Posted By:
Judge Dred (Chicken Little)
Around 1999, I bought on Ebay a PSA 7 E98 Bresnahan for around $500. In May of this year I consigned it to Mastro for the auction which ended last night. It fetched $7,000, bringing a return that far outsripped any investment I ever made in the past. Are prices like this sustainable?
Great question - "Are prices like this sustainable?"
Lets think about this - that was an increase of 14x the original cost. I somehow doubt that card is going to increase 14 fold again. I'm guessing that things are peaking or have peaked. Unless. as mentioned in previous posts, the card is very rare or on EVERYONES want list (T206 Wagner) I can't imagine that these little pieces of cardboard are going to keep going up at such a rapid rate. Perhaps the really high grade stuff may maintain a small market but if the "house of cards" collapses the perception will be that these aren't a great investment and the demand will begin to slow down. This, as mentioned earlier, will probably associated with a downturn of the economic cycle. What happens then? Simple economics... less demand, lower prices.
Unless we hit a point of hyper inflation I can't see cards keeping up at the same insane appreciation rate that we've seen in just the last 5 years.
I'm not saying the sky is falling... translation - cluck, cluck, cluck...