How Big of a Factor is Hoarding?

69topps8

Reading the thread about "Do you back off when bidding gets rough" made me think about this. Do you think people are hoarding PSA 9 cards? If a card has a population of 5 or 10 but the majority are owned by one person, they could control the market. I've seen several tough cards that have a handful of PSA 9's but I never see them appear for sale. So this adds another factor to the buy/resell equation. If a card has multiple copies graded mint but they are all owned by one person, it's as if the population were 0.

What do you think, is this prevalent?

Mefer

I don't think you have instances of one person owning all five copies of a known low population 9. Of course, anything is possible, but I would think collectors would rather spend the money on cards they do not have. Just my thoughts.

bosoxphan

Interesting question. One I've actually thought about before. For a low population card with like 5-10, you really wouldn't even need to own all of them. Just the ones that have the possibility of coming back up for auction again. Some are going to be in sets of true/hardcore collectors, where the cards will stay, virtually forever. Since these cards will not be in circulation anyway, you wouldn't even have to concern yourself with them. I bet it's happened and is happening. This would be an interesting strategy for someone who already has the highest graded set that's near the best possible. He could essentially lock that position in, if he were able to hoard the 9's of a highly weighted card.

CDC4

I don't think that hoarding is prevalent in the market because I don't think that is important to do that. There are plenty of cards out there and more will be graded at some point. Cards the had pop's of 5 to 7 now have pops of 14 or 15. It is hard to set the market price because of that standpoint. The cards will come around.

ChrisKK

Great question. I will probably make even more enemies by saying this but, in the past, I have aggressively collected top grade cards in quantity. Not so much to have five or more but if the pop report shows three or less. Some times it has helped in securing other top grade cards by trading cards where I have all the copies. The flip side is also can happen. I had the first three copies of the 1970 Rollie Fingers in 9's, I paid a large amount of money for them and now there are 24 in that grade. I will never recoup the investment. As to the question of prevalence? I would not think so, there are too many cards being graded still. If it is happening it will almost never work to the owner's advantage. For the record ... I do not practice hoarding any more, on occasion I will purchase a second copy by mistake, but never as a strategy.

mikeschmidt

Hmm -- I used to hoard a little bit. Still do to some degree.

For example, I have a bunch of 1974 Topps Mike Schmidt cards in PSA 9. My long-term goal is to "force" the price of the PSA 9's up so much that the (two different?) owners of the 1974 Topps Mike Schmidt card in PSA 10 elect to sell. It probably will not make me much money in the long-term (e.g. I will come out behind), but I have an irrational desire to have the best of that card. So I am hoping that I can have as many PSA 9's as possible until I upgrade to PSA 10.

It doesn't make much sense -- nor do I try to contend that it does. I used to keep a couple of extra 1955 Bowman PSA 9 cards, too, in the hope that I would be able to trade them. Unfortunately -- after a few years, I was not able to find any people willing to trade any PSA 9's I needed for their PSA 9's.

NickM

Hoarding is probably most likely from player collectors. Just ask mikeschmidt.

Nick