Mickey Mantle more afforable

[Brianruns10]

Originally Posted by Volod

Not familiar with numismatics, but didn't that hobby see a somewhat similar phenomenon of inflation and readjustment over the last 20-30 years?

Speaking as a former full time coin collector, it really depends on what you collect. Modern coinage, i..e coins that are still minted, were always rather flat. Low grade stuff more than higher grade. Slabbing has completely proliferated in the hobby, and so there is the same war for grades and registry sets as there are in baseball cards.

I've noted waning interest in varieties or error coins. For example, I bought a variety of a 1922 lincoln cent for $300 when I was in middle school, and at it's peak it was valued at 1,200. I eventually sold it last year for a little more than $900. So I tripled my investment, but I was definitely past the peak, where I could've quadrupled my return.

Gold on the other hand, has gone nuts, and pieces I bought years ago, I sold for 3 to 4 times what I paid. Of course, that is not a reflection of the hobby so much as by outside speculators buying gold for whatever asinine reason (because honestly, if the economy collapses to such an extent that the DOLLAR isn't worth anything, gold and silver won't save you either. We'll be trading canned goods, ammunition and bicycle tires).

Like with baseball cards, coins did have a boom and bust when it came to what I call prefab collectibles...artificially scarce coins and commemorative sets churned out by the Treasury beginning in the 70s and onward. People bought up the stuff left and right, and now you just have stacks of them sitting at dealers tables. The worst investment I ever made was buying a proof set from the 1960s, for about $30 bucks back in the mid 90s...nearly 20 years later, that set is still worth....$30 bucks. It hasn't even managed to keep pace with inflation.

What remains steady are the classics, 18th, 19th and early 20th century coinage, especially high grade stuff, which is fairly in line with vintage baseball cards.

Lower grade stuff has fallen off, but the higher grades remain stable, and in some cases I think is undervalued.

I sold several coins from my collection to buy a '52 Eddie Mathews PSA 5 DEAD CENTERED. I think the card is very undervalued in that set, being a SP, last card, Rookie HoFer with some of the worst centering problems in the entire set. I paid a few hundred over SMR for my example, and I think with time it will prove to be a sound investment.