This is true sure, but lately the difference between super excellent and super duper excellent has gone off the reservation. There once was more of a graduated price ramp from "poor" all the way to "mint" and you could see a logical path along the way. Now, you see some cards are "poor" at $500 and "mint" at $500,000 and that doesn't seem to follow any path of logic at all. I mean people spend what they want and buy what they want, and that's their bidness (the high end market doesn't impact me much) but eventually, this is all going to crash and burn as the prices don't seem to reflect any sort of rational decision making but rather a falsely manufactured profit chase. People buying $90,000 Rose PSA 9's then flipping em for $150k to another who buys hoping to flip for $200k....etc eventually, someone is gonna lose their shirt and the resulting domino effect could bring the entire high end market crashing down (thus impacting the lower markets along the way)


edited to add: paintings aren't really applicable because fine art is "one off" creations whereas cards are a manufactured commodity. There aren't 50,000 "Starry Night" original paintings floating around out there in various states of condition.

Greater fool theory

This quote "The only people who feel Mantles are overvalued are people who don't own one" ignores a few logical follow up questions.

a) Are the people that own and think it isn't over-valued the ones hyping the value?
b) Is the reason people that don't own it continue not to own it because they feel it is over valued and have other cards they would rather spend their money on?

I don't own a 51 Bowman Mantle and believe it is under-valued in comparison to his second year card with several design flaws that was double printed.

I would not call it the "definitive" card in card collecting. It is the definitive card in card investing.
Yet there is no "definitive" card in collecting because collecting varies by people. There are collectors that don't collect Topps or any card made since their inception. Also, though I have heard of HOF rookie collections, I have never heard of a 2nd year HOF collection.

Looking thru PWCC
 

I went through the top 4 pages of PWCC looking for pre war cards from highest priced all the way down to $600. Saw not one single pre war card. No Cobb's, No Ruth's, No Gehrig's, No Walter Johnson's, etc. Hmmm.

Would love to see when some HOFer T206's or other pre war HOFers come up for auction what they go for. Then will be able to get a better handle on the stuff "we" collect.

If we only had a crystal ball!

My post from another forum on Bren't post that is did on both boards. I think this sums up the current market.


Nice to see you post on the forum about the topic Brent.

One of the hardest parts of investing is being early in a trend and staying on the bull. It is so much easier said than done. Scads of people have said I wanted to buy that stock at $10 and now it is $100. Had I put x amount in it I would have x. Yeah sure. Along the way you have to deal with death defying pullbacks that can easily shake a human out. The easy part is you can go right back into the market and get your shares back essentially anytime you want just at a different price good or bad. With rare cards you can't so there is a much different attachment and fear of selling.

You make a great point about supply. The total population is only one metric to look at. The immediate supply is more important and there are a multitude of cards locked up in collections that buyers know aren't coming to market.


I personally view most high end cards as appealing to a persons bragging rights. The higher the prices go the more bragging rights associated with them and the more others want them.

I sum up the market with a line from this clip.

The illusion has become real and the more real it becomes the more desperate they want it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVjCRWbvM4c


My wrestling cards were considered garbage, worthless, only for losers, gay and any other negative comment one can make. It wasn't just people in the card collecting community but personal friends and associates in the financial services industry. Now that they aren't worthless they are cool, awesome, so unique and so on. People hate things at low prices and love them at high prices.

Telling someone you own a perfect mint Michael Jordan rookie sounds great. The first question is how much is it worth. (2010) $6,500. Wow that is pretty cool. Fast forward to 2016 and it is $35,000+. Man that is so awesome!!! Bingo.

Not always
 

Having been through a couple of hot "crazies", I'd have to say no.

Yep.

PWCC regularly auctions all sorts of prewar card every month. I think the prewar section is already complete for June, which is why you don't see it. You can do a search on the auction history for PWCC here: Link, and you'll see plenty of Ruth, Cobb, and Johnson cards.

Yeah they started the month with the oldest stuff and worked in order to the newest stuff right now I think. I was ogling a lot of stuff that ended up out of my range.

must admit I blew it on the lot of cards with a musial auto tho, ended up going for $50 and I assumed it would go too high and let it lapse. DOH!

Aquarian
 

You don't know what you are talking about. I know for a fact two different large submitters have handed in lots in the hundreds to thousand of various 1986 stars. They only had the tens or in a very few cases the 9s slabbed. These cards never make the pop but we're still subbed for grading. That's why some big submitters only have 9-10 cards for sale. Also 200+ of a 25 cent modern card seems like a lot of subs to me. I don't care how many were produced the average owner of a 1986 topps set doesn't even know what the hell Psa or sgc is. So sorry still think you're way off base.

Same artist or different?
There are quite a few artists whose work I like enough that I'd take a damaged painting - Or for many of them a print if they made them- than a nice example of a painting by an artist I don't like.

Of course, that's from an enjoyment perspective.

So, a really bad anything by da Vinci over a nice Picasso.
Or maybe even a genuine Escher print over a nice Picasso.

Now of course, if I'm not actually paying the "real" price for it I'll go with whatever is likely to sell for more


And I've never been all that picky about condition with cards, If I buy a boxful, and some are nicer than the ones I already have I'll upgrade, but I rarely go out of my way to upgrade.

Steve B

Well said.

Well I am glad you understood it. I reread it and couldn't. haha. I cleaned up some grammar and I hope it makes more sense now.

I think there are great many people who would like a '52T Mantle and who could afford one at current levels who don't buy one bc they think it is overvalued.
It's simple really, it's not worth what it would cost them to them. Not everyone is green with envy to own this card.

I don't envy those who have a 1952 Topps Mantle - I wish I DID have one.

IF I had one, I'd keep it!

But I don't have one and would not pay the going rate to own one now. I would not be happy to own "a Beater", but I would NOT spend what it takes to own a "nice" one.

Does THAT make sense?

What would you buy?
 

OK. Recently a nicely centered PSA 5 Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle went for $125,000.

If you were given $125,000. and had to spend it on 1-3 cards, what would you buy?

I would go for a minimum PSA 5, T206 Cobb green and the best 1920's something Ruth's (1 or 2 cards) with remainder of money.

The Graduate
 

Maybe when Mr McGuire recommended plastics to Benjamin Braddock back in 1967 he was predicting PSA

Al you may be on to something.
I think I remember them also discussing flips and poppage in some of the outtakes.

Most overvalued card?


ANY I've posted on the bSt boards!


I own a 1952 topps Mantle, with the same pop as a PSA 9.

I'd have to think about selling it at a psa 9 price!

Most over-valued card
 

A lot of the new high rollers grew up in the era of 80-90s rookie cards. Back then, they couldn't afford 50s HOFers their parents told em about. So now they are buying their childhood back as collectors tend to do. They ignore the junk wax that burned them and go for the thing they could never afford as kids but ogled at card shops/shows/Beckett magazine. Demand for post war rookies is high accordingly. Investors manipulating prices only puts gas on the fire. If people hold out and don't dump in unison, this could sustain for awhile (I hope.)

The question I have is whether pre war will ever see another bump or if there's no new blood that will ever give a damn beyond the pantheon names like Ruth, Cobb, Honus. I don't see a massive spike in That category ever being possible. Though I bet it keeps getting propped up by the post war market.

At least I hope so as that's where my monies at. My dad told me stories about dizzy dean, George sisler and those types. So my interest in baseball history and collecting has remained there. I have a bunch of 48-69 stuff but am not as emotionally attached to it. It's going to auction and I'm hanging onto the pre war .


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Yes. Like I tell everyone, I'm a terrible baseball card businessperson and even I have been doing ok. It scares me.