Memory lane auction results last night
 

I just glanced at the results from last night. In my opinion the hobby is as hot as ever.

https://memorylaneinc.com/site/Lots/Gallery?order=2

That auction was...
 

A PSA registry nut's dream.

1980 rookie Ricky Henderson in a 10 holder sels for $135,000 and a 9 holder sells for $2,700. How silly!

Didn’t it sell for a record or supposedly sold to Rally in 2021 from PwCC for $181,100..I think that guy or company was trying to fractionalize it idk where that went... mysteries to me.

That same auction house in 2021 during that time supposedly got $5,000 and $6,000 in 2021 for PSA 9 Henderson Rookies also alleged record sales for grade.

How many Henderson RC 9's and 10's are there? Was the "10" sold in Memory Lane the same as the card that sold for $181K? If so, that's a dump of about 25%. If it were a $1K card, 25% is minimal, but when looking at a 6 figure card that's a chunk of change.

For clarification, how much would a mid-grade 1933 Goudey set sell for? What about a low-mid grade T206 set (sans the big 4).

I hear these stories and just cannot understand the rational for paying up for a frigging number on a flip. It'd be interesting to compare the 9's and 10's side by side and say, hey, there's over $100K difference in those cards. It's frigging cardboard that's not even 50 years old.

From my reading the Henderson 10 is like a unicorn compared to a 9. I think a few other 80s cards are similar (maybe Ozzie Smith too).

Was curious about the Henderson, so I just checked the pop report

PSA has graded almost $140K 1980 Topps
The biggest chunk is Henderson at 35,726
& 26 are 10's

Memory lane auction results last night
 

What Jay said!

Interesting video about the Henderson card from 4 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wTMS1dmddc

Imagine paying $150k for that green Cobb with that top border?!

All Hype…

Jaw-dropping.......no other word for it.

Don't worry, most will be for sale this week on ebay 50% higher.


I have to laugh when a heritage auction closes, and cards are listed the very next day!

It can't sustain

Do you mean in the BST? :p

When I think of the auctions for new/shiny stuff that result in crazy high prices, I think about musical chairs. One of these times the music is going to stop (prices are not going to continue to rise) and someone isn't going to get a chair and they're going to be left holding the proverbial bag. Let's just hope it's someone that can afford to take it in the shorts. But then if you're going to play, you better be prepared to "be that guy/person".

Hence why I don't play! Did grab a #181 ruth, but it sold for double the very next day. I had always wanted one, but prices just too good to say no. I can say I owned one!

Still upside in signed cards IMO as pops are low on many, more so the quality names and vintage autos

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Hats off to ML for a great auction. A 120 lot auction that raises over $4 million is pretty incredible. I call it the Joe T effect. No one does more to increase auction realizations than Joe. He is worth his weight in gold.
That said, I agree that paying that much for the Henderson rookie 10 or some of the other pop unicorns is ridiculous, especially considering the fact that there are still plenty of unopened boxes left.

Haha, So true! The grading game on cards is in a fog of nonsense. Rarity should not be arbitrary, subjective, or manufactured.

Are you implying it is? :p:p:p:p

You got that right!

I see that the gorgeous PSA 8 T204 of WaJo sold for $376,736! I wonder if my gorgeous (to me), poor example of this card would sell for even 1% of this figure.

I'll pay ya 1 percent right now

Well my psa 8s Brett and henderson rookies are now priceless 😳😳

Val, that card is worth much more than 1%. I think the T204 Ramly is the most undervalued prewar card. The $370k last night is well deserved in my opinion.

Jay, I agree with you re Joe

Ryan, Will we be seeing it in a New Pick Ups thread???

I agree, the price on T204 Johnsons is well below where it should be. Starting to get some notice now,

Not me! I have a gorgeous 5.5 and a super nice 5, the latter of which will be in ML’s spring auction

I believe there was t-204 find with group of high grade Johnson cards

I want one!

The Johnson sold last night has been sold previously, it's not new to the hobby.

This came from a large T204 find, but I am not sure how many Johnson's there were. I think they found these in a cigar box. Tony A knows the details, maybe he will chime in.

Mays
 

It's been a while since we had a large group of highly graded mainline Mays pieces come to auction. In fact, I think the last time was also in ML, around 18 months ago. So it's time to take a look at how that market is doing.

Summary if you don't want to read the details: Prices are still high, although in some cases, prices are down 25-30% compared to the all-time highs during the pandemic. Compared to pre-pandemic, prices are still up by roughly 300%-500%.

A few caveats, since others will make these observations if I don't:

This is obviously just one player, and all of these grades are at or near the tippy top of the pop reports. So definitely not intended to be indicative of the whole market. At the same time, as a Mays guy, and as a set registry goon, these prices are indicative of values for my collection (for those I already have in these grades), or what I would have to pay to upgrade to these pieces (for those where I don't have them yet).

Most of these ML pieces were early certs, with a few exceptions, so read that as you will. And obviously every card is somewhat different, so it's often dangerous to compare pricing at the same grade without digging a lot deeper into the details. But being a lazy fellow with little imagination, I'm going to do it anyway.

More specifically, I will hasten to note that I didn't love the 1970T in PSA 10, because the edges looked a little wavy to me, and the corners didn't seem to form perfect 90 degree angles. Maybe I'm just seeing card doctors everywhere now, but I stayed away from that one for this reason, and I suspect others saw that too, because the price was relatively weak. Link here if you want to check it out for yourself: https://memorylaneinc.com/site/bids/...e?itemid=81662

For that matter, some of you will probably assert that all high-grade vintage has been doctored. And that's always a possibility, although I suppose I hold out the impossible dream that some high grade vintage is all natural and unadulterated.

These cards don't trade very often, so pricing data is often very thin. For many of these pieces, they might only trade once per year, and sometimes might go years without trading. As a result, it's hard to tell whether these prices really mean much, because a single data point isn't much of a trend.

I took the liberty of rounding a lot of the pricing here, simply because it's easier than trying to take everything out to the penny. Hopefully that lack of precision doesn't drive anyone to distraction.

Let's look at some details, starting with the biggest gains:

1971T PSA 9 - $48k. Pretty strong price for a piece that routinely sold for $5-6k pre-pandemic. Basically up 700%. For that matter, the previous all-time high during the pandemic was $42k. So this was a new record all around.

1972T PSA 10 - $23k. Pre-pandemic this one routinely sold for $2-3k. So up around 700% too. Down slightly from the pandemic high of $25k, but not by much.

1953T PSA 8 - $186k (actually from HA a week ago, but I'm including it here just because ML didn't have this piece). Pre-pandemic around $25k-30k, so up about 500%. Down just a hair from the pandemic high of $195k.

1955B PSA 9 - $94k. Pre-pandemic usually around $15-20K, so up around 500%. Didn't actually have one sell during the pandemic, so this is an all-time high.

1957T PSA 9 - $55k. Up around 500% from pre-pandi, which typically was $7-9k. Down about 13% from the pandemic high of $63k.

1961T PSA 9 - $17k. Up around 500% from the pre-pandemic pricing of about $2-3k, but down 26% from the pandi high of $23k.

A few that were weaker:

1952T PSA 8 - $102k. With a little better centering, I probably would've been tempted to pick this one up myself. But with better centering, it probably would've gone a lot higher. Pre-pandemic around $30-35k, so up about 200%. But down a lot (about 60%) from a pandemic high of $258k. This was the biggest drop from the pandemic high, and centering (or lack thereof) may have been a factor.

1960T PSA 9 - $22k. Routinely sold for $7-9k pre-pandemic, so still up about 150%. But the pandemic high was $36k, so a drop of about 40%.

1970T PSA 10 - $38k. Pre-pandi this was usually $30-34k, so only a very small increase of around 10% here. Oddly, we haven't had one sell during the pandemic, so nothing to compare it to there. As noted earlier, the wavy edges may have scared off a few bidders.

One that was hard to compare:

1958T PSA 9 - $134K. Pre-pandemic, there aren't really any records of these selling in the last 15 years. We did have one sell during the pandemic for $115K, which makes this sale the all-time high. But hard to say how much it's up compared to pre-pandemic, since these are so rare (pop 5) that they sell very infrequently.

As for the rest, including 54T PSA 9, 55T PSA 9, 59T PSA 9, 62T PSA 9, 66T PSA 9, and 68T PSA 10, most of them are up about 250-350% over their pre-pandemic prices, and mostly down from their pandemic highs by about 10-20%, give or take.

Bottom line for me is that prices remain really strong, to the point where I'm mostly sitting on the sidelines, continuing to wait before I upgrade any of these pieces. Maybe we'll get there some day, and if not, then I'll be just fine with what I have.

That was years ago, the Johnson he sold you was the only one in the group. I still have an image he sent me.

Hi fellas. Ryan is correct. Back in 2014 I purchased privately from an estate seller nearly 650 raw cards which originated from the original owner. All of the cards found were still being stored in various tobacco tins.

Along with the cards was an original Ramly pack as well which was sold to another board member long ago.

Of the near 650 card collection, (90) were T204 Ramly's. The highlight of the bunch was the Walter Johnson card which Ryan posted a scan of.

Here is a pic of that group, along with the Wajo card in raw condition how it was found before it was submitted by me to SGC. Sorry for the quality of the pic. Technology has come a along way since then ;)

https://photos.imageevent.com/threet...amlyspread.jpg

https://photos.imageevent.com/threet...mlyspread2.jpg

https://photos.imageevent.com/threet...ntfinal8-4.jpg

Great summary here. I do agree with you though about some of the cards. The earlier certs, well, you can tell they were graded years ago. I will leave it at that.

What I sincerely hope is that collectors don’t get into the “apples are oranges” trap. Example, the 58 Mays in a 9 sold for x, so now my 58 Mays in a 6 is worth more. A fallacy here. Treat each card differently, don’t lump all together.

ya...i'm not so sure how accurate a gauge this auction was/is depicting the "health" of the hobby...more likely a testament to the health of the top 1%'s portfolios.

That 9 58 Mays was horrible had a fish eye and OC…would never grade a 9 today. I’ll take this one all day long for a fraction of that alleged sale price.

This.

If you cracked all the 10 Rickeys and resubmitted in a big stack, how many do you think would get a 10?

Zero. Pop control. I doubt we ever see a new 10.

I am guessing many of the 10s were 9s that bumped for insiders.

Without question zero. And a few may even come back as trimmed.

Please say it aint so... :eek: That never happens, right? :eek:

Back to "why pay for the frigging label?" It's insanity, but then I guess I don't have a great appreciation for a number system which is arbitrary.

It's like buying any other commodity -- you expect the price to go up, or hope so anyway.

Maybe beyond that, you like nice stuff, and prefer it when the nice stuff has been acknowledged by an authority on the matter. Just how much it’s appropriate to rely on the authority is a matter of personal conviction. But obviously in the marketplace, the results suggest that the level of reliance is fairly high.

I guess that's the sad part. The level of reliance on something that is proving (or already proven) to be more and more unreliable and apathetically accepted by a community of impaired collectors that seem to be blinded by it all.

Sorry, but in the end this has impacted a lot of collectors and turned a hobby that used to be fun into a circus sideshow.

It would be nice if the TPGs actually did what they were supposed to do. Kind of hard for the main TPG to say that they were trying to improve the hobby when the first card they encapsulated was a sham.

Sorry for the rant.

Just once, I would love to eee who is consigning these high end cards that people are so dazzled by.

I dont understand why grading would ruin the hobby for people who profess they don’t care about grading. That makes no sense to me.

Just collect what you want to collect.

Agree w/this 100%.

Small sample size, but when it comes to high grade T205s, that is always the case. The PSA 7 T205 Cy Young sold for $53,874 - exact same card sold in ML in October 2021 for $110,084, so over 50% drop. The PSA 8 T205 Speaker sold for $30,508, while one sold in Heritage in November 2021 for $49,200, so nearly 40% drop.

Agree with Peter on most points and it is unlikely any come back as a true 10 due to a number of issues including changing grading standards (amongst all companies)

Grading has brought out the "competitive" wallets that "have to have the best". Nothing wrong with that except the result is auction hammer prices that have marked increases which leads to investors driving up the price of the top graded cards which then leads to an increase in price to the lower grade material which drives the price up on everything which makes "people that don't care" if the card is raw or graded pay more for something that used to be much less. You've heard the saying "A rising tide lifts all boats".

It's probably the evolution of the hobby. However it would help if the TPGs actually did what they were supposed to do, without bias and with an adherence to published "industry standards" (which includes actually making a determination cards are TRIMMED).

I can predict the thoughts of some that believe that TPGs do more good than not. To that I say, try to find an old auction catalog that had a collection of T206s from a famous collector and then attempt to tell yourself that many of the cards in the TPG holders were not trimmed. This is from the earlier days of grading which would indicate there was bias and a bit too much "subjectivity" in grading from the beginning and one couldn't imagine things have changed much since then.

I think a lot of collectors are waiting/hoping for the bubble to pop and then see a precipitous drop in interest in what was once a hobby.

However, I could be wrong.

And an AH's wet dream.

Even some of us set registry goons are waiting/hoping for more affordability.

Everyone has their own opinion on these things. I do not believe that the bat shit crazy market for Ricky Henderson rookie PSA 10's has raised the interest level or market value one iota of raw cards or the same card in a PSA 1, 2 , etc. Maybe it has raised the value of PSA 9, as speculators think that they will break it out and go for a 10.

Rising tide pf the grading game may have lifted a few boats. Not all of them.

Yeaaaa

NOBODY would overpay and submit 10 psa 9s for review to try for a 10. Cracked or otherwise.

Sarcasm...in

This is with reposting.

But here is VCP data on the last several t205 Speaker PSA 8 sales. I think that November 2021 could be a major outlier, and we would all agree that the result the other night is great compared to these other results

Also not that the recent sale is not (hopefully, yet) in VCP

Ryan,

Thanks for the VCP data. Incidentally, the one that just sold at ML is the same one that sold in April 2021, though that sold at Leland's, which I think gets less attention, and before I think the pandemic boom really fully hit vintage. In any case, I think the question is this: are pre-pandemic comps supposed to be relevant? As Nicolo showed in his message, we are still generally far above those, and that is still the case in the world of high grade T205s. So much so, that I thought less in terms of pre-pandemic comps and more in terms of where the new baseline is. Do you think pre-pandemic comps should still be the measuring stick?

Great question! I think it depends somewhat on the card we are comping. But I do think that with many cards, especially ones that are fairly common, you can throw pre-Covid data out the window. Those prices are long gone and likely never coming back.

Dude! Don't take pre-covid prices away from me. I still hold out hope that one day we'll get a little closer to the pre-covid good old days.

If nothing else, I prefer to continue to refer to pre-covid prices just to track how much they've changed. From time to time, you hear someone say that prices have come back down after covid. While that may be true for a few areas, they're obviously way up for almost all vintage baseball.

Comparing current prices to pre-covid tends to help me to get a better grasp on just how much prices are up. For the most part, it's a lot! And in some cases, the spread is continuing to get worse, rather than better.

Worthless virus.

Killing me.

But don't forget about the 3rd t205 PSA 8 (Mordecai Brown) that sold in the auction for about $17.5k. That was about a 20% increase over the December 2023 sale price for a similar 8 of that card.

T205 high grades are a little different than t206 at auction, I think as the PSA 7 and higher t205s are much, much more difficult than t206 in similar grades. I looked at all 3 of the t205s and all would be upgrades for me (I have 7 Speaker, 6 Young, 7 Brown). I knew the Young would be about a $50k card and thought it sold the right level. Speaker I pegged around $25-$30k and the Brown at around $15k. I went for the Brown only because I liked the card and knew the potential for the other two to go nuts again left me not wanting to even remotely chase those.

As for the price drop on the other two from your post, I followed both of those auctions based on where my t205 set was and is grade wise. The Young sale went absolutely nuts on the last day and it felt like two people ultimately having a measuring contest to see who was bigger. I had hoped to score that card for price that was more in line w/the sale before. The Speaker was not as crazy but similar. and I didn't chase that one at all since I like my PSA 7 Speaker. I chalk neither of those up to any downturn in the market but just two guys deciding to play a game of chicken and had unlimited funds to do so.

ML
 

Personally, I would rather a 1975 Brett in a PSA 10 than a Henderson, but that’s just my love for that Brett card which is tough as a 10 with such bold coloring. I am a believer that the recently graded “important cards” graded PSA 7–10 will soon be untouchable for most with modest means. Get your cornerstone cards while you can.

Nico - I don't think of people that have registry sets as goons. People with registry sets are "focused". I get it, improving the set is easier to do when there's a number associated to it.

When the leaders of the pack go to all lengths to be #1 (or in the top 5, or however crazy registry people measure things), then to me it's a bit over the top and not my way of collecting. That said, sorry, "crazy" was a bit over the top to describe the top registry people and just because I don't aspire to be a registry leader doesn't mean other collectors shouldn't try to because it's different strokes for different folks. See the next response to Steve, please.


Steve - For newer material, you're probably right, the price of a PSA 10 doesn't raise the price of the cards graded much lower at 5 or even 6 because there are SO many of them. Even those "unicorn" 10s are not going to raise the prices of the lower grades examples (unless you're looking at 9s, as you mentioned).

When considering vintage cards, the population difference is drastic when compared to a modern set (even going back 40 years for modern material). In most cases, it's much easier to find a lower grade modern card than it is to find that lower grade vintage card. There's so many more modern cards available. There's stuff still in wax boxes that haven't seen the light of day.

That said, I'm sure demand has increased for lower grade vintage cards because of the rise in popularity of collecting pictures of dead guys on cardboard, but as people pay more for the higher grade vintage cards, the price for lower grade vintage increases a bit more than when compared to the lower graded counterparts in the modern sets.

Trambo, if you're ever looking to move on from your PSA 7 Mathewson, let me know.

Thanks! One of the favorite cards in my set and PC to be honest. Very doubtful that one will leave PC for several (I hope) decades... haha!

Who is Joe T?

..........
 

More money than brains.

These are your choices:

A) 50 PSA 9 Rickey Henderson Rookies or
B) 1 PSA 10 Rickey Henderson Rookie

People with excess money really have no idea what they are doing.

:eek::cool:

Joe T is a hobby veteran who works at Memory Lane. He is one of the most knowledgeable and nicest people in the hobby.

Does anybody here know how long it takes to receive payouts from consignments to Memory Lane? I emailed them about it 19 days after the auction ended, but they just replied "Please note that we do give our buyers 2 weeks to make payment and a lot of payments get sent to us at the end of that two weeks." No update since then. Are they known to be lax about their payment deadlines?

I have consigned to a number of AHs. In my experience, memory lane is middle of road as far as paying out on consignments, which to me is 30-45 days. I don't think I have ever been paid, by any auction house, in 20 days or less.

Good to know. Thank you.

And just like that, one of the pieces sold at this ML auction turned up on eBay today, with only a 50% markup.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/386772549951

I guess it's better than the 100-200% markup I keep hearing about with other eBay listings.

The centering on that card is horrible. Good luck even getting what you paid.

If you look at VCP for that card in this grade, you won’t blame him.


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I am seeing this more and more and more on selling platforms. Buying in auction, trying to flip immediately. Do these sellers not realize we have tools and can look up past prices in 5 seconds? Or are they just looking for a pushover to pay what they want?

Someone will buy it just to flip it for higher next week.


Until they can't. This is why prices will drop dramatically when/if people need to sell and nobody is buying

I've seen Dean's do this, Greg Morris, and other major dealers - buy at auction, then list on ebay for more. That's why I pointed out Dean's suddenly offering discounts. The less they can sell the cards for, the lower they can bid at auction and keep their margins, so that should hopefully mean less competition, and lower prices, for collectors at auction.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...10914df2f3.png


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Hope springs eternal!

It's always possible that the current owner got it for a steal. I'm inclined to surmise that the price was right for the card within the holder. Or if not precisely right, then at least within the ballpark.

But maybe another set registry goon like me (well, not me specifically) will buy it at the new offered price because it's in the range of comps, regardless of the details.