Health of Asset Class - Over/Under 1955 Topps Koufax PSA 9

[raulus]

Originally Posted by jsfriedm

As far as the really high end, I don't think this was an isolated incident. In Heritage's August auction, they had a 1952 Topps Mantle SGC 9 for which they had an estimate of $6 million+. They started the bidding at 2 mil, and three days before closing it had only reached 2.35, when they posted a 4.5 million reserve. Half an hour before the end of the auction they suddenly reduced the reserve to 3.75 and got one bid, so they could say it sold, for 4.5 million. In the same auction, they had a 1933 Goudey Ruth 144 PSA 8.5 with an estimated value of 1.5 mil+ that barely made it to 1 million. I do think there are signs of softness at the high end.

Those are some fun data points.

I think for those of us that are chasing a lot of high end stuff, there's sometimes a bit of confirmation bias. We're chasing some nice stuff down (even just tracking it for market research purposes), and it always seems to sell for a crazy price. We see a few other pieces that go to the moon, and our lazy minds just assume that everything at the top end is going for all-time highs. If we see something that sells for less than the last few comps, we discount it as an aberration.

Obviously the data points you highlighted help to paint a more nuanced picture.