The Dangers of "Prospecting" and its Impact on Vintage

[rjackson44]

Aston martin terrible investment austin martin even worse lol

[nineunder71]

Originally Posted by rjackson44

Aston martin terrible investment austin martin even worse lol

This is Funny!

[ClementeFanOh]

To Seven (James)- I agree, once in a great while I buy packs or a box just
to rip open packs

I no longer have the Aaron from the Salmon anecdote. He must have gone on
to bigger and better things. Trent

[D. Bergin]

Why on earth would anybody spend 50K on a 37th round draft pick out of college, who hasn't done anything of note in the minors.

Almost seems made up.

About 10+ years ago, I filled up a decent sized storage locker with a vintage memorabilia buy from an auction house for a lot less then 50K...a looooooooot less. Made my money back many times over, and still sell stuff off from that buy on a regular basis.

[Directly]

When some modern Lebron or Trout card sells for million's of dollars, what should we expect --yep they might open the right pack and hit the lottery so to speak--AH Please Keep the HYPE going!
Thanks Rockies for your Nolan Arenado plus Paul Goldschmidt??

[Johnny630]

Steven, it’s like a penny stocks impact on mega-cap blue-chip dividend aristocrats. The good major big names, Ruth, Jackie, Mantle, and Mays 50’s and earlier quality high-end vintage aren't going down.

ZERO IMPACT

[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

Steven, it’s like a penny stocks impact on mega-cap blue-chip dividend aristocrats. The good major big names, Ruth, Jackie, Mantle, and Mays 50’s and earlier quality high-end vintage aren't going down.

ZERO IMPACT

You are wrong. It takes someone(a future mega cap buyer) out of the marketplace, likely for good. It's all about supply and demand. People getting burned losing on the next best thing, tend never to return.

[notfast]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Why on earth would anybody spend 50K on a 37th round draft pick out of college, who hasn't done anything of note in the minors.

Almost seems made up.

About 10+ years ago, I filled up a decent sized storage locker with a vintage memorabilia buy from an auction house for a lot less then 50K...an looooooooot less. Made my money back many times over, and still sell stuff off from that buy on a regular basis.

37th round out of HS which he didnt sign. Then in 2020 he was the #5 overall pick.

Still dumb $ but he was a top guy.

[bbcard1]

I generally avoid commenting on these threads because it seems like we're saying "don't like things I don't like" but there is a different mindset to these collectors / investors. Say what you might about their strategy, they have brought a lot of attention to cards.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by notfast

37th round out of HS which he didnt sign. Then in 2020 he was the #5 overall pick.

Still dumb $ but he was a top guy.

Ah gotcha, didn't notice that. Had a nice 21 game run in Fall ball last year, but not much else.

[2dueces]

Most here are collectors. This guys is a flipper. Huge difference. He wasn’t putting that Martin card in a safety deposit box for his children. He was looking to cash in and speculate some more.
We as collectors ( most of the time collectors) look at $50k and wonder what we can add to our collection.
If people are willing to pay millions for fake 1 of 1’s of Lebron James than celebrate the hobby is alive and well.

[abothebear]

I have recently looked into prospecting a little bit, but hyper-focused on my fan interest, and not more than $20. What I have been wondering about is where is the sweet spot? You have 1/1s/3/5s and the like that are way too expensive to take a risk on buying. And even so, there are, for any given prospect, 20 different RC that come in those low-number versions. And step that up to the 20 / 50 / 99, level, and their 20 different issues, Then there are the 300 - 1000 numbered versions, and then the unnumbered but quantifiably less (like the unnumbered auto versions). Where is that prospecting sweet spot of low-risk entry point but still a chance for return? For instance, I see that you can find RCs of prospects that hit 8 years ago for under $200. What were these cards being sold for eight years ago? $200 doesn't seem like a return in value based on what people are paying for prospects right now. If you pay $200 for a 1/50 card and the prospect turns into a near immediate all-star, will the value even go up? Are people prospecting in hopes they'll b HOFers 25 years from now? Because that doesn't make sense. I'd like to get a card of a young pitcher in my team's system. I have good reason to believe he'll be a fun sensation of sorts. Yet pitchers are terrible investments, especially now that they don't even pitch 5 innings. There may never be another pitcher to be elected to the HOF once this nearly retiring generation is through. But let's suppose he does hit, and in 5 years is a top 3 pitcher in the mlb, and has a trajectory that could spell HOF. What cards would I want to have prospected on that would be paying off? Would the 1/300s, which I could get for $20 right now be anything?

I'm not looking for answers (unless you have some), just pointing out another layer to the prospecting game. The risk/reward is so out of whack that it is a wonder the market functions the way it does. But maybe there is a sweet spot where it can make a little bit of sense, especially if you have a fan investment of the player too. But I'm not sure where that sweet spot is.

[nineunder71]

I enjoy prospecting my Rockies (talk about a bad investment)

I enjoy it because they add to my collection and bring happiness. Regarding modern, I only collect what I enjoy, which is Rockies prospects and early Nolan Arenado cards.

There is No Doubt the Modern Prospecting world is a house of cards and it will tumble to zero.. Penny stocks is a great comparison. Most go to zero over time and a rare needle in the haystack pops now and then. The investors are hoping for the needle, collectors are just building for future enjoyment. (And doing so within a reasonable budget for that collector)

If that same guy in the story didn’t blow his 50K on a stupid purchase baseball card, he probably would have made a much better purchase with a non-fungible token of the same Austin Martin card. We can’t stop this and while I feel bad for all the people losing money they can’t afford....these are just hard lessons learned.

Now, Go Rockies! Our PR team says we have a chance at .500 ball this year