$256 for a PSA 9 Lee Smith RC???
 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-TOPPS-...orig_cvip=true

The world has gone mad. If this links to a different auction click view original item.

Judging by the look on Lee's face, he can't believe it either.

Looks like 10's are going for between 600-800 bucks. Could have had them for a song just a few months ago.

The seller must have had a s**t eating grin on his face after pulling this one off. Barnum was right. How many of these were produced? Umpteen trillion? :eek:

I think that may be low.

I couldn't afford a Green PMG Jordan, so I needed to spend my eBay bucks on something... ;-)

I just looked, when I bought a the same card in November of 2016, I paid $7.91 plus $3 s&h.

$256?! Holy Cow!!

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Something fishy going on? If you scroll down in this site, you will 3 back to back sales last year (2018) of 10's going for over $600 but if you look at the rest of the sales, most barely went $100-$150. :confused:

Check out the price of recent 9's.
https://www.psacard.com/cardfacts/ba...mith-452/59039

The difference in those is likely the announcement of Lee Smith going into the Hall of Fame. No shock that a huge group of buyers pushed the price since they now needed the card for their registry sets.

Surprising. I don’t know if they checked the pop but it’s not low. Almost half of the cards submitted are 9 or 10.

And there's probably a 1000 of them at PSA right now.

Right, you would expect a spike especially as his election was somewhat a surprise, but not of this order of magnitude on an abundant card.

The beauty of the market economy at work. Long run this is a $50 card or less IMO.

Agreed. Even though it's a fairly high pop even now, only something like 4 or 5 have come to market since the HOF announcement. My guess is that there's some impatience setting in among registry participants. And PSA turnaround times are so slow it may be months before the 1000 hit the market. I put in what I considered to be an absurd bid because of my own impatience and missed by more than $100.

I bought a raw one out of protest lol.

I doubt 9s get back to the 15-17 dollar mark again, but they should settle into the 35-45 by Christmas or so in my belief. The days of 40-50 dollar 10s are gone, those are likely 100-150 when they settle.

I think that's right and that Baines will follow a similar pattern. I am surprised more Smiths have not been put up given the crazy prices they are fetching.

And, there is a variant :)

http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/...psirc8tkrs.jpg

If there is a variation, Al will find it.
Nice!

$276 this time. It makes no sense at all.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-Lee-Sm...p2047675.l2557

Wow...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...90129248da.gif

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Underbidder last time was the winner this time. Guess he or she really wanted it. I was lucky and snagged a 9 on a (relatively) reasonable BIN of $95. I still think I lose in the long run at that price.

Maybe it is all Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell’s fault. From a chat of his right after the HOF election.

“Footnote: In '90, when my mom passed away, I found my old '50's and early '60's baseball cards in the back of a closet in my parents home. So, for a couple of years, I got the baseball card collecting bug. I'm pretty sure that any shrink would say this had something to do with associating those cards with my happy youth, my parents young and healthy, etc. It was a little weird. But, intuitively, I think people who knew me, and friends, "got it," even though I didn't for a couple of years: it's just a reaction to one parent dying and the other being old and sick. Anyway, my No. 1 card-collecting nuttiness was trying to find Lee Smith Rookie Cards. On the road, and this was during the baseball card craze, I'd go to shops and ask if they had any of those cards. At that time, every rookie card of every Hall of Famer was worth close to $100-a-card. When I'd ask for Lee Smith's cards, the owners would look at me like I was a crazy lost soul. They'd find a dozen of them, or sometimes a lot more, and sell them to me for one or two CENTS each. One guy just gave me a whole stack, just saying, "He has no chance. He's a reliever."

I kept them in the back of the back of the attic for years, my little defiant stand on Lee Smith DESERVES to Be in Cooperstown. Somewhere along the way, maybe after he got so little support in the BBWAA voting, I just laughed at myself, I do a lot more of that than you might suppose, and threw them in the trash. These days, baseball cards, except for the pre-'70's ones, are so hated (glutted market) that you couldn't sell 100 Smith RC's for $1.”

Somebody should send him these auction results!

I think long run it's a $50-60 card but I too would have snapped that one up had I seen it.

Looks like the PSA 9s have settled back down into the $50-100 range. Last PSA 10 went for $1000 though.

I spotted the variation (extended I in SMITH) and figured this would be a thread to post it in, but see it's already reported.

Well then, your upside is looking mighty good! :D

I’m rich! Except then I’d just go buy more cards. Ah, the financial roller coaster of the “collector not investor”. :)

I don’t think COVID pricing could have ever been predicted during the first run of the thread. I would still call that 50 to 100 for a 9 not settled. Just my opinion but I am going to disregard any of the valuations of these past 15 months from my mind. Looking forward to what the hobby looks like in the coming fall-winter as life resumes.