bluedevil89,
The BIG difference I see between coins, precious metals, gemstones, artwork and even Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, is that those OTHER collectibles either have some sort fo inherent value or they have a WORLD WIDE market for them.
American coins STILL have value even if they are badly worn and are barely readable.
Gold and silver have value no matter if they are in ingot form, or are in coins or jewelry.
Precious stones, artwork and automobiles have value because people aroudn the world want those items.
King Farouk of Egypt had a great coin collection and many of them were American rarities.
Wealthy people in India and the Middle East buy precious stones as a store house for value.
Ralph Lauren has a collection of Ferraris, Mercedes and Bugatti's that is valued at over $50 million dollars. If worst came to worst, he could still, at least, DRIVE those automobiles if he had to.
As far as vintage baseball cards, what inherent value or utility do they have? Can you take them to the store and use them as currency? Or to the bank and put them in your savings account?
Does their value fluctuate based on the current price of paper?
Baseball is prety much only followed in North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean nations and Japan. Other than America, who or where is there a LOT of great baseball card collections?
Tell me, is there a person or people in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela or Japan who have a large and valuable vintage American baseball card collection?
Are the Chinese hoarding cards?
Are the shieks using their oil revenue to amass collections?
The answer to all of these questions, in my opinion, is probably not.
Collecting vintage baseball cards is mostly an American phenomenon and the cards themselves have little or no inherent value, except, of course, if you were hungry and needed something to eat or were cold and needed fuel for a fire.
This is why I say, using my previous opinions and compared to many other collectibles, which have a WORLD WIDE appeal, vintage baseball cards don't have as much upside as many people would like to think and hope they do.
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