be nice to have a nice nest egg for the sunset years but its all about the cardboard- either you love the cards or you don't. :)

my two cents- I grew up hearing about Mantle, Howard, Ford and the Scooter, but all it took was a little attention to baseball to know who Matty Johnson and Cobb were. Anyone who watched Ken Burns' baseball documentary should revere those names and those of Cap Anson and his contemporaries (character issue aside) as much as any of the greats of the 50s or of today. Perhaps the commons won't be as interesting, but for those collecting whole sets, it won't really matter whether the names are familiar or not.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but there are a few arguments about the 52T Mantle, and Mantles in general, rising in price b/c "you don't have to see them play or hear stories about them" and the comparison to 19th century players. The difference is Mantle lovers actually did see him play and hear the stories. I feel that he is more on a pedestal than any other player from that era due to the stories and those that followed his play and his card prices follow. Alright, no more bad talkin the Mick.

The bottom will fall out of anything that can't be found in a 5 minute e-bay/google search and bought for under 100 bucks.

The written english language will become unrecognizable and abandoned for text-speak.

Murcerfan sighting - love it!

Ha, Ha! Would that that would be true, but I'm afraid E107 will follow the trend of coins, where rare and significant haven't even really been subject to price cycles. Instead, the price trend over decades for coin series analagous to E107's has pretty much been steadily upwards. Over the next five years or slightly more, I think that the focus will shift somehat from pre WWI cards to the twenties and early thirties, where there are quite a few very scarce to downright rare and significant cards available at mere fractions of the cost of pre WWI.

It's also going to prove to be a good time to buy some of the better (read "rarer" and "high grade") Williams and DiMaggio cards, as they are undervalued compared to Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Mathewson and the like.

Eventually even key 50's and '60's cards will once again rise in value, perhaps even dramatically, once they begin to be perceived as undervalued in relation to those that preceeded them. There are, however, easily enough of these out there that their prices will be extremely subject to price cycles, going through ups and downs.

And there will be demand for key '80's and even '90's cards--its just that there are so many available that ecomonic principles demand that they will see very slow growth. The '89 Upper Deck Griffey Jr., for example, is a very significant card, but with somewhere around a million of them out there, and most of them in nice shape, the number of collectors seeking that card would have to rise astronomically for it to ever see a really appreciable rise in price. I like the stars and HOF'ers from the Topps Tiffany sets to see their day in the sun, as these were, IMO, the best of the mainstream cards produced during their time period insofar as relative scarcity and card quality are concerned.

Mantle values in general will depend upon whether the current trend to evaluate players based on stats going well beyond such traditional statistics as batting average continues. Those of you that think that Mantle was in any way inferior to either Mays or Aaron, during the time that all of them were playing, will be in for a rude awakening upon consideration of the statistics that more closely approximate run-producing ability. Mantle, for example, created approximately 212% of the runs of an average player per every 27 outs made OVER HIS ENTIRE CAREER during his era (by way of comparison, Lou Gehrig was at 200% for his career, during his more run-prolific era), while Mays and Aaron were in the 170-180% bracket--quite a distant second. While this is admittedly a statistic originating with Bill James, the Mick similarly wipes out the other two in OBPS, .978 for the Mick, compared to .941 for Willie, and .929 for Hank. While Mays and Aaron posted better career numbers due to better longevity, they were really never quite in the same class at producing runs during the time they were active. Mantle simply hit homeruns more often than they did, walked more, and scored more runs per game played (Aaron scored .659 runs per game played; Mays .689, and Mr. Mantle .698 runs per game. As Bill James has said, the number of runs a team will score is directly proportional to the number of runners they get on base. In this vein, Mantle's career on-base-percentage was .421; Mays .384; and Aaron .374. You will also find that if you take a trip to baseballreference.com and use their tool to neutralize for eras, Mantle's stats do not suffer at all in comparison to Gehrig. Given a chance to take any of the three in their prime without regard to longevity, an educated GM would take Mantle every time. I love the other two--they were among the greatest ever--but I'm sorry, they never stood on a level plane with Mickey Mantle in prime time! He was simply the best of his era.

Great thread--sorry I saw it so it so late!

Regards,

Larry

In 30-40 years the 1980's to 2000 cards will go up drastically.

We will be getting $.20 a pound for paper to recycle and that will make them worth something.