The Future

[sreader3]

I'm betting that vintage baseball prices will moderate, but still increase over the next 24 months. Here's my thinking:

COVID. COVID kept middle and high income earners home and on the Internet. High income remote workers age 25-75 of the male persuasion (i.e. the "target demo for vintage baseball card collectors" ), stuck a home and flush with discretionary cash (including both long-time collectors and those who rediscovered their childhood passion), bid-up vintage baseball card prices. Some of these folks are speculators who will not be there in the future. However, there is a certain “tackiness” to baseball card collecting that will cause some of the new entrants to endure. Moreover, not all remote workers will go back to the office. Those who stay home will have an inducement to keep collecting.

Publicity. It will die down. There is no doubt that a media-driven mania surrounding cards, both on TV and print, has spiked prices to an extent. That will subside. How much is unknown.

Inflation. Today’s CPI was 0.9% month over month, which extrapolated over 12 months means 11% annual inflation may be on the way. I personally don’t believe what the Fed and certain economists say about this inflation spike being “transitory.” I’m just not buying it—especially with more “stimulus” on the table. These same economists predicted that today’s CPI number would be 0.2% instead of 0.9% (oops) and that the recent jobs report would show 1M jobs instead of just over 200K (double oops). Inflation is here to stay folks. This will act as a countervailing force to COVID opening that will bolster card prices, at least in nominal terms. TINA (there is no alternative) still applies, in the stock market as well as collectibles.

Overall, I see somewhat stable vintage card prices in the next 24 months, with a slight upward bias. As usual, high-demand sets (e.g., T206) and high-demand players (e.g., Hall of Famers) will outperform.

Of course, opinions are like you know what. Everyone has one. Thoughts welcome.

[Casey2296]

Card collecting is like real estate. The "good stuff" will weather the storm, high quality rare cards, popular pre-war sets, etc. will hold their value through a downturn. You might pay 8k for a Ruth that went for 15k at the top but it's still a Ruth. And the downturn is coming, anybody who lived through the 70's knows this. You can't overstimulate the economy without inflation. And once inflation sets in it's a painful beast to beat. Smart people know this, politicians ignore this to get re-elected.

I try to think 30 years ahead after I'm dead when my kids open 3 suitcases of cards with Al Crisafulli's kids and they all say "Jesus, he put together a nice collection".

Just before they auction it off to use that resource to live their dream.

[sreader3]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

And once inflation sets in it's a painful beast to beat. Smart people know this, politicians ignore this to get re-elected.

I could not agree more Phil. Your kids are in for a treat!

One other thought: Price hikes by professional graders will raise the price floor on slabbed cards, especially in the sub-$200 category. This price hike will not translate to raw cards. Thus, the price disparity between graded and raw cards will increase, especially at lower grades. This is not advocacy, just opinion.

[jcmtiger]

Just keep collecting what you like, don’t’ worry about it unless you are in this for money only joe

[sreader3]

Originally Posted by jcmtiger

Just keep collecting what you like, don’t’ worry about it unless you are in this for money only joe

Hi Joe, I confess to mixed motives: I’m in it for both the joy of collecting and the money. I would not be involved at the level I am if either one were completely absent.

[hcv123]

Imo supply has a significant piece of the equation as well. High demand/low supply cards have the greatest opportunity to sustain and grow, followed by low demand/low supply cards, followed by high demand/high supply cards which are already seeing some price retreat and finally low demand /high supply cards.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by Casey2296

Card collecting is like real estate. The "good stuff" will weather the storm, high quality rare cards, popular pre-war sets, etc. will hold their value through a downturn. You might pay 8k for a Ruth that went for 15k at the top but it's still a Ruth. And the downturn is coming, anybody who lived through the 70's knows this. You can't overstimulate the economy without inflation. And once inflation sets in it's a painful beast to beat. Smart people know this, politicians ignore this to get re-elected.

I try to think 30 years ahead after I'm dead when my kids open 3 suitcases of cards with Al Crisafulli's kids and they all say "Jesus, he put together a nice collection".

Just before they auction it off to use that resource to live their dream.

I think short term, prices will be somewhat stable. The guy who paid $15K for a Ruth will hold onto it (for a while at least) rather than sell for $8K. However, long term, over 20-30 years as the first big generation of collectors goes to the big BB Diamond in the sky, I could see a large influx of cards, being sold by our heirs, people with no emotional attachment to the cards and who will take what they can get. At that point I could see prices for many items go down significantly. Actually, I won't see, becasue I'll be dead, but you get the picture.

[oldjudge]

I don’t think you can talk about baseball cards in aggregate. We have seen a price spike over the last six months, but most of that is concentrated in certain big name stars. Major portions of the collecting market have showed minimal if any gains (read 19th century). I don’t think the spike was attributed to people working from home during the pandemic, or government stimulus checks. I think it was a result of a growing belief amongst some well healed parties that sports cards are an asset class that they need to add to their portfolios. These people obviously have deep pockets so even if the market turns down some there will be no reason for them to dump anything. On the contrary, as long as they believe that their initial premise was correct, they will be adding to their portfolios during any pullbacks effectively placing a floor under the market.
As for inflation, it’s been a long time since we have had any significant inflation. I think there is a lot of noise in month to month numbers and I wouldn’t jump to annualizing them. If we are in fact coming out of a pandemic (hard to believe that we are out of the woods yet with what is going on in India and Brazil and the potential for significant viral mutations there, and the non-trivial percentage of idiots in this country who refuse to be vaccinated) then I would expect a few months of higher CPI readings dropping off later in the year, basically what a lot of economists are now predicting.

[Yoda]

I woke up this morning and had myself a beer.
The future is uncertain and the end is always near.


JM

[edjs]

Originally Posted by Yoda

I woke up this morning and had myself a beer.
The future is uncertain and the end is always near.


JM

So let it roll, baby, roll.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

I think short term, prices will be somewhat stable. The guy who paid $15K for a Ruth will hold onto it (for a while at least) rather than sell for $8K. However, long term, over 20-30 years as the first big generation of collectors goes to the big BB Diamond in the sky, I could see a large influx of cards, being sold by our heirs, people with no emotional attachment to the cards and who will take what they can get. At that point I could see prices for many items go down significantly. Actually, I won't see, becasue I'll be dead, but you get the picture.

Many of our consignments come from family members (mostly children or widows) who have zero emotional attachments to the hobby. The most memorable consignment was a widow who sold her dead husband’s 100K collection to go on a honeymoon with her new husband - always thought that was cruel.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by sreader3

Inflation. Today’s CPI was 0.9% month over month, which extrapolated over 12 months means 11% annual inflation may be on the way.

You can't extrapolate it out like that (or even close). If that CPI number was thought to forecast even half that rate of upcoming annual inflation, stocks and bonds would've seen the likes of black monday yesterday

[Gorditadogg]

I've seen The Future, brother, it is murder.

Card prices have been softening for a couple months now, and that will continue for a while. And the cards that have run up the most are the ones that are most vulnerable to correction. New collectors have run up the prices on the cards they know, but as the market contracts and there isn't new money anymore, they can only sell back to the people they bought their cards from, i.e. the old collector base.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[KCRfan1]

Would anyone view this as a time to accumulate 206's for example, over the next 6 months to a year? Keeping an eye open for about 5 years ahead and price increases?

[iwantitiwinit]

In my mind inflation for luxury and relatively scarce goods is not only here it will escalate. There are more than a few that have benefited from this surge in cryptocurrency prices, equity prices, real estate boom, stimulus, etc. More dollars held by a decent sized populus of people chasing limited goods will no doubt cause those goods to rise in value. Which goods, classic autos, collectible art, luxury and second homes, wine, watches and yes even baseball cards. I expect in the near to mid-term even items that in the past have been seen as only a mild excessive spend/treat, let's say something like a lobster dinner will begin to be out of their reach as the growing number of more affluent reach for those items on a more regular basis and pushing up prices. We are already seeing true shortages of those type of things in a resource constrained world. Not only are more individuals reaching for these items they are hoarding them and/or seeking them with much more frequency thereby accelerating their scarcity.

My advice buy T206's in mass quantity.

[egri]

I think the canary in the coal mine will be interest rates. When debt is no longer cheap, then the bubbles here, in real estate and elsewhere will pop. Also, I would not be surprised if part of the recent downturn in prices is due to people selling to cover tax bills. Tax day is Monday this year, and I think a lot of the people who got into cards/stocks/house flipping within the past year recently did their taxes were not expecting the bills they got.

[Republicaninmass]

"Stronger than dirt"

[TobaccoKing4]

Hi-end collectibles are historically one of the best performers during times of inflation. I think inflation is here to stay for a while, and that these prices aren't going anywhere but up for the next 2 years.

[Bobbycee]

[QUOTE=iwantitiwinit;210292

My advice buy T206's in mass quantity.[/QUOTE]

Oh, man...music to my ears. This advice was almost as welcome as Bluto's: "My advice to you is to start drinking heavily"

[samosa4u]

For the first time ever, I am seeing videos on YouTube that show guys in their early-twenties slapping down $75 - $100,000 US at card shows. Like where the f**k are they getting that kind of money from? Oh yeah, from flipping cards - where else? They think they can keep doing it until they have enough to buy a seaside mansion. One guy even commented how a Kobe Bryant rookie at $5,000 US was a good buy since he was getting inducted into the HOF. Folks, this was like a $700 US card before the pandemic started. How the f**k is that a good buy?

I think the future prices will largely depend on how many of these "investors" leave the hobby once society returns to normal. Another thing we have to look at is the length of time it takes for this to happen. For example, will half of these guys be gone by 2025? More than half? How many will stay in the hobby for the next ten or so years? Of course, nobody knows this.

Oh, and here is a card: