The number of collectors chasing graded 9's and 10's is miniscule.
When a markets depends on a small group to sustain it, there actually will be a collapse at some point(hence the current fears of a high price/low trading stock market).
Now I can't predict when that will happen. But I do know that a market like that is reliant on a greater fool and you don't want to be the one holding the bag at the end.
The potential mitigators are a expanding collector base, or a large number of supply being destroyed.
In the meantime you have a market with OCD people chasing after "must have" items, and an astonishing ability to corner a micro market. To each their own, but it's not an arena I'd step into without deep pockets.
Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will.
The number of collectors chasing graded 9's and 10's is miniscule.
>>
Collectors, yes. But Motley Fool is obviously geared towards investors, many of whom know little about the hobby and would gladly rely on TPGs to vet their "investment", essentially buying the holder and not the card.
Interesting read... I wonder if this will increase PSA/BGS submissions as readers mine their childhood closets for fool's gold?
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I tend to agree with you. But 1 point the article brought up has me questioning that. It mentioned in the 80's and 90's you could buy a pack of cards everywhere. I know when I was a kid, cards were everywhere. We were saturated with them. Today, (at least in my small corner of the world) you dont see them as much, and if you do they are usually priced out of a kids range. I dont think there wont be a next generation card collector, but I wonder if there could be so few the ones left can buy anything they want for pennies on the dollar. Afterall, theres too much other stuff for a kid to spend their money on Just a thought
That was an interesting read. I like the P/B ratio they used. The Tony Gwynn was nearly 23 times the book value for a Gem Mint copy according to the article.
The data is not perfect but it clearly supports the fact that trading cards can be good investments over time in graded form.
<< <i>That was an interesting read. I like the P/B ratio they used. The Tony Gwynn was nearly 23 times the book value for a Gem Mint copy according to the article.
The data is not perfect but it clearly supports the fact that trading cards can be good investments over time in graded form. >>
Your overly simplistic platitudes do not adequately address what is going on in the sports cards markets.
Its the equivalent of a used home sales person exclaiming that now is the best time to buy ever because interest rates are low.
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer.
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>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer. >>
\
6 months ago, I would have agreed completely. I still do agree on the HOF RC comment. But as for unopened packs....I'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here.
[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here. ]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever.
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>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer. >>
\ But as for unopened packs....I'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. . >>
Huh? Shaky? Who's shaking?
The Clockwork Angel Collection...brought to you by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase TheClockworkAngelCollection
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here. ]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
I agree with you on the unopened.
But look what you just pointed to.....another quite limited market....a larger audience at the moment for 80's and perhaps early 90's wax due to things that have already pointed out.....
but the market for 70's wax is small...at least at current prices. And since supply in the future will basically only come from
-people having to sell due to life circumstances -people selling because the price is too good to resist -collectors kicking the bucket
theres going to be a ridiculously limited supply(Fristchs stuff aint gonna last forever though at current pricing practices I guess it might).
So another very limited collector market. Propped by fewer and fewer collectors if prices continue to rise.
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here. ]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
I agree with you on the unopened.
But look what you just pointed to.....another quite limited market....a larger audience at the moment for 80's and perhaps early 90's wax due to things that have already pointed out.....
but the market for 70's wax is small...at least at current prices. And since supply in the future will basically only come from
-people having to sell due to life circumstances -people selling because the price is too good to resist -collectors kicking the bucket
theres going to be a ridiculously limited supply(Fristchs stuff aint gonna last forever though at current pricing practices I guess it might).
So another very limited collector market. Propped by fewer and fewer collectors if prices continue to rise. >>
I dunno. It seems the higher this stuff goes, the crazier the frenzy gets. I feel like places like BBCE can't price this stuff high enough.
I think the card market will come and go as the economy comes and goes. Right now, we have an economy that might be it's best since 2007/2008 so the card market is responding to that. If things continue to go well for the overall economy, I can't see older unopened product and high end singles taking a nose dive. But we are all at the mercy of the economy, which many experts say is still shaky at best. That being said, I don't think wall street is any safer or more reliable then unopened
The Clockwork Angel Collection...brought to you by Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Chase TheClockworkAngelCollection
If anyone wants to sell their eye-appealing graded HOFers-- from Cobbs to Jeters to Jordans-- feel free to PM me. Centered mid-grade all the way to PSA 9s for the newer ones.
I have tons to write about this article but first of all, thank you for posting it! I believe Cheifsfan has a very important, if not subtle point. If we look at card collecting long term - a question that another senior member of this board has been bandying about is where the next group of collectors will come from. That is, as we get older and some collectors of 50-70s cards pass on who will enter the market to support prices? Kids are into gaming and games such as YuGiOh and Pokemon, then into Magic etc...there is certainly still a percentage of kids that buy trading cards, but it really seems more an adult hobby for middle aged men than for kids. Also, the complexity of the number of producers that precipitated the crash in the 90s hasn't necessarly decreased. There are fewer card companies, yes, but they are still producing a complex array of cards. There is research that shows more choice is not always better. The magic number is between 5-7 not 50-70.
<< <i>I have tons to write about this article but first of all, thank you for posting it! I believe Cheifsfan has a very important, if not subtle point. If we look at card collecting long term - a question that another senior member of this board has been bandying about is where the next group of collectors will come from. That is, as we get older and some collectors of 50-70s cards pass on who will enter the market to support prices? Kids are into gaming and games such as YuGiOh and Pokemon, then into Magic etc...there is certainly still a percentage of kids that buy trading cards, but it really seems more an adult hobby for middle aged men than for kids. Also, the complexity of the number of producers that precipitated the crash in the 90s hasn't necessarly decreased. There are fewer card companies, yes, but they are still producing a complex array of cards. There is research that shows more choice is not always better. The magic number is between 5-7 not 50-70. >>
You do not have to collect cards as a kid to collect cards as an adult, all you have to be is a sports fan. There are plenty of Little Leagues, Pop Warner, Parks & Recreations, high school sports, etc....Then as one becomes an adult, they bragg about how good they were when they were young, even if they didn't play! Then they become fans of local teams, then fanatics, The next thing you know, your hooked on that terrible drug called "sports card collectibles" As long as there is sports, there will be sports collectors! I could even see that as the population rises, vintage items will become more & more scarce. It is possible.
BTW not to start any back and forth, but before one ridicules a post by referring to their thoughts as "platitudes" I would suggest one considers the sloppiness of using words like "miniscule" with no context. If the high end population is exceptionally small, then how miniscule does the collector base have to be to support the prices.
The collectors market will remain rock solid for another 20-40 years IMO. The height of the hobby was in 1983-88. Those 15-25 year old collectors are right now in their fourties and fifties. Just wait another twenty years when their pensions start to kick in, and all their kids are out of college. You ain't seen nothing yet.
Your overly simplistic platitudes do not adequately address what is going on in the sports cards markets.
Its the equivalent of a used home sales person exclaiming that now is the best time to buy ever because interest rates are low.
LOL. Do you really use words like platitudes in your daily conversations? I honestly did not even know what it meant so I looked it up.
A platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased, or prosaic statement, often presented as if it were significant and original.
You could make the point that I am biased because I collect PSA graded cards and have a significant collection but where this statement makes absolutely no sense is I don't even collect baseball cards.
Not every response on this message board needs to be the length of a book. I think there are many examples of graded cards having a a strong pricing history and that was pointed out in the article and I was essentially agreeing.
It is comical reading your statements when you clearly try and use large words to sound smart and then refer to a real estate agent as a used home sales person.
The market for many cards is very strong right now and you just need to look at completed sales on EBAY to see that. The prices speak for themselves.
Our country faces many challenges in the coming years and those certainly could affect the card markets I would not dispute that. That being said I believe that many view the collectibles markets as an alternative investment or a hard asset similar to art and if this mind set persists you will continue to see higher prices.
Many collectors are not as easily enticed to sell by what appear to be high prices and many of the top cards in the hobby are in strong hands and this is one of the driving forces of the market.
None of us can predict what the world will look like in forty years and we certainly can't accurately predict what the card market will look like. People have collected cards for over 100 years and while I think it would be foolish for one to think the number of collectors will return to the levels it was in the 80's or 90's, you don't need that many to support the areas that are doing well.
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here. ]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
Grote- I respect your opinion on this because I know you've been collecting unopened for a long time and follow the market closely. That being said, we're just a month or two out from the Pepis story that reverberated through every sports collecting blog that I read. No one I know who collects isn't aware of that story..Do we need to handcount all of the collectors who publically said on various threads that they would no longer buy unopened after hearing of that story? That story and the message took some buyers out of the market for unopened, based on their own words, not mine. Maybe it's temporary, maybe its not. We'll see.
aside from the wanting customer service, seems that PSA did the right thing here. i highly doubt that PSA ever said 'just sell them'. that doesn't pass the smell test. at all. and anyone who wants to 'get out of the hobby' after one dude pulled a fast one on Steve and PSA is obviously just looking for a reason to leave or plain trolling.
as a further aside, how in the world did i miss this? there's some other hilarious threads over at net54 at the moment, btw.
<< <i>we're just a month or two out from the Pepis story that reverberated through every sports collecting blog that I read. >>
what is this? >>
Unlike the old thieves who would open a pack, take out the good cards, and then re-seal and re-sell the packs, this gentlemen SUPPOSEDLY opened packs and then added star cards to the front/back, and then re-sealed the packs to take advantage of the premiums that the unsealed collector base pays for such packs. He then managed to get a few fake packs graded. Many collectors thought that if he could do it, then its probably possible for lots of people to do it. It put a giant stink on the sub industry of unopened graded packs.
I think the author's statistical analysis is flawed. Comparing ungraded book value to Gem Mint graded value isn't the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, Beckett's ungraded values are for varying conditions, dependent on the era. Beckett will say something to the effect that "prices for cards from 1980-1989 are for NM-MT examples." So to be accurate, the author should have been comparing the ungraded values with their respective graded values, not ungraded NM-MT with graded Gem Mint.
EchoCanyon
Posts: 2,283 ✭✭✭
Comments
The number of collectors chasing graded 9's and 10's is miniscule.
When a markets depends on a small group to sustain it, there actually will be a collapse at some point(hence the current fears of a high price/low trading stock market).
Now I can't predict when that will happen. But I do know that a market like that is reliant on a greater fool and you don't want to be the one holding the bag at the end.
The potential mitigators are a expanding collector base, or a large number of supply being destroyed.
In the meantime you have a market with OCD people chasing after "must have" items, and an astonishing ability to corner a micro market. To each their own, but it's not an arena I'd step into without deep pockets.
<< <i>I have two things to point out.
The number of collectors chasing graded 9's and 10's is miniscule.
>>
Collectors, yes. But Motley Fool is obviously geared towards investors, many of whom know little about the hobby and would gladly rely on TPGs to vet their "investment", essentially buying the holder and not the card.
Interesting read... I wonder if this will increase PSA/BGS submissions as readers mine their childhood closets for fool's gold?
Snorto~
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I tend to agree with you. But 1 point the article brought up has me questioning that. It mentioned
in the 80's and 90's you could buy a pack of cards everywhere. I know when I was a kid, cards were
everywhere. We were saturated with them. Today, (at least in my small corner of the world) you dont
see them as much, and if you do they are usually priced out of a kids range. I dont think there wont
be a next generation card collector, but I wonder if there could be so few the ones left can buy anything
they want for pennies on the dollar. Afterall, theres too much other stuff for a kid to spend their money on
Just a thought
The data is not perfect but it clearly supports the fact that trading cards can be good investments over time in graded form.
<< <i>That was an interesting read. I like the P/B ratio they used. The Tony Gwynn was nearly 23 times the book value for a Gem Mint copy according to the article.
The data is not perfect but it clearly supports the fact that trading cards can be good investments over time in graded form. >>
Your overly simplistic platitudes do not adequately address what is going on in the sports cards markets.
Its the equivalent of a used home sales person exclaiming that now is the best time to buy ever because interest rates are low.
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer.
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>
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer. >>
\
6 months ago, I would have agreed completely. I still do agree on the HOF RC comment. But as for unopened packs....I'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here.
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever.
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>
<< <i>
<< <i>Through all of the ups and downs in the hobby over the past 30 years, the fads, the insert craze, etc., hall-of-fame rookie cards and unopened wax are what people have always come back to....and always will. >>
I agree with this statement--prices have steadily risen or remained strong for both options over past decade or more. I think unopened prices are going to continue rising at a healthy rate over the next 10-20 years, too, as product gets even scracer. >>
\
But as for unopened packs....I'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. . >>
Huh? Shaky? Who's shaking?
TheClockworkAngelCollection
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here.
]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
I agree with you on the unopened.
But look what you just pointed to.....another quite limited market....a larger audience at the moment for 80's and perhaps early 90's wax due to things that have already pointed out.....
but the market for 70's wax is small...at least at current prices. And since supply in the future will basically only come from
-people having to sell due to life circumstances
-people selling because the price is too good to resist
-collectors kicking the bucket
theres going to be a ridiculously limited supply(Fristchs stuff aint gonna last forever though at current pricing practices I guess it might).
So another very limited collector market. Propped by fewer and fewer collectors if prices continue to rise.
<< <i>
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here.
]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
I agree with you on the unopened.
But look what you just pointed to.....another quite limited market....a larger audience at the moment for 80's and perhaps early 90's wax due to things that have already pointed out.....
but the market for 70's wax is small...at least at current prices. And since supply in the future will basically only come from
-people having to sell due to life circumstances
-people selling because the price is too good to resist
-collectors kicking the bucket
theres going to be a ridiculously limited supply(Fristchs stuff aint gonna last forever though at current pricing practices I guess it might).
So another very limited collector market. Propped by fewer and fewer collectors if prices continue to rise. >>
I dunno. It seems the higher this stuff goes, the crazier the frenzy gets. I feel like places like BBCE can't price this stuff high enough.
I think the card market will come and go as the economy comes and goes. Right now, we have an economy that might be it's best since 2007/2008 so the card market is responding to that. If things continue to go well for the overall economy, I can't see older unopened product and high end singles taking a nose dive. But we are all at the mercy of the economy, which many experts say is still shaky at best. That being said, I don't think wall street is any safer or more reliable then unopened
TheClockworkAngelCollection
<< <i>I have tons to write about this article but first of all, thank you for posting it! I believe Cheifsfan has a very important, if not subtle point. If we look at card collecting long term - a question that another senior member of this board has been bandying about is where the next group of collectors will come from. That is, as we get older and some collectors of 50-70s cards pass on who will enter the market to support prices? Kids are into gaming and games such as YuGiOh and Pokemon, then into Magic etc...there is certainly still a percentage of kids that buy trading cards, but it really seems more an adult hobby for middle aged men than for kids. Also, the complexity of the number of producers that precipitated the crash in the 90s hasn't necessarly decreased. There are fewer card companies, yes, but they are still producing a complex array of cards. There is research that shows more choice is not always better. The magic number is between 5-7 not 50-70. >>
You do not have to collect cards as a kid to collect cards as an adult, all you have to be is a sports fan. There are plenty of Little Leagues, Pop Warner, Parks & Recreations, high school sports, etc....Then as one becomes an adult, they bragg about how good they were when they were young, even if they didn't play! Then they become fans of local teams, then fanatics, The next thing you know, your hooked on that terrible drug called "sports card collectibles" As long as there is sports, there will be sports collectors! I could even see that as the population rises, vintage items will become more & more scarce. It is possible.
The height of the hobby was in 1983-88.
Those 15-25 year old collectors are right now in their fourties and fifties.
Just wait another twenty years when their pensions start to kick in, and all their kids are out of college.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
Its the equivalent of a used home sales person exclaiming that now is the best time to buy ever because interest rates are low.
LOL. Do you really use words like platitudes in your daily conversations? I honestly did not even know what it meant so I looked it up.
A platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased, or prosaic statement, often presented as if it were significant and original.
You could make the point that I am biased because I collect PSA graded cards and have a significant collection but where this statement makes absolutely no sense is I don't even collect baseball cards.
Not every response on this message board needs to be the length of a book. I think there are many examples of graded cards having a a strong pricing history and that was pointed out in the article and I was essentially agreeing.
It is comical reading your statements when you clearly try and use large words to sound smart and then refer to a real estate agent as a used home sales person.
The market for many cards is very strong right now and you just need to look at completed sales on EBAY to see that. The prices speak for themselves.
Our country faces many challenges in the coming years and those certainly could affect the card markets I would not dispute that. That being said I believe that many view the collectibles markets as an alternative investment or a hard asset similar to art and if this mind set persists you will continue to see higher prices.
Many collectors are not as easily enticed to sell by what appear to be high prices and many of the top cards in the hobby are in strong hands and this is one of the driving forces of the market.
None of us can predict what the world will look like in forty years and we certainly can't accurately predict what the card market will look like. People have collected cards for over 100 years and while I think it would be foolish for one to think the number of collectors will return to the levels it was in the 80's or 90's, you don't need that many to support the areas that are doing well.
<< <i>[iI'd say the confidence in the market is shaky at best. We'll see how things play out from here.
]
Shaky? A 76 cello box just sold out tonight in 15 seconds. The market is as strong as ever. >>
Grote- I respect your opinion on this because I know you've been collecting unopened for a long time and follow the market closely. That being said, we're just a month or two out from the Pepis story that reverberated through every sports collecting blog that I read. No one I know who collects isn't aware of that story..Do we need to handcount all of the collectors who publically said on various threads that they would no longer buy unopened after hearing of that story? That story and the message took some buyers out of the market for unopened, based on their own words, not mine. Maybe it's temporary, maybe its not. We'll see.
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
<< <i>we're just a month or two out from the Pepis story that reverberated through every sports collecting blog that I read. >>
what is this?
aside from the wanting customer service, seems that PSA did the right thing here. i highly doubt that PSA ever said 'just sell them'. that doesn't pass the smell test. at all. and anyone who wants to 'get out of the hobby' after one dude pulled a fast one on Steve and PSA is obviously just looking for a reason to leave or plain trolling.
as a further aside, how in the world did i miss this? there's some other hilarious threads over at net54 at the moment, btw.
<< <i>
<< <i>we're just a month or two out from the Pepis story that reverberated through every sports collecting blog that I read. >>
what is this? >>
Unlike the old thieves who would open a pack, take out the good cards, and then re-seal and re-sell the packs, this gentlemen SUPPOSEDLY opened packs and then added star cards to the front/back, and then re-sealed the packs to take advantage of the premiums that the unsealed collector base pays for such packs. He then managed to get a few fake packs graded. Many collectors thought that if he could do it, then its probably possible for lots of people to do it. It put a giant stink on the sub industry of unopened graded packs.
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
Arthur