Graded Market Prices Declining
Rocco67
Posts: 26
Seems the lower grade card market across the board is softening quite a bit on e-bay. I just took a hit on a lot of 13 - 1979 Topps PSA 8 cards, all HOF or Stars with no qualifiers. Granted these cards are not the hardest to come by, but the $64.00 the high bidder got them for is a joke, considering the lot included Rose, Yount, Schmidt, Ryan, Carlton, Bench, Murray, etc.
I saw an Ozzie Smith 1979 Topps PSA 9 Rookie sell for $204.00 yesterday! The prices low population 1970 Kellogg's are fetching hurt, a Horlen in PSA 9 for $26.00 and a Reichardt for about the same.
It's not just 1970's stuff either. I am not inciting the panic button here, just noting what I have been observing.
I saw an Ozzie Smith 1979 Topps PSA 9 Rookie sell for $204.00 yesterday! The prices low population 1970 Kellogg's are fetching hurt, a Horlen in PSA 9 for $26.00 and a Reichardt for about the same.
It's not just 1970's stuff either. I am not inciting the panic button here, just noting what I have been observing.
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Comments
Joe
It is a simple matter of the law of supply and demand. People see the prices realized and bring more product into the marketplace. There is a TON of mid to late 70's material which has not seen the light of day yet, whether it be unopened, in sets or elsewhere. I expect graded card prices to retreat MUCH further.
Setbuilders Sports Cards
Ebay: set-builders & set-builders2
<< <i>The prices low population 1970 Kellogg's are fetching hurt, a Horlen in PSA 9 for $26.00 and a Reichardt for about the same. >>
What low pop? There are 34 Horlen PSA 9's. It finally came under $45.
One needs to be very careful when grading out late 70's cards...its a gamble for sure. I would have to say that the market is pretty good for several 50's and 60's sets.
John
eBay auctions
1. You are talking about 1979. The "value" in these modern card years would have to be in PSA 9 or better; not in PSA 8.
2. From your post, it appears that they sold as a lot. By doing this, you minimized your $ realized since you eliminated many people who would be willing to bid on one of the cards, but not all of them.
I would have paid a lot more for those cards, but I lost track of that auction on my board. You are right about the cheap price, but I bet those cards will sell for double if not triple that price when they are resold in the next 2-3 weeks
Houston
1955 Topps All-American (raw or PSA graded)
Used to working on HOF SS Baseballs--Now just '67 Sox Stickers and anything Boston related.
<< <i>7 or Better: TONS of UNGRADED 60's (and 50's) out there in PSA 8? Give me directions to your planet, please! >>
While "tons" might be a bit of an overstatement I do agree that there is more than a little high quality ungraded stuff out there. I personally think that it is a bit arrogant for us "graded" card collectors to believe that all of the really good stuff has been graded already. There are still plenty of collectors that have put together very high grade collections that have not "bought into" the idea of 3rd party grading. Think of the number of cards collected over the past 50 years and then the number of cards in the population report today, those that have been graded are a very small percentage of those that have been bought and sold over the years.
Is the market declining? Not really, I think that it is just finding it's true place. Take 70's and early 80's football as an example. It has exploded in the past 18 months, will it last? Probably not, it will stay strong, but will Earl Campbell rookies in PSA 9 sell for $400+ next year? I'll hold off buying one and take my chances. A year ago when I started my Cowboys team sets I found 1979 and 1980 team leader cards graded PSA 9, both were 1 of 1 and the asking price was in the range of $150 each, now you can get one for $10-$25 depending on the quality of the scan on ebay.
I think this even applies to 60's stuff, but on a smaller scale. At the last Ft. Washington show Kurt from Kurtz Kards told me that he bought a 1967 set in San Francisco that had yielded him a large number of high grade 8's and even some 9's, do we really believe that those sets are few and far between? We are all looking for our big "find", but the truth is there are really good raw cards to be had, it's just a matter of prying them out of the hands of those discerning collectors that aren't interested in grading them and unwilling to sell them.
Sorry to drone on, just wanted to put my 2 cents in on this one.
Abe
<< <i>7 or Better: TONS of UNGRADED 60's (and 50's) out there in PSA 8? Give me directions to your planet, please! >>
Yo!You live in White Planes right?I'm an hr and 15 min.away and will be happy to split the cost for the rocket fuel.
When are you blasting off?
My Auctions
Lot prices are always hard to figure, do all bidders need ALL the cards in the lot ?, Do they have enough extra spending money to speculate ?, Do some anticipate the final price will be too high, so why waste time even bidding ? Do most collectors search out finds in cards they don't actively collect ?, Do they have confidence in the seller ?, and many other variables. The 79 PSA 8 lot mentioned did allow the winner to get some nice cards at basically grading fee cost. A true bargain indeed !! I believe if this was a 1969 or 1959 lot of similar stars, there would be quite more interest also.
The new era of sets being registered ( the concept of a graded card itself is not too old as well ) brings some different reasons for collecting. Because of the increased costs, all of us are probably more "profit-potential" aware. Perhaps 15 years ago the difference between a raw 1959 Rocco Colavito in nm as opposed to nm/mt was not too great, today the raw card's' difference will be somewhat more and a graded one between 7 and 8 even larger. Set registry has made us much more condition aware. The registry also spwans ego-mania in some, we must have only the best... 9s or 10s , therefore a couple years ago some 79 collectors would have jumped on the aforementioned lot, possibly now, no matter how cheap, it just won't fit into someone's 9+ set, so no bidding exists.
In a previous post or two I have questioned the "sequential" value of PSA commons and semi-stars. This could maybe apply to the lot being talked about. If one collects 8s ( or 9s ) for any year , after he gets one, perhaps a second for backup, will he bid on a third offered at ebay, even if at a bargain price ?? The reciprocal is sometimes in effect...one needs a few to finish off the set, or to keep his position on the registry, so he may bid quite high on the first or second PSA copy offered, going way overboard to be the first to have it. When the 12th copy is offered a year later, he won't bid, and the guys in the lower slots on the registry can get it cheap.
None of us have crystal balls, nor can positively predict the future. Inflation usually prevails and will drive prices up over time. The stock market, the raw card market, the PSA market, the market for all brands of graded cards, will probably fluctuate over the next few years. Hopefully more established collectors will become registry members, hopefully more younger collectors will appreciate vintage and gravitate to the registry, hopefully the internet increase will allow graded cards to become more accepted/collected by more people, and perhaps most important, hopefully the economy will improve and let more people have more discretionary/extra spending money to pursure non-essential interests such as card collecting. Only time will tell.
Good response. I agree with all of your points. When I was buying raw cards, I looked for the largest lots for the lowest price. I regularly bought 500+ card lots for 10-20 cards that I needed (many PSA 8s and a few 9s came from this with more still waiting to be graded
I also agree that a lot of set registry participants (myself included), will bid outrageous amounts for cards they need as they approach completion. I'm currently at almost 97% complete on my 1970 Topps Baseball set and I will pay top dollar for the last few cards that I need. I know that I will win 99% of the cards that I bid on at this point, but there is always someone out there that you don't count on bidding. It's an ego thing for sure, but it's also frustrating when some new ebay bidder raises their bid 15 times in the last two days of an auction and drives up the price, even though you know that your top all bid will easily beat it. I generally stay away from auctions that I know one of my fellow collectors will be bidding high on (sorry about the #9 checklist, Chris).
I believe that there are many PSA graded cards that will go up in value over time and many that will go down over time. It will all even out eventually. Possibly 20 years from now, SMR will be a more accurate guide to actual card values.
JEB.