T206 Blue Old Mill

[wolf441]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

Some people like living in denial...I mean:

-overinflated grades
-preferential grading
-shill bidding
-phantom bidding
-psa registry

Sure you can say all u want that as long as people are willing to pay whatever price...these ridiculous prices are warranted...and that the shill bidding really doesn't matter because if I was willing to pay 1K...who cares if a card was shill bid up to 950...even though it may only be worth $500.

All of these deceptive practices that overinflate card grades...that overinflate sales prices...cannot and will not proceed forever.

There are a lot of wealthy "collectors" out there who are fueling this situation...and this is not likely to change anytime soon...BUT...it has been shown that when 2 people want a card...prices can go crazy...and as soon as 1 of those buyers obtains the card...the next sales prices tends to be a bit lower.

If PSA goes down...or is forced to admit that they have in fact participated in preferential grading...in overinflating grades...when other major auction houses ARE implicated in deceptive practices and are taken to task...the shit will hit the fan and will have an impact on the hobby!

I agree 100% Pete,

To me, at almost feels like the 2007-early 2008 run up to the financial collapse. I've seen numerous threads about the ridiculous prices being paid for certain cards (T206 backs for example). While there are obviously many collectors who have the disposable income to spend the $$, at what point do they look at the landscape and start feeling that the whole system is dirty? At that point, folks may decide that it's time to start selling before the floor drops out. If people decide that TPG services aren't a guarantee of anything, you may see the supply/demand ratio flip and prices start to drop.

I saw it firsthand when lenders were giving out ARMs and interest only mortgages for $400k+ to families that we making about $45k/per year. These companies would then bundle the mortgages up, securitize them and sell them off as CMOs, credit default swaps, etc... All it really took to pull the card house down was a few people saying "wait a minute, this doesn't make sense, what's backing up these investments?". The moment that there wasn't complete believe in the system, everything fell apart.