Baseball card bubble?

[mferronibc]

Guys - I think the recent explosion of prices has only a little to do with "Joe Blow" collector (like me) with some more time on his hands and maybe some additional funds because we're not going out to dinner, buying clothes, paying for gas etc.

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

I agree the bubble will be resilient. I'm bullish agreeing 3 years. That hurts to say, since I'd like to buy more items, not less. Though I don't deal in high priced items, the trickle down effects are affecting my lower priced items.

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[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

Guys - I think the recent explosion of prices has only a little to do with "Joe Blow" collector (like me) with some more time on his hands and maybe some additional funds because we're not going out to dinner, buying clothes, paying for gas etc.

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

I'm not trying to be all conspiracy theory about it but if you follow the dollars I think this bubble is here to stay and likely get much bigger in the next 5 years even well after average collectors have gone back to work.

You may be onto something. Not being able to go to a concert, movie, or dinner might explain the cost of a junk wax boxes doubling or tripling in the last 11 months...but likely not the cards going up by thousands or millions (unless ya’ll go to way more expensive concerts than I do).

[jchcollins]

Selfishly, I would like to see both prices and participation in vintage go back to normal levels. I don't expect this to happen in the near-term future. While I have individual cards that will no doubt benefit from the bubble, I'd like to be able to continue to get more of them long before I'd consider selling...

[Seven]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Selfishly, I would like to see both prices and participation in vintage go back to normal levels. I don't expect this to happen in the near-term future. While I have individual cards that will no doubt benefit from the bubble, I'd like to be able to continue to get more of them long before I'd consider selling...

I think this is the view more than a few of us have. Most of us want to collect, and don't treat the card market, like the stock market. I'm glad to see prices go up to an extent, In case if I do ever decide to sell off some of my cards to fund other purchases, but at the same time, I wouldn't mind prices coming back down to earth a little bit.

Per the talks about stimulus checks affecting the card market, It's very possible. The first round of checks had such a broad net that people that weren't even in dire financial straits were getting checks. Not that any of us would complain about free money from the government, but that's obviously going to affect what we're going to be able to purchase.

If the 3K per child check actually happens, well I better start working on having some kids

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Seven

The first round of checks had such a broad net that people that weren't even in dire financial straits were getting checks. Not that any of us would complain about free money from the government, but that's obviously going to affect what we're going to be able to purchase.

Precisely. I'm not sure where we fall on the threshold, but I can tell you my wife and I didn't really need the money we got in the first stimulus. Sock it away for a rainy day, sure - but the method for distributing checks is not the most exact science in the world.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

What's more concerning (I mean this in terms of pricing out us average collectors for good) is the massive amount of $$$ coming into the hobby from investment-type firms who are literally buying up cards as part of diversified portfolios for their clients. Yes this started with really high end cards, ultra-modern basketball, parallels, auto's, etc. but is now filtering down and affecting all aspects of the market as people are looking for the next "undervalued" place to invest. There is even a new focus on junk-wax era cards which have also seen a big boost. I read somewhere that an investment banker was literally trying to buy up every 260 PSA 10 '82 Topps Rickey Henderson card to "corner the market" and boasted he was already half way there. The price on that card has absolutely skyrocketed as a result.

This same scenario played out in the 1990's-2000's with the Class III MG market. Early 90's an M16 was had for $3k with ease. Now, $40-$50k all day long. It pulled all the low rent MG's up into the $7-$8k range.

Population reports from the likes of PSA are problematic because it takes little market knowledge to corner it. A card with only 10 or 20 high grade examples can be scooped up quickly.