The hobby morale is low video
 

Sports cards radio had some perspective on the National this year:

https://youtu.be/F4hbHiFm8gE

National part starts at the 2:00 mark

While I hardly agree with SPR, it will be interesting to see how the National is this year. Is morale low? I tend to think after the big uptick in the last few years, people are taking a pause. I also think there is general malaise in the hobby right now. And of course, prices on the hood stuff at the National will be sky high.

I think Morale is actually Rising. Especially with affordability coming back..

Hmmmm
 

Maybe he meant "morals."

I think it’s time to give less and less weight to auction house sales versus in person buy it now private transactions. I’ve been saying it ever since the run up there seems to be a big difference in what people are willing to pay directly verse what cards sell for in MA’s. People want to pay a fair number not chase in auctions, if they can’t they won’t buy. I can’t tell you how many dealers when buying say I throw PWCC and Probstein numbers out of My VCP average when buying.

I think the collector morale is OK the investor morale who came in and bought at the high. I think they’re concerned.

I think they mean morale for investors, not collectors ;)

If someone was to create an affordability index and that index based affordability on years past, at what affordability level has the hobby dropped to? Are the prices dropped back to 2022 levels? 2021 levels? 2020 levels? 4 years ago level? 5 years ago level?

I haven't been watching too closely, all I know is that there were some really crazy rises in prices on a lot of material.

From a morale stand point - the hobby is SUCKING because the TPGs allow it to suck and they really don't seem to care about fixing anything. Money IN, Plastic slab OUT. It doesn't matter if the card is altered - it's their "subjectivity" that is being sold and if that's their opinion, you're buying it along with the rise in prices it causes across the board. Yes, the crappy grading will continue until it doesn't. Don't worry, gradings crappy!

The speculative investor "sneaker heads" types that flooded the hobby 3-5 years ago have all but disappeared (or turned into breakers). That market got heavily inflated with investors rather than collectors and has mostly burst for basketball and football.

The new shiny stuff in packs is expensive and the odds on quality hits is way worse every year. The 2022 and 2023 odds are extremely terrible and the cost has only gone up, stable at best. It's very easy to spend $80-$250+ on a hobby box and not pull anything worth mentioning. The premium hits are spread so thin that a manufactured relic is the guaranteed hit in some boxes.

It seems T206's are maintaining their recent popularity and picking up an Old Judge or T205 seems to be getting more expensive every few months.

SCR is referring to the guys who buy 20K ultra-modern basketball and football rookies who haven't proven themselves. I am almost certain they are not referring to any vintage. The card hobby in general is down across the board compared to previous years. (Although it seems to show otherwise when Im bidding on something)

It will be interesting for you guys to see and report back what is trending.

But between all the action I see on social media and the young kids at these smaller local shows, and they have there own cases to hold cards and the money changing hands I think the future is bright even if some pauses

And based on all the auction and strong prices on 1950’s and before I think prices are still going strong. Some cards especially the more commons and commons players the prices are slowing down and a lot of the modern spiking and is trending down.

But still a lot of money and a lot of major increases on the key players in my uneducated opinion.

I'm going to speak from the heart here and feel free to disagree with me. My morale for the hobby is low, but frankly speaking, my morale for everything is low. Inflation is still high, housing is borderline impossible to enter as a young person, unless you're getting help from your family or someone dies and you come into money. The vintage side of the Hobby is still very strong, and I'm happy that so many people are interested in cardboard, it's a good thing. But prices are high, the entry point to vintage, especially pre-war is higher than it used to be, and it makes things difficult. Don't get me wrong, I'm in this for the long haul, talking about cardboard, looking at cards, reading as much as I can, but I can't help but feel very pessimistic about, quite frankly, everything.

Morale for the high end investors has to be a bit off, even for those into vintage. Did anyone see the Clemente PSA 9 rookie that sold for $1.05m last September just sell for $792k last week in Goldin’s 100 auction? There was a lot of debate about how much the one at REA would have gone for and that went for a lot more just a few months ago at $960k. Pockets of strength still at the top, but we certainly aren’t seeing records anymore. It has to trickle down eventually but doesn’t happen overnight.

There is no question that today's prices make it much tougher for a newer collector than someone like myself who started again in the 90s. That said, there are still great things one can buy at almost any resource level... but I hear you.

I just turned 30 and will be attending my 2nd National.

My morale is pretty high.

No reason to listen to the noise.

Lots of reasons for general morale to be low or lower. Tough time...still...in this country. Not going political because I do not see this a left or right thing but moreover a systemic issue that has been percolating for more than a decade.

As far as the video from SCR, it should be watched for amusement only. He is a total clown and the last person who I would turn to for accurate info on the hobby...or likely anything else. Accuracy is the last thing he is concerned with--page views is what he is seeking.

Prices might be lower in the vintage sector but morale is not phased from what I have seen and those I speak with. Prices for virtually all vintage is higher than it was before the pandemic. I cannot speak to the market on post 1980 issues but anything before 1980 is doing just fine.

Based on anecdotal evidence...and having just checked out REA's results...morale may be low but prices sure aren't!!!

As has been said...there is something anyone can collect in this great hobby. I've been doing this 40+ years...and as a result of putting in the time i've done well in the hobby and have a nice collection.

Had I just jumped in the last 2-3 years...as an "investor" maybe. Invested in some uber high grade 50's-70's hof'ers...maybe a high grade jordan rookie? Got my ass handed to me...my morale would be low too!

Sports cards are similar to Wall Street. To cite an oft-valid maxim: time in the market beats timing the market.

There are, absolutely Peter. I've put a pause on my buying as I try to figure out the next way I should go when it comes to collecting, but I'll find it eventually. Sometimes it's hard not to be a little pessimistic but we'll get through it!

I don't think we can draw any real conclusions from anything about the National right now because the times are unprecedented.

The lingering emotional effects of COVID are real. I know some stalwarts who are skipping the show for a second year. They just can't do it yet. Travel itself is a roll of the dice right now. I got caught in flight cancellations recently and was stuck in Newark for 24 hours. Then there is affordability and availability. It used to be that you went to the show to seek out bargains, find oddball issues that did not come to market, and generally see what was out there. Between the run-up and the proliferation of online availability, that is just not the case now.

My theory is that for an increasing number of collectors, the show is a social experience more than a card bourse, and that experience can perhaps be replicated at another event, like a spring training trip or a HOF visit, with more amenities and less hassles. In other words, we are going but not necessarily with the same level of enthusiasm.

I've heard bourse applied to coin shows, but never to card shows. Interesting.

i am using the term intentionally to differentiate the actual exchange portion of the show from the breaking booth, corporate area, unopened modern card retail sellers, auction house displays, autograph area and service providers (graders, supply sellers, etc.). The bourse element of the National has been shrinking.

Low morale is not the same as a slow return to sanity.

I still fully believe pre-pandemic prices are a more realistic baseline and expect that return over the coming couple years. This was a fad and the collectors will continue on. This is not a death of the hobby, just another passing of a pet rock, beanie baby jump in collecting history until the next comes along as it always will.

A return to prices of just a few years ago is certainly not a sky is falling scenario.

I don't know if my morale is low about sports cards. Maybe that's because I'm a Reds fan and because watching them is fun, again, it has piqued my interest in modern cards. Happy life = happy hobby?

Outside the hobby? My morale is low, kinda. I fully believe when one door closes another door opens; thats pretty resistant optimism. But I'm one of those millenials getting close to 40 and I'm starting to ask myself, FYI living in a mid-size city, I can afford $2500/month for a house and all I can afford is a POS house that needs immediate upgrades? WTF! I was outpriced on a 50yr old house that had not been updated. Of course my guru tells me everything will be fine if I just continue waiting....I can't even have FOMO in this market!

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I'm one of the collectors who returned to the hobby in 2021, 25 years removed from buying packs as a 10 year old, so take this for what it is from that perspective.

I'll go ahead and admit up front that I'm not familiar with the ebbs and flows of the hobby as most here are. I'm a data analyst by profession, so I love looking at all of the research and analyses that have already been done over the years here on N54, as well as some of my own. I agree with you that most card prices will come back down to pre-pandemic levels, especially modern cards (Ohtani may be the outlier). But with pre-war vintage, that I'm not so sure about. What I see when I look at pre-war vintage sales data back to 2005 is that cards were severely undervalued in comparison to other eras and their respective price increases over time leading up to the 2020-2021 boom. I think that the current value of pre-war vintage is the new baseline. I personally don't see those values falling to pre-pandemic levels, but again I'm not familiar enough with the ebbs and flows to feel confident in that assessment.

I echo James' earlier post in that, as someone who has fallen in love with pre-war vintage, my entry point is much higher than if I had started just 5 years ago. It really stinks for me to see grail cards on the board that I might have been able to afford if I had just started 5 years ago, but are now unattainable. Would I like to see pre-war prices drop to pre-pandemic levels? Selfishly, I would have to say yes, just because I would love to be able have the chance to collect some of those grail cards that I see posted. My morale isn't low about collecting in the present-day, I'm just sick when I think about the kind of collection I could have if I had only started 5-10-15 years ago :)

Having said all of that, I'm a collector at heart, so I will find a way to collect the cards that make me happy, even if that means one card a month or every couple of months. Now that I've rediscovered a love for the hobby as an adult, and there are great resources like N54, I see myself sticking around for the long haul this time.

My morale is low. It's really hard to collect right now. Cards that should be in budget aren't and I can't really justify selling my cards for exorbitant prices just to pay an exorbitant price for something else.

Just look at like the housing market back in 07-09 where you sell your house worth 350k for 250k. Then take that 250k and buy a 450k house for 250k.

I could have used the same example by saying sell your 350k house for 450k and then buy a new house valued at 400k for 450k if you really like it.

It’s all relative. How do card prices rise in value???? People pay more than what the last one sold for and it becomes a precedent or a comp.

Yeah, of course it's relative but what I'm saying is that buying high is not. I have no reason to sell my cards just to overpay for another. I'll wait it out or never own them.

That's what kills my morale. I used to be able to save up for a card. Now the only real way for me to expand my collection is to sell.

I think we all get that concept. And it's obviously been one hell of a run for the last 3 years.

The bigger issue in my mind is when people decide that there's other stuff they'd rather have for their cash, especially when we're talking about real serious money in the 5 and 6 figures for so many pieces out there. That's real money. Potentially life changing money (whether you're buying or selling). It's not as if there are no other alternatives for people to invest/spend/consume. Unlike houses, there's no innate connection between basic survival and cardboard. And if enough current collectors/holders/investors/owners decide they'd rather have all that sweet, sweet cash than continue to have and to hold the cardboard, then that's when the party really gets down.

Obviously cardboard continues to defy gravity that way. For some odd reason, us people (including me) would rather have a single nice piece of cardboard than a gigantic stack of cash that they could spend or invest for literally anything else. I'm just not convinced that it will continue FOR EV ER. It's not as if it's an impossible thing to happen. In theory, all it would take is a shift in the dynamic, with more people getting out than are getting in. The same process that happens on the upswing works in reverse going down.

Aaaaaaaaaaaany minute now!

Echoing what has been said, and this is a point that I've made numerous times. I'm always happy when someone scores a new pickup, or gets their grail card. Just as I know many are happy for me, when I post something new that I've picked up. At the end of the day this hobby is all about the cardboard, and our shared love and commitment to said hobby.

I almost get a feeling of Envy though when I hear about someone telling me how much they paid for a t206 Matty, or a 52 Topps Mantle, or 33 Goudey Ruth. It's not because I'm not happy for the person, it's because that I simply wasn't alive at the time these cards were available for reasonable prices.

And I fully understand inflation is a thing, and the value of a dollar is different, but even if you track the price of the card, and adjust it for inflation, some cards are worth four or five times their value. It's almost like when we look at the Housing market. My Grandparents paid $10,000 for their house back in the 1950's. If adjusted for inflation the same house today would be a bit over 100K. What's the house actually worth? Over $1.5 Million.

I understand this is life, and I'm not exactly complaining about the hand I was dealt, but God sometimes I really do wonder how people are able to do it nowadays.

EDIT: Double Post

On a tour at the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house Fallingwater, they mentioned that the construction budget in today's dollars would be just over $3 million. I don't know if you could build that today for 30 million.

See national debt, credit card debt, debt to income ratios, savings accounts, and plans for retirement.

Just keep spending!

I would agree to disagree, but that is just dandy. I like to follow my own drummer at times. :)

I feel (again for the room, "I") much like the investor group of a few years prior to this, things will settle. I think the elephant in the room is that modern crashed so quick and so soon, that exactly like the stragglers of the meme stock game they could not accept the change.

If you pay attention to the Geoff Wilsons and all the flippers of modern, they are currently treating vintage like it was gold or mutuals as a safe investment until their speculative 'rookie gold refractors' rocket to the moon again. It's a hedge bet causing the boost in current interest and true collectors are buying up because of FOMO.

The adrenaline rush of flipping for 100k more in the next auction just won't be there in the coming year to regain the losses they have incurred in those massive Zion PSA buys. They will move on, just like they went from crypto to nfts to meme stocks back to crypto and cards...the beat goes on. The extra demand they are causing by the shift to vintage will slowly subside.

It will happen again in the future, it always follows a cycle...but FOMO is not something to panic about. The amount of borrowing that many of them did because they thought this was "sure thing" is what brought down PWCC. The credit card bills and HELOCs currently maxed in an inflationary market is going to bring some serious piles of cards to market in the coming year. Shirts will be lost and that's just life. Liquidate...bankruptcy...new get rich quick scheme...circle of life. If the FED was not handcuffed by political election pressures we would have much higher interest rates than now...what will happen after November 2024 if consumer spending continues the current pressure?

If you are collecting mid-grade like most of us...its most logically coming down. The high grade will sit in collections for years until the owners feel they can break even. That stuff will be missing like DB Cooper unless someone dies, especially if it was bought in the past 3 years.

These are my opinions only, real economic or investment advice you have to pay for...:D.

Morale is low. Uh, ok, to some degree. Depends on which boat you're sitting. Did you buy pre-pandemic, during pandemic, recently post-pandemic. Did you buy top tier pre-war HOFers, did you buy post war vintage, did you buy modern. All depends on what you bought and when.

But whatever you did in the past, too late to change, water under the bridge.

Now the big question is what do you do from this day forward? What is your budget. What cards do you prefer. What cards do you honestly think have good chance increasing in value - short term and/or long term.

Yes, I can see if you were unlucky with past purchases, your morale is probably low. But there are some people who were lucky where the morale is still quite good.

Fortunately, I guess us dinosaurs here on Net54 have a nice stash from years ago. Morale is decent. Got lucky I guess.

It's very common for stamp shows, which often have an actual "show" portion with competetive displays.


I think the card hobby in general is doing just fine, although my personal card morale is iffy right now. (I'm still really into cards, but aging, and the kids really don't even like sports...Plus the pricing is in one of the cycles where It's hard to adjust to commons on some sets now being double what they were a short time ago. You'd think I could handle it easier, having been through it several times, but no.

Could be worse though, the international stamp expo scheduled for 2026 in Boston supposedly just opened up to having dealers with both stamps and coins.

They specifically call
Out vintage. They aren’t really wrong about prices declining but I know nobody that thought those insane increases would go on forever.

As I recall, we had several pumpers claiming that things would only go up during the spikes, that the best time to buy was yesterday and the second best time today. That time in the market is what matters (possibly so, in general), that demand will only increase. That these gains will continue and so much so that people should not only hold and buy more, but they people should take out loans for money they don't have and drain their 401K's and suffer the huge tax hit to reinvest them into cards instead and put everything people had into the card market. That advice given on these boards sure sounded like people arguing the gains would more or less continue inexorably forward.

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the biggest issue for most of us is that we want to hold onto what we already have, and we want to add to it, because more is more. And selling some stuff to buy other stuff may not really be how we view our approach to collecting, particularly if we're really attached to the stuff we have. I just want it all. Is that really so much to ask!!!??

We probably all had some lofty goals about what we hoped to accomplish on our collecting journey. Over time we've carefully revised our goals as we've re-focused, or achieved a particular goal when we finish off a set or a team run or whatnot. Naturally, over the last couple of years the speed has really stalled a lot toward achieving those goals, to the point that nowadays a lot of those goals seem to be mirages in the distance, something that is virtually impossible to achieve, taunting us that we'll never get there. And that's not a lot of fun to contemplate.

There's probably any number of adjectives you could use to describe it. Low morale is just one way to attempt to capture it. Adam has used ennui. Personally, I might favor malaise. Some refer to their collecting spirit as going into hibernation. Whatever your preferred adjective, there's no question that for a lot of us, there's a different flavor these days.

A good part of it probably also feeds into an existential question for a lot of us. If I'm not really adding to my collection, then what am I doing? Part of the process of continuing to add to the collection allows us to avoid those questions by distracting ourselves with the illusion that we're making progress towards our goals and hopes and dreams. Without that progress, movement, and forward inertia, it allows our minds to wander to dark places, stuff like:

Why am I continuing to hold onto this cardboard? Am I really getting the enjoyment from it that I used to? If some of my friends are selling, then why am I holding? Damn, I could get a gigantic sack of cash if I sell today. Think of all the awesome stuff I could do with that cash... Why am I still in this game?

And even if we've pivoted from some of our earlier goals and we're focused on other stuff, maybe buying more modern pieces, futzing around with other sports, dabbling in memorabilia, or even just switching to lower quality pieces, it still forces us to confront a lot of those existential questions as it relates to our existing collections that now seem to be orphans when compared to the path forward. And those existential questions aren't easy to answer, particularly when it seems like we've been compelled to keep answering them day after day, week after week, month after month.

Add to it the fact that it seems like this situation might keep going on for an indefinite period of time makes it that much more exciting to keep coming up with the same answer every day that I'm just going to keep sitting tight, picking up a few bits here and there, picking my spots, and being patient with a hope that one day my ship will come in and I'll be able to get back to making real progress towards my goals. And yet faced with the very real possibility and depressing reality that might never really happen.

So yeah. All of that boils down to malaise for me. But pick your favorite adjective and run with it.

Quite honestly if this is the boat you're in then you haven't been collecting for very long. The majority of us are LONG time collectors used to a hobby with an average uptick in prices that has gone out of whack entirely over the last three years.

Every card in my collection has appreciated 4,5 6 or 10 times over but the problem is that the same is true for everything I want to buy.

That's why people are low on the hobby. You're talking about investments while most of us are just trying to collect.

What all of this discussion points to is that you can't really straddle the fence between collector and investor, or be agnostic about the finances of your collection, not at today's values. If you are a collector and you know you aren't selling off your cards in the foreseeable future absent a calamity, then this is all an academic exercise. If you are an investor, you have to move in and out of things as the money seems to flow, hopefully by anticipating trends and buying or selling into them, hopefully unsentimentally. It isn't easy to make those distinctions, but in life not a lot is easy peasy. Frankly, not being able to decide whether to sell vastly profitable cards, or whether to buy a five-figure card, are wonderful problems to have.

I believe Dutch tulips are starting to wilt. Since I am Yoda, I can speak in metaphors.

Man, that's deep. My morale is good. Having fun as normal. FWIW

Is this some reference to Tulip Mania, and the fact that Student Loan payments are coming back in full force, thus affecting the card market? Or am I reading too deep into things?

I get what you are saying. You are comparing fast growth cards vs moderate growth. You sell your collection cuz you want to buy Jackie or Satchell, buy their growth outpaced other vintage cards. So now you need to sell more than usual to cover the extraordinary growth of their popularity, and you're not sure the trade is worth it.

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DB Cooper is nice imagery, but it shows our age. What's something more modern? Art theft?

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market sure seems to have lost it's zeal for late 70's high grade topps commons...babe ruth...not so much!!!!

That's pretty much the sentiment.

I bought this Ruth card for $515 in 2011. So it took this card 77 years to e valued at $515. But in only the last three years it's become a $5,000 to $6,000 card. If I didn't already have it, there's no way I'd ever have it. I'm not sure it's worth selling my Cobbs to buy another either:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1608f2c0_z.jpg

I sold all that I wanted to sell, and I don't want to sell any more. I got a dream item: Barry Larkin GU bat with provenance from a member on Net54. I told my wife what I sold and bought. She was happy for me, but she said, "I wish you had kept the Honus Wagner, isn't he the million dollar baseball card guy." You know you made a mistake if your spouse is sad about a card you no longer have. All that did was make me get the bug to replace it!

When I was younger, I wanted to have a museum worthy collection, my own little HOF museum that told a story. Selling my items kind of ruins that dream.

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This may shock you, but I've done some calculations on "morale, ennui, malaise, and hibernation"; it turns out 0% of them are adjectives.

Do you prefer descriptive term?

That would shock me for sure.

Starting to wilt, tulips are.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.R1yC6v...id=ImgDet&rs=1