Do you believe there are any undervalued Mantle items?

[AustinMike]

Originally Posted by KCRfan1

Brian,

Are there some Mantle cards that are a little too obscure? Someone mentioned Transogram. Is there a market for them or the 68 Topps game cards? Both sets have star power, are they undervalued or just no interest from collectors?

I don't think there are any Mantle cards that are too obscure. And as far as undervalued, I guess what you're really asking is, 'Are there any cards we think will see a significant uptick in price?"

As we all know, the main determination of price is supply and demand. Supply is supposedly (legally) fixed (or decreasing as items are destroyed). Demand fluctuates. So the question boils down to, "Will demand increase enough in the future to cause an increase in the price?" That's the $64,000 question; and I think mainly a question for speculators. If enough speculators think it's value may go up, they may jump in causing a self-fulfilling prophecy. If that were to happen, in my opinion, that would make the card overvalued. Only if the collector base were to significantly increase in the future (in relation to a card's supply) would the card be undervalued today, again, in my opinion.

An example, the 1968 Topps game card. Like Chris said, the supply of the 1968 Topps game card exceeds the demand, hence it has a low "price." Is it undervalued? No, not according to today's demand. Will demand increase for this card in the future? It's anyone's guess. In my opinion, there are enough cards out there that, I think, the demand for this card will be met for some time to come.

There are some cards that may not have a large supply, but they are butt ugly and only a completest would want it (e.g., the 1965 Bancroft Tiddlers Giants of Sport (that's just my own personal opinion)). I can't ever see a card like this being in high demand.

Generally, I'm a pessimist in regards to the long-term "value" of Mantle cards and I'm amazed at the price increases I've seen. I'm also disappointed; there are still a bunch of his cards I'd like to get and I hate to see their "value" increasing before I can get them.