haha touche', yes .298.

BUT will Trout also have 762 home runs?

A lot of money for a guy in the same league as Frank Thomas. That card only has downward to go.

Say what? He's on track to be a top-tier HOFer. No one - no one - has 7 top 2 MVPs finishes in their first 8 seasons. And his 8th year he was the frontrunner for MVP when he got hurt. Played 3/4 of a season, still finished 4th.

It's weird the way baseball fans simply refuse to believe current players can possibly be as great as their heroes of the past. But let's be clear - Trout is as great as anybody we'll ever see.

You mentioned Trout won't hit .400. You're right, he won't. But Ted wouldn't hit .400 today either. Ted played in a completely different environment - not integrated, no one throwing 100 mph (let alone dozens of guys), no short relievers, no cross-country travel, barely any night games and so on.

As for manufactured scarcity, yep, it's an issue. Not a new one, given the Goudey Lajoie, etc. Would *I* pay $4m for a Trout rookie? No. But I totally get why somebody would.

If he roids to the eyeballs around age 32 I all but guarantee it...

Yeah, but Ted was a marine and so was the poster who mentioned that. Mike had a chance to to be a marine but he decided to take the easy way out and is therefore less than. That’s at least what i got.

Frank Thomas was not a 5 tool player

Most comparable by age is Mickey Mantle. I know, according to some here Mantle is way better because he single-handedly took crappy Yankees teams and led them to the promised land. On the other hand, Trout has lost with some loaded teams. Oh, wait...

Yes, but he hit .388 at age 38 a decade after integration. There were pitchers who threw 100 mph, Ryne Duran for one who also was a short reliever. Ted didn't get to play in a league watered down by expansion either. Ted absolutely could hit .400 today. Gwynn, Brett and Carew all came close. Trout also won't come close to Ted's .344 BA or .634 SLG.

And we don't even know what we missed in Ted's prime years when he was in the war

Mike Trout is a poor man's Ron Kittle, and that is just stating undisputible fact.

. . . . That should keep this discussion continuing for a while.

This card is a total beast! Great card.

Obviously you've never seen his Nugenix commercials.

Nice to know that people who aren't Marines are lesser human beings. Didn't know that.

If Frank Thomas's stats hadn't tailed off toward the last 1/3 of his career . . .

Gwynn & Brett both played 2/3 of a season. They don't count.

Ryne Duren? Sure, one guy. There are numerous guys hitting 100 now and DOZENS hitting 98. It's unquestionable that guys throw A LOT harder now.

Ted was great but lemme ask you this - if the two guys switch places, whose stats would improve and whose wouldn't?

I'll go back to my post yesterday - Mike Trout is the best player today and the last 50 years and perhaps. EVER!!! Only Bonds can compare w/ efficiency of swing mechanics. Just listen to the 'real' baseball community, the D1 - D3 coaches, the professional htting coaches in the US. Bonds and Trout are the very best they've ever seen!! Bonds never had to juice, but he did because of ego.... so sad....

Mike Trout is the best. Forget injuries, strikes, pandemics. Mantle dealt with knee blowouts and constant hangovers from his alcholism and is still beloved and AWESOME!!!.... Trout is Mantle X2 - believe it and watch! The dude faces 95+ mph fastballs and UNGODLY offspeed pitches every single AB..... the MLB in the 50's and 60's don't even compare to the Double A these days guys. Look at the Tampa Bay Rays 1st round pick this year.... at 17 year old out of PA, Nick Bitsko - SITS 97 MPH!!! good luck after a late night bender!

Not in my view at least.

I know, shouldn't have quote you, sorry.

I don't think this. It was an extra accomplishment/challenge that some had and took on which separates them from the pack. Trout is an amazing player and seemingly good guy. He may turn out to be the best. But even statistics won't categorize him with with the likes of Ted and Yogi in my eyes. My only reason for bringing it up was because it was used as an unfair comparison. There are the rare birds like Tillman, but I don't expect entertainers to follow suit.

Trout has never led the league in hits, doubles, triples, home runs or BA. Led in RBI, SB, TB once and SLG 3 times. Williams led doubles 2 times, HR 4 times RBI 4 times, BA 6 times SLG 9 times and TB 6 times. He won 2 triple crowns. Williams would be dominant in any era. Trout is just a good player on a bad team that gets pitched around a lot. He is not a 5 tool player. He is an average OF with a weak arm. He is a power hitter with speed. That is not the best player I gave ever seen, not even close. Being the best player of the current generation does not make him one of the best all time.

It is not unquestionable that guys are throwing a lot harder, maybe 1 or 2 MPH on average. Man hasn't made some huge genetic leap in 60 years. Ted Williams hit Bob Feller slightly better than his career averages. He would have done very well against today's hard throwers.

That assertion gets made every single time on here when a modern card sells for a staggering figure. Did you foresee the card rising 10 fold when it was a $400,000 card?

Maybe the value will go up and maybe it will go down, but these assertions that modern cards will automatically go down in value have been proven wrong a whole lot in recent years.

Best player ever and hitting .262 C'mon.

Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax don't mean shit to anyone under 40. Just sayin'.

Why do people look at is as a bad thing when contemporary cards take off. It's a great thing. Keeps hobby vibrant. Kids today don't listen to Crosby Stills and Nash or the Doors or the Byrds They have their own musical heroes. Exactly as it should be. That's what keeps things moving.

I would agree if it was actually kids in the hobby but I don't know any kids collecting baseball cards. This hobby is geared to people 25 and over with disposable income right now. If there are kids they are probably collecting basketball but even that's priced out of their range.

You answered your own question... the point was to limit the amount of prizes obtained, hence, there was NEVER monetary value associated with these cards, so it is completely different.

Literally the stupidest thing I have ever read on this forum. And that's saying something.

Trout is one of the best to every play the game.

That being said, what is the likelihood this card is still in the same league as a T206 Wagner 5 years from now? 10? 20? 40? Very, very low. Maybe the buyer doesn't care, though. So there's that...

You are Correct... jus maybe not so on how ole' the "Kids in the Hobby' are taday!? In this era's time, the 'Kid in the Hobby' are 25+ years ole'...

The Hobby Card Industry of taday have Re Focus'd on that Money's Age Group!
Guys like 'Vegas Dave', are in trusted by these 25 year ole's as sumwhat of a mentor! This is hard to swallow fir guy who grew up wit CSN, Marshall Tucker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc... Howevar it's True!

True. I am 40. Younger than probably most on this site. I have literally no interest in cards from the 50s-70s. Mickey Mantle? Bob Gibson? Tom Seaver? Ted Williams? Greats, sure. But I don't have any interest in collecting them.

I think as the boomer generation ages and slowly passes on, prices/demand for Pre-war cards will stay high, while the market will soften on the midcentury greats.

The point is one card is just as rare as the other and both have intended rarity, the reason is irrelevant. Rarity is rarity.

Strongly disagree. Mantle was, is and will continue to be one of the strongest draws for me to collect. The Mick is iconic, there will always be people that want to collect him. I was barely a year old when he died, and the cards of his that I own, are my favorites in my small collection. It might be the minority but there's a good amount of people who grew up hearing stories about him from their fathers and grandfathers, and names like him and Koufax were the names thrown around when we were introduced to the Hobby.


Concerning your second point, I'll have you know that Crosby Stills Nash and Young is a hell of a group! :)

I could be wrong though. A good portion of the people I meet though are firmly convinced I'm a 75 year old man at heart, but I don't see anything wrong with that! :D

Not true. There is a guy on here doing a Koufax run because he was his dad's favorite player. There are lots of guys collecting Mantle who are under 40. The 52 T Mantle keeps Mickey relevant. I have no issue with people collecting Trout because he is the best player in the game. However, MLB didn't start in 2010 or 2000 or 1990, etc. People need to stop acting like it did and older players were no good or are irrelevant. There are also lots of young people who listen to the Beatles, Doors, Byrd's, CSNY etc. and prefer their music to newer bands. The Rolling Stones made more money than any other band last year. It's not just old people spending money on them, it is younger people too.

It seems kind of odd to see a post like this on a board of people collecting prewar cards of players they never saw like Wagner, Cobb, Ruth and Gehrig.

I guess you didn't read earlier in this thread or catch the sarcasm or both. If I truly felt that way, yes it would be ridiculous.

I think the issue is more can demand for postwar vintages stay up with supply. I think people will always be after Mantle, Jackie, Clemente, Mays, Aaron, Koufax, etc. Just will there be thousands with desire to own those cards.

I just turned 40 and my interests have always been in the history and greats of the game. Yes, I do watch the new players but I'm a history buff and the older I get the more I appreciate these guys who built the game and trailblazed.

Why does your argument that Ted would be a star in any era discount the same fact about Trout? I'm not sure why anyone would think that the best player in the game by far (Trout) who is playing the game at the highest level at a time when the game is at its most complex, would not be a star if he were playing a simpler version of the same game.

I'm 45 and I love collecting post-war vintage. And I imagine I'm far from alone in feeling some nostalgia for that era's players (even though I wasn't alive to see many of them play).

And most people who love the T206 and other older cards are in the same boat, even if they're from my parents' generation.

If plenty of people are still buying up Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson now, the same could easily be true for Mantle and Mays in 30 years

For the new generation of investor driven mega refractor cards, it's clear the allure is not all about skills, but pizazz and style as well. Hottest new cards on the market now are Tatis and Vlad Jr. Also Yankee prospect Dominquez. (Imagine paying $20,000 for a kid years away from the majors?) Hottest basketball player by far is Zion, followed by Ja Morant. Funny how a great player like DeGrom commands basically no interest in the high end market. Follow who the kids want to be next. There's you next mega refractor card star. Sounds absurd but isn't that how the Mickey Mantle card became what it is today. Seemed larger than life, doing stuff kids of the day were wowed by.

I think he was referring to the guy who did say those things (and criticized "Little Mikey Trout's" character and life decisions because he didn't join the military instead of using his baseball skills to make a living).

The few card investors who put big $ into unproven prospects did the same thing during the junk wax boom, but it was just done in a different way. Instead of spending 20 k on a Dominguez card, they'd try to get a few thousand Gregg Jefferies '88 Fleer or John Olerud '90 Upper Deck

Haha yeah sorry. I had read some of this thread a few days ago, but today just clicked on the most recent page. So I thought you were being serious and was like...woooooowww...

The reasons are never irrelevant. Cards of the past never had original monetary value, while modern cards have inflated monetary value. This isn't rocket science... there is a HUGE difference.

Seriously? Barry Bonds was walked 232 times in a season-- more than 1 1/2 times a game. He was INTENTIONALLY walked 120 times that year--and Pujols has never walked 120 times a season period. Bonds is the all-time leader in walks and IBB- more than twice as many IBB as Pujols, and he led the league in IBB a dozen times. Sure he had a good eye, but no way pitchers wanted anything to do with him. He was intentionally walked with the bases loaded.

Whatever you think of the man, the player Barry Bonds was the best I have ever seen and ever will see. Let's revisit this when Trout gets to 750 HRs.

That argument doesn't hold any water to me though. If Trout hits 750 homers it won't be because he cheated to do it. You simply can't be the best at anything if you cheated. The best at anything doesn't need to cheat. Therefore, Bonds can not possibly be the best player of all time. If he was, he wouldn't have cheated.

I agree. I have not been able to get into ultra-modern. Way too many sets and subsets. The new wave of kids collecting cards in the 2000s don't care a lot about the vintage stuff is my guess - only related to the current players.

The argument that Bonds walking a lot makes him the best is hard to swallow since most of that came after he started cheating. The better argument, it seems to me, is that in 1998 Bonds became the first player in history to have 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases (it might be 300, I'm not looking it up). But, instead of being celebrated for it, McGwire and Sosa got all the attention.

That was also the year that a St. Louis reporter wrote about seeing PEDs in McGwire's locker, kicking off a storm of protest not about PEDs, but about breached locker room privacy. LaRussa said the reporter should be banned from the club house, etc. It was an understandable, though not admirable, reaction by Bonds to feel that PEDs were an acceptable approach to becoming the most celebrated (and highest paid) player in the game. The rest is history and I am not condoning Bonds' behavior, but saying that his position as the best player of his era (at least) was arguably well in hand before he "got dirty".

Whether Bonds would have aged well without PEDs seems likely, but admittedly, is clouded by the drug use. At the same time, we don't yet know how well Trout will age.

John Olerud. Wow. Good hitter, but I'm hard pressed to think of a player in my life time who was more boring. Guy hardly spoke.

I'm 36 here and I love Mantle. Why? Cause' all you boomers passed on the Mantle love to us! I own a few of his cards too, including his Bowman rookie.

I'm a huge fan of the Doors and my favorite track is "Riders on the Storm." This was the last song Morrison recorded and then he died in Paris.

That's cool. And you are not representative of 36 year olds. I love Glenn Miller. That doesn't mean he has a huge following of 57 year olds.

Long term, I feel most safe, investment wise, with T206 major HOF'ers. You can't buy everything (at least not me) so I have passed on the Mantle cards, rookie cards, high dollar modern cards. I totally get buying Mantle/rookies/modern - people really like these cards. This is what is so nice about our hobby - something for everyone.

But doesn't a sale of a modern card like this one upset that vision of the hobby? We don't know who bought the Trout. If it's a young collector, the future may be modern.