Vintage Baseball Cards - A Good Investment?
bbcemporium
Posts: 684 ✭✭✭
Does anybody have any information on the value appreciation/depreciation of vintage baseball cards in the past 10 years? Also, and probably more importantly, what are your thoughts on what vintage card values will do in the future? Is anyone concerned that as the generations of collectors dissipate, baseball card values will start to decrease as demand may be less? I apologize if this topic has been already been thoroughly discussed, but am interested in the opinion of the rest of the board.
Registry Sets
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it"
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it"
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Brian
Again welcome to the boards........
WTB: 2001 Leaf Rookies & Stars Longevity: Ryan Jensen #/25
Welcome to the boards.
Steve
<< <i>Does anybody have any information on the value appreciation/depreciation of vintage baseball cards in the past 10 years? Also, and probably more importantly, what are your thoughts on what vintage card values will do in the future? Is anyone concerned that as the generations of collectors dissipate, baseball card values will start to decrease as demand may be less? I apologize if this topic has been already been thoroughly discussed, but am interested in the opinion of the rest of the board. >>
Welcome to the boards. Though I am flattered that you are using my Avatar, which is actually a picture of the Dr J Rookie card in my collection, I would appreciate it if you would use your own Rookie card!
<< <i>I would appreciate it if you would use your own Rookie card! >>
That THUD you just heard was Justin stepping off his soap box!
The stock market bombed at around 38% in 2008.
Part of my card collection is tracked in VCP. I list 3000+ cards there, 99% baseball, mid to upper grade cards from 1960-1978. (Not a PSA 9 Mantle in the bunch!)
Those cards dropped 3% in 2008.
Thinly traded stuff, granted...but, those are real figures, from which any conclusion can be drawn.
Guess which one I am drawing?
Nick
I believe nice conditioned (medium to high grade) vintage cards are the way to go.
Years ago, kids primarily bought cards for trading and flipping with their friends; not to mention attaching them to their bike spokes for noise making.
They rubberbanded 'em and stuck 'em in cigar boxes and carried them everywhere they went.
Some were even tacked to their bedroom walls or pasted inside books/albums.
Needless to say, many cards weren't handled with TLC.
Since the mid to late 80s, a new generation of kids were told to handle their cards with the utmost care... it seemed like everything was a "collectible".
In comparison, renewed interests and increased values were now placed on the vintage card market.
Whether it's just a nostalgic feeling of remembering the good old days when baseball really was America's favorite pastime, or some kind of a bond between generations of collectors, I believe vintage cards will always be in big demand and the only way to go for investment purposes.
I can't supply any figures for the past 10 years (1999-2008), but I honestly believe that now is a great time for purchasing vintage, with the exception of mid-high graded Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb etc.
Blackie, Digicat, MBMiller25 and BunchOBull have all made valid points.
Good luck with whatever you decide to collect ... have fun with it!
PoppaJ
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it"
1. With cash being tight, less people are buying cards/collectibles, which creates a great buyer's market for those with extra cash.
2. With cash being tight, people are wanting to unload their collections for cash.
Has anyone else seen this?
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it"
<< <i>Now that I've appeased the wrath of Justin, and probably ticked somebody else off with my new profile pic........ let's get back on subject. Stevek, don't you think with the current state of the economy, now would be a great time to invest in collectibles? I buy quite a bit on eBay and also have my own website where I purchase private collections, and I've noticed two things in the past few months.
1. With cash being tight, less people are buying cards/collectibles, which creates a great buyer's market for those with extra cash.
2. With cash being tight, people are wanting to unload their collections for cash.
Has anyone else seen this? >>
Just a basic rule of thumb for collectibles or really any form of investment, which unfortunately most people don't follow because it takes discipline to follow it - "You're better off losing a little bit on the upside than losing a lot on the downside" - That's stevek's advice and of course you can take it or leave it.
I don't believe this economy has bottomed out yet and it might not be close, but one thing for sure, nobody can predict the long term economy with certainty because world events could change for the better or worse at any time. However I do believe it isn't that difficult to see short term solid trends, and right now it seems to me to be a no brainer that there is still downside left in this economy. I'd rather wait until consumer confidence is on the rise a bit, maybe miss an opportunity to make the maximum profit on certain collectibles, but still be able to grab a good share of the profit on the way up. For example: Say there is an average market price right now for some collectibles of say $25,000 - That could be the bottom right now, you can't be sure...but In my view I'd rather wait and buy it if I have to for say $30,000 and "know" that the economic trends are up, than buy it now and it could dip to $20,000 or even lower, and possibly much lower. Again, it takes discipline to do this as well as having a good grasp of a particular market for whatever collectibles you wish to invest in. As far as particulars, the biggest waste of time and money would be to listen to anyone's advice as to specifics, including my advice - Do the hard research yourself, and make the decision...there's no easy path to making money with collectibles and investing in general but most people are lazy and just want to listen to so-called pundits on specifics, and the pundits basically have no better clue than you do as far as specifically what will increase. Of course it's always fun to try to make predictions and in my opinion, vintage high grade football cards have a lot of potential future upside, but again, I have no more clue what will actually happen than anyone else.
Look familiar?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Man, the kid's hand in the middle looks really dark or just really dirty!
I know the kid's not Grote15 because he would have to be holding a brand new T206 card.