Do the prices on vintage ever go down?

[swarmee]

Some famous examples of vintage cards going down:
2016 "Buyers Group" really shilled up the prices of 1950s and 1960s Hall of Fame level rookies in PSA 7,8,9 grades (Clemente, Rose, Koufax, etc) to double, triple, or quadruple their original prices in only a few months. After they stopped buying, cards dropped again. This would be considered a market bubble that burst.

If you search the Auction Prices Realized website for PSA graded cards, take a look at the 1952 Topps set. Many PSA 8 cards sold early on for like $10K each, and the same exact cards (cert numbers) sold just a few years later in many cases for a fraction of those prices (down in the $1-2K range). Not sure if once the top buyers got their cards, the demand decreased, or whether the supply kept growing and now the whales needed PSA 9/10s to remain competitive. https://www.net54baseball.com/showth...light=realized

Pre-war has probably had sets go out of favor and dropped because of that. Most of the candy/food cards had a resurgence like 10 years ago, and have probably been flat to down since then.

[todeen]

Originally Posted by swarmee

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Pre-war has probably had sets go out of favor and dropped because of that. Most of the candy/food cards had a resurgence like 10 years ago, and have probably been flat to down since then.

+1 I agree with candy/food cards going out of fashion.

I would add that non standard size cards can go down too. Wheaties is not as strong as it once was. I bought a series 1 Wheaties Lou Gehrig for $160 at auction in February. That was a great price. 1936 R311 is not as strong, in my opinion. 1934 Butterfinger cards have increased in price only due to people grading them, but they all come back as 1 or 1.5, and nobody pays increased prices for that.

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[conor912]

Originally Posted by todeen

+1 I agree with candy/food cards going out of fashion.

R cards, with the exception of a few players, have certainly taken a beating the last several years, though i think that will start changing soon. As much as I love my tobacco cards, nothing is as Americana as a gum card, and they are an exceptional value right now.

[Johnny630]

Yes they will go down.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Yes they will go down.

I haven't seen red cobbys go down much in my short career. Same thing with Goudey Ruths.....big names keep their value most times (*that I have seen) while many others don't. Nineteenth century and regular candy and gum cards come to mind.

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[ALR-bishop]

It seems some do and some don't

[Seven]

Granted, I can entirely be pulling this out of my rear end, my theory on the increase in vintage prices is that the money that would normally go towards vacations, and other luxuries like that are getting redirected towards old hobbies. That combined with the fact that a good majority of the population is now working from home, and has more time on their hands to surf the internet has led to the rise in prices. There's also people using cards as a vehicle for investments, but that's only certain cards and something that would probably warrant a separate discussion.

Do I think they'll go down? Well they won't plummet in value but I suspect that we'll see a small dip in things once people start getting back to work, and are able to travel again.