Leon's quote from a 1997 book brought to mind another book found on Memory Lane entitled "The Top 100; The best baseball cards to own, ranked and rated for the investor and collector" by Paul M. Green and Kit Kiefer (1990). Messrs Green and Kiefer were, among other things, were involved with various Krause publications like Baseball Cards Magazine and SCD.
The introduction to the book states "our job was to pick out 100 good buys and write about them" and that "each card in this book has been rated on five different 10-point numerical scales: scarcity, marketability, historical importance, artistic value, and appreciation potential."
I hadn't looked at this book for a while so when I dug it out I was a bit surprised to find that the top 5 cards were all pre-war:
1) T206 Honus Wagner
2) 1934 Goudey Lou Gerhig
3) 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth ("take your pick")
4) T206 Ed Plank
5) M101-4 Babe Ruth
Of course, number 6 is a 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly
Totalled, 22 of the top 50 and 29 in all are pre-war.
Here are some other listings:
18) Diamond Stars Jimmie Foxx
19) 1975 Topps Robin Yount
37) 1984 Fleer Update Dwight Gooden
38) 1941 Play Ball Lefty Gomez
51) 1972 Topps Fisk/Cooper
52) R312 Joe DiMaggio
53) 1932 US Caramel Fred Lindstrom
54) 1986 Donruss Rookies Bo Jackson
92) 1983 Donruss Ryne Sandberg
93) W517 Ted Lyons
94) 1988 Score Glossy Gregg Jefferies
Sure, some of these look silly 20 years later...but so do Members Only jackets and Jordache jeans. However, I think some good credit needs to be given as nearly half of the top 50 cards are pre-war, regardless of the specific examples chosen.
I'm not an investor (far from it) and don't really have the desire to undertake an empirical study of the listing, but if nothing else it appears to illustrate the relative holding power of pre-war cards and the hysteria that surrounded the white-hot rookie craze of the day.
If you can find a copy, it's might be worth a nostalgic read...and a short trip in Mr. Peabody and Sherman's wayback machine.