Poll: State of the Vintage Market Summer 2018
 

What do you think?

I voted about the same as last year - except, of course, the things that I am looking for. Those are up 20+ %

I was thinking about the state of the market this weekend, and convinced myself things were pretty soft. I decided to pick one iconic card or two that could be the canary in the cold mine so to speak. I picked the 33 Goudey Ruths. Not the off the chart rarities, but the nice ones many collectors could be in the market for. The 5s, 6s, SGC 60s and 70s. After 10 minutes of "analysis" I basically came to the conclusion that there was no real conclusion to come to. Some were up a few thousand. . .some were down a few thousand. . .and many were basically where they've been. Not scientific but probably telling to some degree.

Yep. Always Murphy's law.

Depends
 

Depends on what you call "vintage". 1960's? Pre WWII? It seems like off condition 1950's and 1960's are soft. Same thing with lower grade Goudeys, Leaf, and Diamond Stars, except for the big names.

It seems like nothing goes up except for the stuff I want...:(

I voted about the same as last year, but it seems to me that graded T206's (commons and Hall of Famers) have gone up quite a bit in the past year. It also seems like the prices on graded T3 Turkey Reds are a bit soft right now (except for the big names). T206 rare variations (Elberfeld - Washington, Lundgren - Chicago, etc.) also seem to be down a bit.

I still can't get my hands on a reasonably priced G-VG Green Cobb. I didn't try in earnest till last summer - waiting for the boat to come back has made me forlorn.

I'm sure the answers will depend on what you are in the market for; the Goudey's and T206's I'm in the market for seem to have done well.

Sure that's true. There is no one market, but many of them. Sure particular things run hot and cold over time. Like real estate or anything else.

Seems to me that the crazy prices on the ultra high end rookie cards (e.g 63 Rose going for over $500k) have came back down to reality. I understand that many on here think that was due to a small group of buyers propping up the whole market and perhaps that’s right but thankfully it seems the broader market for vintage seems to chug along. In contrast to what others have posted, I think Goudey’s are starting to show signs of life, albeit slowly, after having a really soft market over the past 3-4 years. i think most tobacco sets have pretty much stayed the same overall with the exception of the major HOF’s. I still believe that at some point T202’s will take off once collectors come to their senses lol... but who knows how long that will take.

Same card:
Could someone please explain this?? About a 40% drop from '09 to March '18. With another 25% drop from March to May '18. I find this alarming......or fantastic - I'm not sure.

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Quite the drop. I used to collect E95, and I noticed that prices on e-cards appeared much stronger in the late aughts. Might have also received a nice bump from the consignor/AH as it was sold through Legendary.

The most recent dip could have been explained by a bad image when compared to the one used by jcvintage.

I collect blue chip HOFers and I recently got into E Cards (from t206). Before embarking on an E-Card expedition, I did a deep dive into the market place for Players like Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, Young, Jackson, Plank, Matty. It became very clear that across the board, prices for these E Cards peeked in about 2008, and the same cards are trading at 40%-60% of their 2008 highs. I posted a thread about this asking why, and the two main explanations I received were (1) a few major collectors competing for the same cards and driving up prices and now those collectors are not there, (2) shilling in auctions like Mastro and Legendary (as Sam seems to suggest). BTW- I include confectionary cards in this group as “E Cards”.

That said, I have noticed lately that pries for E, D and T cards of the blue chip HOFers have really gone up; it’s not just t206. In fact, in some cases prices begin to push 2008 highs, which is concerning (I think). Same is true for rarer issues of T Cards, like t204, t213 - t216 (indeed, I just recently gladly paid a shit-ton for a rare t214 victory tris speaker).

The Matty discussed above does not fit this model, but look what has happened with the 1914 CJ Matty. I believe the market for total blue chip HOFers, regardless of card (T, E, Confectionary, post card) is super strong, and the rarer the card, the stronger the market.

I really don't think we fully appreciate the impact of the Mastro-Legendary fraud and the price manipulation of last year. They created some significant distortions.

Yeah, not to mention a guy who was just found guilty of fraud by a jury who countless people who have held up on this Board as the paragon of virtue in the industry. He who cannot be named. Like Voldemort. Hell, what's a jury verdict among friends.

Market Pricing
 

100% accurate! Especially when rarity is associated with what I call the hobby’s “Big Eight” (Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Matty, Johnson, Joe Jax, Gehrig & Cy Young).