Downward trend in card values?

[glynparson]

Set building is not in vogue now everyone is buying rookies and superstar cards. This has made it a good time,in my opinion to build sets. Many of the low pop cards are selling for fractions of what they sold for when everyone was set building. It still has some pull on the hotly contested registry sets but on sets where there is less current competition prices are way down. 10s still often bring some head shaking numbers but tougher 8-9 from the 60s and 70s seem to be soft compared to their peak prices.

[Johnny630]

This reminds me of the great Kenny Rogers Song The Gambler; three things to do, hold, fold,walk away/run. I’m waiting for the walking away to occur to be able to buy lower. :-) ressessions are always a good time to buy.

[LeftHandedDane]

For me, collecting is a hobby, not an investment. I don't buy high-grade cards for that reason - give me a raw, mid-grade card and I am quite happy. That said, I would like my collection to retain a reasonable amount of its value, and do think about the future of the hobby from time to time.

I agree that our culture today is at odds with the values that drive most people to collect things. I also believe that the card suppliers have done a great disservice to the hobby by saturating the market with way too much product and focusing on gimmicks to generate short-term interest and sales that have no lasting appeal to a future collector.

I hope that down the road there will come a time when our culture realizes the harm that all this technology is doing and people begin to find more balance in their lives. Should this happen, one of the side benefits will be to collecting. And the post-war era, I believe, will benefit from this rebound if only because there is such a smaller supply of product available.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

This reminds me of the great Kenny Rogers Song The Gambler; three things to do, hold, fold,walk away/run. I’m waiting for the walking away to occur to be able to buy lower. :-) ressessions are always a good time to buy.

That's why demand for truly desirable, rare, significant items is like a step pyramid--one layer falls off, but the value doesn't fall very far due to the tremendous strength of the base demand at a lower level value immediately below it.

Regards,

Larry

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by glynparson

Set building is not in vogue now everyone is buying rookies and superstar cards. This has made it a good time,in my opinion to build sets. Many of the low pop cards are selling for fractions of what they sold for when everyone was set building. It still has some pull on the hotly contested registry sets but on sets where there is less current competition prices are way down. 10s still often bring some head shaking numbers but tougher 8-9 from the 60s and 70s seem to be soft compared to their peak prices.

I agree

[cesarcap]

I'm 50 and my 11 and 13 yr old boys who play baseball (rec, travel andLL) essentially all 4 seasons do not collect baseball cards. They of course have sports games on their devices but have no interest in baseball cards, old or new. Hardly any interest in reading any of the classic baseball books or Baseball Digest either.

But one of my younger son's PSA 9 Pokemon card is worth way more than my 52B Mantle or Mays, 57T Mantle or any of my 86/7 F Jordans.

I actually want to build more sets so wouldn't mind more correcting to come but I still covet those HOF RC's.

[OlderTheBetter]

Will there be future generations of collectors of anything in the numbers we see today? I seriously doubt it. The digital world is much different than the one we grew up in and the passion for ephemera of all kinds is on the wane by the under-40 crowd. There will always be enthusiasts but they will become scarcer. Interest in hard-copy anything is decreasing overall.

We're already seeing an obvious decline it in the antiquarian book market as well as in comic books that are not first appearances, key issues or low-print variants.

Set building in almost all collectibles is slowly dying in interest and that trend should accelerate.

Hall of famers, key rookies and players with high name recognition for pre-1970 cards will retain value due to lower supply and condition issues. Demand will decrease but be offset by low supply.

These are my predictions as a collector for over 50 years of cards, comics and books. I seriously hope most collectors aren't investing big money in their collections. Leave your money to your kids in another form.

[Exhibitman]

When it comes to the Millennials and play money, I don't think us Gen X collectors or the Boomers can appreciate the financial ass-kicking most of them have absorbed. The jobs that are out there don't pay or benefit like they used to (anyone remember non-contributory health insurance, profit sharing and defined benefit plans?) and the cost of living in any major city has gone way up. Add that to the debt burden resulting from the astronomical rise in cost of higher education (my law school has gone from $4500 a year when I attended to nearly $30K a year now) and you don't have a lot of play money. Most of my Millennial cousins are dead-ass broke even though they are employed, living with roommates or with parental assistance, at a time I was banking a large chunk of my salary and amassing my collection.

That said, one thing I've noticed in running my eBay store and the occasional show table is that cheap stuff moves, even during really bad times. I think it always will. People don't really mind spending a few bucks on a card. The things that are going down the crapper financially are the middling quality slabbed cards from mainstream sets. You can't even make back the cost of a slab on many 6-8 graded cards. I spend a lot of time at the National harvesting super nice $1-$5 raw cards, cards that we all used to send to PSA and then flip into the set building registry market. It is almost startling to see what you can get for a buck or two. If you are willing to go lower grade, you can pick up amazing superstars too.

Another factor is the worthlessness of most post-1980 cards. Take out the key rookies, chase cards and parallel sets and the cards that most kids start out collecting will never, ever gain any value. They're worthless cardboard. You could argue that a 'pure' collector wouldn't care, and that's a valid point, but when you're talking about putting money into something it isn't easy to watch it deflate to nearly worthless status. I imagine that would really disenchant a young collector. Remember these:



I picked up a complete set, unopened, at a show for less than it was originally sold for in 1986. I remember sitting at a table at a show about ten years ago when a young collector brought me an album full of 1991 cards that he'd clearly taken a lot of time to collect and was very proud of, but that had no resale value at all. What do you say to a guy like that?

[silvor]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

When it comes to the Millennials and play money, I don't think us Gen X collectors or the Boomers can appreciate the financial ass-kicking most of them have absorbed. The jobs that are out there don't pay or benefit like they used to (anyone remember non-contributory health insurance, profit sharing and defined benefit plans?) and the cost of living in any major city has gone way up.

Good points, except a story came out recently that Millennials have more saved for retirement than Gen Xers.

So, they're doing something right.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by OlderTheBetter

Will there be future generations of collectors of anything in the numbers we see today? I seriously doubt it. The digital world is much different than the one we grew up in and the passion for ephemera of all kinds is on the wane by the under-40 crowd. There will always be enthusiasts but they will become scarcer. Interest in hard-copy anything is decreasing overall.

We're already seeing an obvious decline it in the antiquarian book market as well as in comic books that are not first appearances, key issues or low-print variants.

Set building in almost all collectibles is slowly dying in interest and that trend should accelerate.

Hall of famers, key rookies and players with high name recognition for pre-1970 cards will retain value due to lower supply and condition issues. Demand will decrease but be offset by low supply.

These are my predictions as a collector for over 50 years of cards, comics and books. I seriously hope most collectors aren't investing big money in their collections. Leave your money to your kids in another form.

I agree with everything above, except your last statement. Vintage sports cards are as good an investment that you can leave. That is what my son is getting. They are extremely easy to liquidate. I wish my dad had done the same instead of parking his investments with crooked financial institutions. If it wasn't for the few hard assets, precious metals, I would be screwed in taking care of my mother. Those people make those in the sportscard industry look like saints.

The death of set collecting is the high price of common no name players. Those who collected in the 50s and 60s chased sets because the fillers cost a penny, nickle, or dime. Dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars in no name fillers when you can put the same money into any of the top 10 or so names, easily recognized by any collector in the future, seems foolish to me. Invest smart by buying "waterfront property" and you will be ok.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by rats60

I agree with everything above, except your last statement. Vintage sports cards are as good an investment that you can leave. That is what my son is getting. They are extremely easy to liquidate. I wish my dad had done the same instead of parking his investments with crooked financial institutions. If it wasn't for the few hard assets, precious metals, I would be screwed in taking care of my mother. Those people make those in the sportscard industry look like saints.

The death of set collecting is the high price of common no name players. Those who collected in the 50s and 60s chased sets because the fillers cost a penny, nickle, or dime. Dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars in no name fillers when you can put the same money into any of the top 10 or so names, easily recognized by any collector in the future, seems foolish to me. Invest smart by buying "waterfront property" and you will be ok.

Absolutely +1. As long as there is baseball, there will be interest in baseball history, and how the outstanding players of today compare to the greats of yester-year. That history gives the present game a great sense of context.

Well stated,

Larry

[ValKehl]

Sports card collecting will endure as long as there are folks on this earth who love sports and who also were born with the "collector gene."

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by cesarcap

I'm 50 and my 11 and 13 yr old boys who play baseball (rec, travel andLL) essentially all 4 seasons do not collect baseball cards. They of course have sports games on their devices but have no interest in baseball cards, old or new. Hardly any interest in reading any of the classic baseball books or Baseball Digest either.

But one of my younger son's PSA 9 Pokemon card is worth way more than my 52B Mantle or Mays, 57T Mantle or any of my 86/7 F Jordans.

I actually want to build more sets so wouldn't mind more correcting to come but I still covet those HOF RC's.

I'd be like Rick on Pawnstars when he was recently presented a collection of Pokemon cards supposedly worth approximately $400K. If you can't flip 'em quick for a nice profit, best to walk away rather than be stuck with them down the road.

Just my 25 cents worth,

Larry

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by glynparson

Set building is not in vogue now everyone is buying rookies and superstar cards. This has made it a good time,in my opinion to build sets. Many of the low pop cards are selling for fractions of what they sold for when everyone was set building. It still has some pull on the hotly contested registry sets but on sets where there is less current competition prices are way down. 10s still often bring some head shaking numbers but tougher 8-9 from the 60s and 70s seem to be soft compared to their peak prices.

Sounds like some sage advice to follow. Reminds me of a famous investor who once said that when others were selling their stocks in droves, he was there to buy them, and when the masses were buying, he would sell. The contrarian approach to buying high, and selling low--i.e., avoid the herd mentality. I don't think baseball collectors will abandon baseball history or the history of baseball cards. More common (but still relatively scarce) items may be a bit cyclical, a la coins, but demand for them isn't going to vanish from the face of the earth forever.

Best wishes Glyn,

Larry