Rest of 2021
 

Card prices for the rest of the year… sellers or buyers market? Seeing a lot of people trying to sell a lot of cards, so hopefully it turns into a buyers market 😀

Buyers!

I see a lot of people trying to raise cash on numerous platforms other then AH’s.

I think the market is turning.

Sellers. Broadly speaking, there are numerous investment types sniffing around the field. Savvy buyers are grabbing up the top tier prewar cards besides T206. I would not be surprised if every decent looking 1920s Babe Ruth is a $10,000+ card by 2022.

Every thread needs a card, and

I sure hope so, haha

...except yours. :D

Then again, a W515 Ruth went for over $2K in LOTG, so you never know...

I'm holding on to all my Ruth cards for now.

And we do need some cards in here

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...-Alexander.jpg

Well, on the hockey side of things, people are starting to hold onto their bluechips. We all witnessed crazy shit during the pandemic and now people are just hesitant to let go of their big cards. I couldn't pick-up a damn thing this summer.

Snookums reaching $10K? That's when you know we've jumped the shark. :eek:

I think it'll be a sellers market for the foreseeable future.

Memory Lane sold an SGC 3 Snookums for over $13k earlier this year….

I think it is a sellers market until at least early next year.

With the influx of new money coming into the hobby that is helping fuel price

and with many sellers selling things they bought years ago and now taking profits it is putting things for sale that many of us have not seen for a long long time and we may not see again for a long time driving many collectors or buy now out of fear of missing out.

In addition all the new advertising and cards being in the news to generate further interest.

Perhaps also a factor here is the possibility of another MLBPA strike in the absence of a new CBA. I wasn't collecting in 1994-95; those that were, how did it affect the card market at the time?

It killed the market. People were pissed at mega money players complaining about money. It'll happen again if there is a work stoppage beyond the All Star game. And if the WS doesn't play, Lord help us all.

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Sellers market. Crypto has had a resurgence recently, which helped fuel the last surge and could easily help to fuel another one. I forsee a divergence of different segments of the market. Definitely see the big names and big cards going up though either way.

it included a matching Type 1 photo, so not exactly, but still, damn! Point of the spear? Gonna be an interesting 6-12 months.

Also "One of only 5 known examples and the SOLE/HIGHEST GRADED example of all five"

Not exactly...

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...20Snookums.jpg

If anyone wants this one for $20k let me know ;)

Risk Off…. When I see more and more marketing terms as such being used, assets, vaults, aka brokerage account, what Fanatics is doing, along with buying fractionalized shares of high end graded cards I get nervous.

Cobb
Ruth
Mantle
Jackie
Mays

Only…

It will most certainly be a seller's market...until I try to auction off something I own, then it will magically turn into a buyer's market and leave me eating nothing but ramen as the tears roll down my cheeks.

While I listen to "All by Myself " on repeat...

Still cant fathom people paying these prices, long term holds...

Last year I told our financial planner that cards would smoke his picks over the next decade. So far true. My wife actually asked me why I hadn't put more money into cards 20 years ago. Umm, because if I came home and said I used the 401K money to buy baseball cards I'd have been in divorce court?

What the heck?!?! :confused::confused:

Time to cash in, G?

Yup, all Ruth’s are valuable - babe holding a baby, babe holding a bird, babe holding a ball. You name it, as long as Ruth is on the card, it’s valuable.

Did someone say “Babe holding a bird”?

I think that the question posed by the original poster is segment-dependent. For example, pre-war seems to still be seeing extremely strong prices. Specific post-war vintage, like all things Mantle (especially 52 Topps), most things Clemente, most things Robinson, continue to maintain strong prices. Other things post-war have slid a bit from the mid-pandemic hysteria. Vintage unopened (pre-1980) is still very strong, with 1970's racks and cellos selling high. 1950's-1960's unopened is almost unobtainable. Early 1980's unopened has started a slow retreat, while junk era unopened is in the midst of a collapse. Though I know this part of the board is all pre-war, I think the market is not so specific. Different segments will continue to proceed differently, but for now the pre-war segment seems to be one of the strongest segments in terms of performance.
kevin

lol.

If anyone wants this postcard of the Babe holding a bunch of fish for $10K, I'm open to it. :rolleyes:

From a simple economics standpoint, it is hard to see vintage cards, especially key pre-war cards, declining in value over the next 12-24 months and beyond. Cards have steadily climbed over the last 10 years, even beyond just the crazy spike of the last year or so.

Heres just one quick example

T206 Red Cobb in a Polar Bear back, PSA 4/4.5

June 2013: PSA 4.5 sells for $2325
Oct 2017: PSA 4 sells for $3800
Jan 2019: PSA 4.5 sells for $4150
March 2020: PSA 4.5 sells for $4730
April 2020: PSA 4 sells for $4400
April 2021: PSA 4 sells for $10,334 (had the PWCC E label)
June 2021: PSA 4 sells for $8700

If you take the April 2021 sale as sort of an outlier because of the PWCC factor, the card basically increased in value with every sale. If I asked you if you think you will get a Red Cobb Polar Bear in a PSA 4 for less than $8700 any time soon, what would you say? Lots of people want these key cards, and there is a very finite supply of them available.

The one unknown is sort of what happens to the broader economy, and if there is a downturn, how that would impact financials and personal spending. On the other side of that coin, I would argue that people who have $8700 to shell out for a Red Cobb are probably not going to be the first in line to dump their stuff if the economy slows down or we enter a recession. Smaller collectors collecting lower value cards may decide to sell, which may bring that part of the market down. But the big collectors who are buying 6 figure cards likely aren't going to be looking to dump their stuff at bargain bin prices.

Well we have the lesson of 2008-2010. If you had to sell 2005-2007 purchases in the recession you took a beating. If you held onto your good cards you enjoyed a strong run-up. If you were able to buy during that down period you really did well. No reason to think that the pattern won't repeat itself during the next recession.

I’m no economist by a long shot, and am decidedly not trying to pick a partisan fight with anyone or goad someone into some political crap, but is it possible with the degree of control the government is ready willing and able to deploy now to stabilize the markets and the dollar that we will never again have a severe recession like some of us have experienced in our lifetime?

My favorite Ruth card in my collection. From my grandfather's original collection. Rigidly NFS.

and Hopefully You never have to sell it

Great Card and coming from your grandfather's collection is even better.

That is a Great Family Heirloom

That's what Alan Greenspan said, more or less.

Nope.

Thing you gotta remember is that no matter how foolproof something is, fools are ingenious creatures.

If there's anything I've learned from the past couple of years is that this market is impossible to predict.

I think we've seen some leveling out as other posters have pointed out. The Gold Standard of Pre and Post War however, are remaining strong. I do not know what the future brings, but will be monitoring things closely going forward.

For the Ruth's, Gehrigs, Cobbs and Mantle's of the world, I don't think we're going to see significant regression, they might dip ever so slightly, but nothing like the prepandemic levels. I'm just spitballing here, like I said this market is downright impossible to predict.

You said it brother! :D

+1 Agree but

I would also add Wagner and Jackson to that list

Economics are political. Anything's possible when two sides aren't willing to compromise. Infrastructure is a bipartisan issue that neither party is willing support. Trump wanted an infrastructure package but didn't get it. If infrastructure falls apart, like it currently is with continued increasing bridge collapses and etc, anything can happen. Many poor countries are poor simply because their govt won't/can't invest in building.

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This falls in line with trying to idiot-proof something. Every time one tries to, they build a better idiot. :D

One set that has seemed to keep going up, even as much of the market experienced a decline between February and now, is 1941 Play Ball. There's just not that much good inventory out there to be found. I think the flagship Dimaggio card might have softened a tiny bit over this time frame. For several months earlier this year the card was next to impossible to find in low grade. Then a few ok examples popped up, but for the most part the card is steady. A lot of the other play ball continues to go up.

None of it is excessively scarce per se, but it sure as he11 is scarce compared to any non-niche issue from 1950 and later.

I would guess it remains a moderate sellers market for the next few years, although not with the absurdity heights seen in 2020. As someone who collects mostly midgrade postwar, I would like to see some things there get reasonable again as a buyer. It seems like a lot of 1960's raw stars that used to go for $25 or so before the pandemic got up to like $60 cards in the last few years, and that to me felt unreasonable.

As far as my PC, I would agree with a lot of what's been said earlier - I'm in no hurry to move my "big" (such that they are...) cards right now.

I wonder, despite the effectiveness of the vaccine, what will be the impact on card prices, if any, with the resurgence of Covid.

Those of us who are worried about getting sick (even with vaccination) owing to underlying health conditions are pulling back from activities like concerts, travel, etc. I've canceled my vacation, for example, and gotten rid of big concert tickets. Frees up the ol' disposable income again for more cards!

I always used to say in regard to my first secretary that there was a village somewhere missing a pretty good idiot. I had a Federal court filing on deadline and I found her at 1:00 making file copies of the motion instead of getting the filing itself ready and on the way to court, which closed at 4:00. I had steam coming out of my ears. When I complained to my then-boss he told me that they knew she was incompetent but that she'd been there for so long that they felt they could not fire her without getting sued for age discrimination (she was in her sixties and close to retirement), so they just passed her along to each new attorney until there was an incident like mine, and she would go on to wreck the mental health and blood pressure of another baby lawyer. Since I could not fire her I turned to telling her exactly what I thought of her performance instead. Probably why the staff nicknamed me "the meanest man in the office."

I'm hoping I can retire when I sell this one...

This is completely false. Perhaps you missed this?
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...6eedf6608c4c70

That group looks pretty fishy to me.

Actually that is pretty sharp looking.

Would have made a nice Ruth CJ Card

Wow, what an asshole you are!!!!

Cheers to ALL, except you

You'll have to forgive me, I'm a cynic. I know about the trillion dollar bipartisan deal. But it's also currently stuck behind Democrat maneuvering (I'm a purple Democrat). Trump wanted an infrastructure deal, too, but couldn't get one pushed through. Plus, 1 trillion is less than is needed to fix and update ALL the problems that already exist. I'll say congrats once it's a signed bill on the president's desk.

I know I'm not in the majority on this, but "the greatest generation" helped create a strong US after WWII by paying high taxes that invested in American infrastructure, especially Eisenhower's highway system and a standing military.

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Please read the Rules

Politics are not to be discussed here

Thanks

One of the most perfect examples of female logic I have heard in a long time.

Politics and misogyny on the same thread...lookout

Great cards of in demand players continue to rise a little but it's slowing down. More regular cards stay the same or decline a bit. Ymmv (your mileage may vary)