Autographs as an investment

[travrosty]

its a carp shoot. dont collect to invest. its too volatile, just collect to have fun. if they go up in the meantime, great.

[GrayGhost]

Don't you catch CARP Trav? haha.

I agree w what Trav said though. "Investment" is a scary word. Have fun at it.

[39special]

I agree with Scott and Travis.Its my hobby and I enjoy it.If I were to do it for investment,it would take the fun out of it.

[sdkammeyer]

I'm not an autograph person myself, but as far as an investment I would agree with the others.

As a hobbyist I say that my collection is exactly that ....... my collection, and the money aspect of it means nothing to me.

As a realist (because this stuff does cost money) I see it more as a "really cool savings account" if anything.

I honestly don't see the market for baseball cards falling off anytime soon. Worst case scenario is I hold on to a $1000 card for 5-10-20 years and then sell it off for the same amount that I paid for it originally..... no different than burying $1000 in the back yard and digging it up 5-10-20 years later ..... except that I got to enjoy it for that 5-10-20 years

But as far as getting a substantial dividend off of your investment, collectibles is probably not the way to go.

[Mr. Zipper]

I don't consider my collectibles as an "investment" either. But, when I spend money on something, it would be nice to get something back out of it down the line when it's time to sell.

With this in mind, for someone starting I would advise on avoiding mass-produced material as much as possible. By that I mean single signed balls of common signers, common signed flats, etc. Go for items that are less common. If you really want a signed item from someone who is in plentiful supply, get one with a less common inscription.

If I could tell go back in time and tell myself something 20 years ago, it would be, "one $200 item is way better than ten $20 items."

[RichardSimon]

+++ for all of the above comments.

[travrosty]

especially avoid speculation, buying 100 bryce harper signed baseballs now when he is hot. then next year he breaks his leg and is out of the big leagues forever, then you are done. at the minimum, buy nice, problem free, signed balls and photos of hof players like mantle, ruth, etc. established popular hof players who are deceased. because they cant sign any more legitimately and they are dead and their career totals wont change. speculation just kills the investor.

regfrigerator perry error cards were hot at 100 dollars apiece because they were a short print, proset football card. they later plummeted to the common bin for a dollar. jerome walton upper deck rookie cards were hot at over 20 dollars after his rookie season in which he went on a hitting streak. then we never heard any more from him and his cards are worth nothing now.

[baseball111]

Originally Posted by travrosty

its a carp shoot. dont collect to invest. its too volatile, just collect to have fun. if they go up in the meantime, great.

Just so I don't confuse anyone, I am surely not in the hobby for the money aspect. I love collecting and in my view, is an interesting and enjoyable hobby where I can spend my money and not regret it later. The reason I posted this question is because I was thinking about this the other day and how there is really no sample pool to judge the autograph market, as I said, they were not valuable 20-30 years ago. It was simply about a hypothetical situation about someone who has collected and no longer is interested in them and has no one to hand them down to. I feel as though my post suggested I was in the hobby for the sole purpose of investing my money, which is not the case. And Jim, I certainly have no family or home depending on the money I put into my collection, haha.

I have had a lot of fun with this hobby and plan on continuing to add for years to come. Thanks to everyone for your responses so far and happy collecting