Is baseball card collecting a relatively cheap hobby?

koby

Sometimes it is interesting to read other forums to learn about other hobbies. I stumbled across this thread in the coin forum which asked about the most expensive coins.

expensive coins thread

I was amazed at the value of coins. $7 Million for a single coin???

Of course, we all know that the crown jewel of baseball cards is the PSA 8 t-206 Honus Wagner. Last sale price was $1.27 million and the seller apparently has rejected several private offers up to $2 million.

I had no idea how small these numbers were in comparision to other hobbies.

CARDS

$1.27 million for the T206 Cobb.
The next highest price card is a PSA 10 1952 Topps Mantle which sold in 2001 for $275000.

STAMPS

1847 Mauritius sold for $3.8 million in 1993
1855 Sweden Three Skilling Yellow sold for $2.27 million

COINS

1804 Saultan of Muscat Silver Dollar sold for $4.14 million in 1999
1933 Double Eagle sold for $7,590,020 in 2002


In searching for prices, it looks like prices of stamps, coins, cars, war artifacts, movie memorabilia, bibles, etc all dwarf prices for baseball cards.


Is this true across the board, not just with the most expenisve items, but with smaller items as well?

What is the reason for baseball card collecting being relatively inexpensive?

riccaboni

Well,

The difference with coins, stamps, and war memorbilia is that those items have historical value, and the cases of stamps and coins, were used everyday. Condition and rarity become issues there as well as in artifacts and antiques because production and use were not based on the fact that they may be collectable later. These itmes were all very practical.

Baseball cards are a novelty that are used for nothing but the novelty value. Not only that, but the hobby is still young compared to coins, stamps and antique collecting.

-Ian

Machodoc

Coin collecting & dealing is an ancient and universal hobby/profession with a worldwide market, all of the things that sportscard collecting is not. Many view coins as a "serious" hobby/profession, as opposed to collecting & dealing in little pieces of cardboard whose earliest examples are only a little over 100 years old with the vast majority of its market and source material limited to a single modern culture - ours.

While I really enjoy my 1952 Mantle, when I look at my 1798 AU58 Large Eagle silver dollar, I can fantasize that perhaps it spent a little time in George Washington's or Thomas Jefferson's pocket or purse. I'm personally not a fan of ancient coins, but whose to say that someone out there doesn't have a coin used by Caeser? The historical value alone appeals to me and other collectors, serious and otherwise, on many different levels. Of course coins, especially gold and silver, have an intrinsic value, but for the kind of stuff you refer to, that's not an issue.

I began card collecting in 1966 and coin collecting in 1970, and I enjoy them both for very different reasons. If forced to pick one however, I'm afraid the cardboard would have to go.

Skycap

One big difference between baseball cards and stamps/coins....

In the U.S., you gotta be dead to be on a stamp or coin. On a new baseball card, the players are alive (barring accidents).

Skycap

NickM

skycap - that's not correct. Elvis is on stamps, and he's living in Michigan and working at a Burger King.

Nick

Vargha

People still collect stamps?

AlanAllen

No doubt. Just look on eBay for the quantity of $1000 coins vs. cards. It's an across the board thing, not just as the very very high end.

Joe

DeutscherGeist

Baseball cards may as well be a cheaper hobby than any of the other ones mentioned. The big reason is that stamps, coins, military artifacts, etc are international, while baseball cards are primarily in the USA, parts of Canada, Australia, and a few individuals here and there.

Wake up people, we are not the only country in the world. Coins and stamps have been around longer and have more actual and potential collectors (drawing from a world audience) than collectors of sports cards (drawing mainly from America). That is just the way it is.

I am an occasional collector of coins and stamps. I keep remembering the time I lived in Germany in the early 90's. Frank Thomas was hot back then and I knew his RC would not attract much attention, let alone interest, compared to the gold coins of England and Persia that I also had.

MrMoo

Sports cards are chump change compared to coins. Once you start getting into low pop high quality stuff the prices can be crazy.

Vargha

"Don't worry honey, I'm only spending thousands on baseball cards. It's not like I'm collecting coins or anything."

RobBobGolf

Hobby=Cheap
Addiction=Expensive

You draw the line where you like.

RobBob

Vargha

No really . . . I can quit anytime I want to.

Basilone

and then there are art collectors.....

mrc32

I remember trading cards in my cafeteria when I was in middle school. My friends and I would trade the stars of the day for as long as the teachers would let us.

We had this real snobby kid in our class that collected coins. His name was Kennedy (Snooty right?). Well Kennedy came up to us one day and looked at us trading our cardboard heros and said "Why don't you collect something of value like coins. Even if one day everyone stops collecting them, you can melt coins down and sell the metal."

Well this statement made me pause (for about 5 seconds) and we went back to that big deal involving Eric Davis for Dale Murphy.

Kennedy was a nerd and nobody liked him. He stunk at sports but his family was rich.

Not sure this really applies to the thread- but I'll take my cardboard heros any day!

dstudeba

Malcolm Forbes' collection of Fabrage Eggs is going on the auction block if you need something else to collect. There were only 50 made.

BugOnTheRug

I have a sheet of 22 cent Clemente stamps I purchased just when they were released. Like new and in the sleeve. Elvis was the only customer ahead of me at the PO when I bought them. I'm only asking $500,000 for the sheet. And talk about rare! How many Clemente sheets are out there that were bought with Elvis standing no more than 3 feet away?????

Compared to the coins/stamps listed above, 500K is sure a lot less money than 1-7M.

BOTR

wallst32

Don't forget also that older coins were made of precious metals such as gold and silver. I can take an old $20 gold coin, cut it in two, or melt it down, and it would STILL be worth at least a few hundred dollars.

Do that to your Mantle, Ryan, or Jordan, and tell me what it is worth? Just a pile of paper that grows in trees.

goodriddance189

<< <i>Do that to your Mantle, Ryan, or Jordan, and tell me what it is worth? Just a pile of paper that grows in trees. >>



you could say the same thing about US currency

Goldenage

If you want a PSA 10 rookies of HOF players than its very expensive.

If you’re happy with VG-EX, then it isn’t.

Raw card collecting in vg-ex allows one to have more choices.

miwlvrn

Just wondering how many archived threads from 2003 & 2004 are going to get bumped this week...

Seems like at least 3 so far if not more that I missed

brad31

Any hobby is as cheap or expensive as your budget allows. You can concentrate on a whole variety of things. Let’s say you are a Cubs fan - focus on 80s Cubs cards and you have a very inexpensive hobby.

All of us with the collector gene will push a portion of our discretionary income to our hobby and spend to that amount - be it cars, coins, stamps, antiques, toys, etc. collecting anything is as expensive as you allow.

82FootballWaxMemorys

@miwlvrn said:
Just wondering how many archived threads from 2003 & 2004 are going to get bumped this week...

Seems like at least 3 so far if not more that I missed

Appears a couple folks think they are being "clever". This is why many forums lock threads after 1 or 2 years of no activity.

Historicalwood71

" old" baseball cards are worth more than diamonds.