[Mark]

The only memorabilia that I follow closely is pre-war, pro-model bats. It seems to me that high end bats of the big pre-war players, Ruth, Jackson, Gehrig, Cobb, and Wagner, are commanding very strong prices---well into 6 figures. These are legendary players, and I suspect that people who don't collect bats as a hobby-obsession want to own these bats. I have heard people say that demand for bats of less well-known hall of famers is languishing, but the prices of some these bats has been rising. High grade bats of players like Same Rice have been exceeding estimates. In 2019, Goldin sold a PSA 9 Eddie Collins bat for $36K--surpassing the $28 K that Heritage got for a t206 Eddie Collins PSA 9. Even some non-hall of famers’ bats have done well. 3 years ago, there was a Heinie Zimmerman bat that sold for $3750 and a Wildfire Schulte model that went for $13K. That sounds like healthy demand! Still, a t206 PSA 10 of a common player might sell for $50K. Why don’t pre-war bats sell for more? As others have said, it is probably because there are very few pre-war bats to be had, and so there aren’t many of us trying to have them. It’s hard to build a hobby community when only a handful of people can build collections.

I am wondering about post-war, modern bat collecting. It was my impression that values have been going up, but not exponentially. Is the market for Arron and Mays bats flat? Or is it just that they haven’t been going through the roof in the manner of baseball cards?

I think that cards have an allure because nearly every boy collected them, they come in sets that can, in principle, be readily completed, and because it’s easy to get started collecting them because they are plentiful. Almost anyone can get a 1968 Topps Aaron. If you have some money, you can pursue better and better versions and rarer cards. But with bats, I would guess that there are only a few dozen Aaron or Mays bats to be had, and it’s not cheap or easy to begin collecting those bats.