[BobbyStrawberry]

Originally Posted by Fred

Supply and demand, right? Economic conditions play a role, but the bottom line is the demand. As long as there are people (collectors or investors) that are willing to pay high prices for cards, then there will be strength in pricing (demand).

What hurts the pricing is when people get greedy and try to manipulate the market and create the illusion of a "hot" market with hype or other means.

At some point in time the investor side will get burned because they're buying with the idea the card "market" will continue to rise and they'll find out the hard way that the pricing will not continue to grow infinitely when they don't have a chair to sit in when the music stops.

As long has you have two people willing to bid up prices, there will appear to be strong demand.

To the investors out there: Keep the hype machine going but make sure you have your chair when the music suddenly stops because if you don't have a chair, then welcome to the collecting community (unless of course you want to take a financial loss and dump your cardboard because you really never cared for it in the first place).

Well said. I have to admit that I'm skeptical of all claims that "the good stuff (whatever that means) will never go down in value". Every collector has to know that these little pieces of cardboard have essentially zero intrinsic value, right?