So many great points and thoughts here.
I see the spikes tied to people having more time working remotely to get a hobby, then having extra funds from not vacationing in lockdown and not commuting to work, possibly having even more expendable money after receiving stimulus checks, an increased interest when they see mainstream news and sports sites reporting on huge sale prices of vintage cards from Wagner and Ruth down to newer cards from Trout and Tom Brady.
It does seem we're due for a correction, but it might be like the art world. The artists who are kind of famous in the art world but not known to the man on the street do flatten or drop in price, but Van Gogh and Da Vinci keep spiking.
The blue chip cards, especially in decent condition, are now forever out of reach of most people, and those with deeper pockets will chase them and compete and drive up the price. Even with inflation raging and a recession staring us down I'm surprised to see how much cards are going for, especially for the big names. I'm also surprised to see on eBay how many people are buying cards at the "Buy it Now" price, which is often 25% or more higher than at auction (except for Dean's Cards who prices everything at like 50000% above the going rate).
In 2014 I bought a PSA 7 Babe Ruth Sanella for $189. According to PSA one just sold for $1622. An 850% increase in eight years? Ridiculous. And most of that increase has happened in the past two years! I then went through my email to check out a 1933 red Goudey Ruth that I recalled just losing out on at auction. I found the email and saw it was a PSA 4 and that the sale price was $2,750 in 2014. Earlier this year the same card at the same grade went for $25K at auction on eBay.
I'm a white collar guy in my late 40s who makes a decent buck and is a millionaire on paper (though clearly not one in liquid funds!) but I just can't be plunking down $25K for a card. The $2,750 was a stretch for me back in 2014 but do-able and I just lost on when someone outbid me at the gun. Unless I win Mega Millions, I'll never come that close again to owning a PSA 4 of a 1933 Goudey of Ruth.
No matter the market, historically we have seen people pay huge figures for T206 Wagners and those prices only go up. It seems this will happen now with the vintage cards, and special modern cards, of the big name players.
It's good to see more people get hooked into collecting in the past two years, and I hope many will stick with it to some degree over time, but I think the mid to higher end HOFer vintage cards and going to be out of range for most of us from now on.
As such, I'm tempted to sell that Ruth card, as well as a nice T206 Cy Young portrait, a high-end N28 of Charlie Comiskey and a few more, but I'll hold on to them as I suspect the prices will only go higher. On the other hand, I wouldn't argue with anyone selling their common vintage cards now.
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