baseball's falling popularity and its affect on our hobby

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by MyGuyTy

That's exactly what I'm talking about, it will be a combination of an overall lack of interest and flooded market of vintage cards. Supply will be plenty and demand is projecting to be at an all time low.......Recipe for a complete crash of values.

The amount of vintage cards will never be considered plenty. They aren't making any, so the population will only go down as time passes. Cards are lost to attrition, whether it's fire, natural disasters, mistakenly thrown out, whatever.

We have all seen parts of the market go up or down based on just one extra person collecting a particular set or player. That just proves how rare they are overall and there have been some huge collections put on the market, such as Lionel Carter's or the large find of Drum backs. They did nothing negative to the market value of similar cards.

The are plenty of people that would gladly embrace prices dropping because they are "collectors" and it's more for them, so those people will eat up any so called flood of cards. Then when someone wants them again, the prices will go up. There are always going to be people lying in wait for that flood of cards so they can do what they do, collect.

[MyGuyTy]

Originally Posted by z28jd

There are always going to be people lying in wait for that flood of cards so they can do what they do, collect.

So there's gonna be 70-90 years old lying in wait to drop $15,000 on rare back or rare "print error" T206 in 30 years? I highly doubt it. Nor will men who will be in their 30's and 40's at that time with the real disposable income. New money, new interests, new hobbies, new ways of thinking.

[William Todd]

My feeling on this subject is somewhat middle of the road to this discussion. As a career investment person, I know that trends come and go. The rare baseball cards and stamps and art will hold their value, but many times along the long term span of time they can become overpriced. I am concerned that many of the high grade examples of cards, like the Wagner, may have been altered. I don't know how this will affect their value over time. In the last five years I have moved my collecting focus to collecting middle grade, somewhat rare, reasonably priced cards, all pre WWI. I enjoy collecting, I love the cards, but not overpaying for them.

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

I think it is interesting that nobody else considered the effect that the medical data may have on the future of pro football.

[MyGuyTy]

Originally Posted by z28jd

The amount of vintage cards will never be considered plenty. They aren't making any, so the population will only go down as time passes. Cards are lost to attrition, whether it's fire, natural disasters, mistakenly thrown out, whatever.

We have all seen parts of the market go up or down based on just one extra person collecting a particular set or player. That just proves how rare they are overall and there have been some huge collections put on the market, such as Lionel Carter's or the large find of Drum backs. They did nothing negative to the market value of similar cards.

The are plenty of people that would gladly embrace prices dropping because they are "collectors" and it's more for them, so those people will eat up any so called flood of cards. Then when someone wants them again, the prices will go up. There are always going to be people lying in wait for that flood of cards so they can do what they do, collect.

Just because something is perceived as "rare" doesn't mean it's automatically so "valuable" beyond belief. There are TONS are vintage items and artifacts (in which only a handful exist) with values under a couple hundred bucks. Why? Because there's no true demand for these particular items or the market for them has completely disappeared.