Market flattening definitely

[Snapolit1]

Watching last few auctions, definitely feels to me that with rare exception prices have flattened out and are not rising like we saw last year. In LOTG, Heritage, and REA, I walked away with nice Gehrig/Ruth items at prices lower than I anticipated. Not complaining. On the positive side, things seems a little more orderly and weeding out "irrational exuberance" in the market is probably a good thing. Also positive in that to the extent the market has corrected there is no widespread crash of any kind as many have predicted on this board.

On the negative side, I haven't recovered as much on items consigned as expected. Goes both ways.

[Leon]

There is no doubt there has been an influx of very high quality cards in a short period of time recently (at least to me). That has to have depressed things a little bit. When auction after auction has incredible cards some of them have to fall.

[wondo]

I've used it as a buying opportunity, although, I must confess, that I have over extended myself a tad. I've tried to focus on value and buy non-mainsteam items that don't come up every day. I picked up a E253 Cobb last week at just over 1/2 my snipe. I was floored! We'll see - fingers crossed.

The market is a bit flooded right now and for better or worse, the big auction season is tax season. I guess you gotta spend your refund on something. Everybody will take a breath and then we'll see a ramp up of activity as we approach the National.

[mechanicalman]

Steve, have you seen the recent prices on T206 Cobbs? CJs? '48 Leaf Jackies?

Sure, maybe the market has cooled on '55 Clementes because there are 1000s of them. There are winners and losers right now, and claims of a market-wide flattening is not an accurate assessment.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by mechanicalman

Steve, have you seen the recent prices on T206 Cobbs? CJs? '48 Leaf Jackies?

Sure, maybe the market has cooled on '55 Clementes because there are 1000s of them. There are winners and losers right now, and claims of a market-wide flattening is not an accurate assessment.

High end cards, postcards, T206s and the cards noted above are more expensive than they have ever been. A PSA 8 1914 CJ Cobb sold for 144K the other night; it sold for 44K less than three years ago.

[pokerplyr80]

I have to agree with the last 2 comments. The pre-war cards I've been watching and bidding on seem to all be going for record prices. Cobb, Jackson, and Ruth seem to be pretty hot right now. A psa 3 e90-1 Jackson just went for 60k or so. And a 14 cj psa 2 for 30k.

[samosa4u]

The prices of a lot of cards have fallen since last summer, but not all of them. When collectors started seeing the insane prices high-end Clementes, Gretzkys, Ewings, etc. were bringing, they decided to put theirs up for sale as well, and like Wondo says, this ended up flooding the market. Now the ones that are still going strong are those that very few collectors own. If we see a high-end 51' Parkhurst Gordie Howe Rookie selling for a crazy price, can hundreds of other collectors list theirs for sale too? Nope, because there are not that many out there.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by calvindog

High end cards, postcards, T206s and the cards noted above are more expensive than they have ever been. A PSA 8 1914 CJ Cobb sold for 144K the other night; it sold for 44K less than three years ago.

PSA 7 Ruth sold for $552,000 and 1907 Seamless Steel Tubes Ty Cobb with Cobb writing content for $84,000 as the last Heritage auction. Seamless Cobb in Good 2 went for $24,000 in the last REA auction. Autographed 1907 Dietsche Fielding Pose Cobb--$26,000. Non-autographed Fielding Pose just under $11,000 at auction in 2015 in PSA 5, up from the $4,000 I paid for one in the very same grade in 2011. I'd say rare and significant items (condition rarity for the Ruth) are doing quite well.

Regards,

Larry

[Snapolit1]

Originally Posted by mechanicalman

Steve, have you seen the recent prices on T206 Cobbs? CJs? '48 Leaf Jackies?

Sure, maybe the market has cooled on '55 Clementes because there are 1000s of them. There are winners and losers right now, and claims of a market-wide flattening is not an accurate assessment.

48 Jackie is an iconic card. And prices are going generally DOWN over the last year.

[Snapolit1]

Even more dramatic for the higher graded Paige Leaf card.

PSA 7
This year: $66,000
Last year: $108,039

SGC 84
This year: $52,000
Lasr year $71,820

[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

48 Jackie is an iconic card. And prices are going generally DOWN over the last year.

Yet another broad generalization based on limited data. The pricing arrow for every grade other than 3, 7, and 8 is up. 6 should be up but it doesn't reflect the Heritage card which doubled the average this past weekend.

We can trade limited data points, but I'm using this data to REFUTE your assessment that there is a hobby-wide slowdown. As I said, there are winners and losers, and if the particular cards you collect are heading down, and you're a buyer, congrats.