What would you rather have 5 Mint commons or 1 star for the same money?

WinPitcher

Recently the prices realised for 65 Topps Baseball cards in Mint 9 have gone through the roof. Cards that only 2 or 3 months ago that fetched 50.00 now almost nightly go for 125.00 or more. Because of this I was thinking would it not be better to get a Star card for 500.00 or 600.00 (SMR value) then 4 or 5 commons for 125.00 each (which is 2, 3 times SMR) . I understand that populations need to be quantified for this question to have true meaning but then again Star cards can always be liquified while low pop commons can only increase in numbers. Case in Point, 1 month ago 1/2 Bill Monboquette went for 150.00 it is now a 1/4 I believe and the last one sold for 90.00. You can also now see many more PSA 9's for sale each night then a few months ago too. Some are from collections seeking to cash out but ,I have also noticed an upsurge in fresh material too. The days of getting PSA 9 commons at least for the set I am working on for under SMR seem over, so, for me anyway I will go after 8's or get that one star card for SMR.

Any thoughts on this from other's seeing the same thing in the sets that they are collecting?


Steve

BugOnTheRug

Steve,
Depends what your goals are. Regardless, this high/low price spiking is an ebb-and-flow thing. Right now you're seeing big prices paid - so that means more will be auctioned by others to grab onto the money flow. Saturation will eventually occur in this micro-economy, and some may wish they hadn't sold at this time.

There will always be times where heavy hitters, newbies, etc. bunch up. Yes, pops will always rise but if more are in the game, maybe a 1/2 sells for the same as a 1/5 later on. Lots of variables. Good coin can be made selling 9's now, but there should be a time where you can replace them at a lower (read normal) cost. It's a gamble but there are those around here that take advantage of that.

Maybe stars would be a good purchase now, but they won't spike like the commons do (courtesy of Mr. Registry) so just maybe you should just save your coin and spend later when somebody, or a few, dumps their high-end 65 set(s).

BOTR

fsjeter

This is the reason I began exercising a little patience on my '67 Topps BB set and my '59 Topps FB set. The '59's sell way above SMR for PSA 9's only because they are pretty scarce. As an example, the SMR for commons is $85 and for a short time about 6 mo's ago, they were selling between$200 and $300 on eBay. The PSA 9 numbers are growing and the prices are coming down a bit. They're now down to about $100 to $125.

Scott

Knuckles

I personally don't collect sets so there for no commons. I stick to vintage rookie cards of the big named players. Once in awhile I'll stray away from that rule to buy a beautiful non-rookie card of a star player. This isn't Howe's RC but I couldn't pass it up from being in my collection.