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Current Price Levels of High End Vintage…
mintonlypls
Posts: 1,751 ✭✭✭✭✭
I would like input or observation of current price levels for high end (8 or higher), vintage sportscards (earlier than 1980) relative to pre-COVID levels.
I followed a 1955 Koufax RC PSA-9 on the recently concluded Golden Elite Auction. It sold for $244,000. The last known sales were in 2021 at $375,000. So…it is down approximately 33%. However…it is up approximately 2x since pre-COVID levels. In the last decade (since 2013)…the price of this card in a PSA-9 is up 6x! Pretty impressive…
Thoughts on other high end vintage trends?
mint_only_pls
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8's are down some from 2 years ago. 9's are holding their own. 10's probably up, but there aren't very many.
Almost everything widely traded has been falling from Covid ATH’s. And some stuff that would be considered high end seems to be trending towards early Covid pricing.
The Koufax example is in line with this. My guess is we land somewhere around pre-covid + inflation over the period. So late 2019 + 30% for the stuff that trades regularly.
As of a couple years ago I've focused only on 50-80 and there's still a lot of action on all of it and in every grade. Kind of surprising.
Things have dropped but not to where they were prior to Covid. I'm fine with that and a consistent price increase over time than big, huge jumps.
The PSA submission data someone posted are pretty telling. Buy high end vintage and you'll be alright in the long run.
I picked up a 67 Carew in PSA 9 pre covid for around $1500. I just checked and the last few sold were between 2.1k and 2.4k I dont recall what their all time covid high was.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I follow Jim Brown and his 58 Topps PSA 7 Rookie has gone from 7K earlier this year to 5K currently. What's surprising is his death hasn't been mentioned much. Butkus had more coverage.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Monte
I think you need a few more data points on the Koufax to get a more accurate price on the PSA 9’s. Looks like the last 3-5 sold in the high $300k range and the Goldin was around $280k with hammer. Possibly a soft example or maybe not a lot of people knew about the auction. The 55 Koufax has a huge spread between 8’s at around $25-30k and 9’s at $375k.
Craig On the Carew RC are you sure you meant PSA 9 or PSA 8? PSA 9’s are around $15k now so good for you if you grabbed one for $1500.
Man, I can't even because I'm so jealous...
Awesome for you!
sorry, correction. I meant psa 8
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
W/Buyer's Premium (22%)...buyer paid $244,000 for the 1955 Koufax RC PSA-9. I agree that one data point makes it statistically insignificant. I wasn't trying to do a time series analysis ; )
Crazy how much BP eats into a sellers profits. Suspect some of the BP was shared with the seller but 22% on 240k nets out below 200k.
Before buyer’s premium of 22%…the final bid price was $200,000.
My bad, thought I read 240 was final hammer.
Could be worse / you could have gone long on Coby White Prizm RCs. Down 95 percent from ATH.
Kiss me twice.....let's party.
Card by card and era by era basis of course, but there is still plenty of room for continued downward fall
The PSA submission data someone posted are pretty telling. Buy high end vintage and you'll be alright in the long run.
Can someone please include the link for this? I don't remember reading about it. Thank you
That seems odd for that card to drop that much. I do know that the centering is all over the map on that card. Of all of the vintage FB, I would think he is one of the bluest blue chip vintage cards.
I don't think high end vintage is a lock, as future generations care less for the old timers. Maybe only the megastars Mantle Mays Aaron etc.
Plus those vintage base cards are boring. No rainbow, numbered, burst, refractor, auto. Yawn. LOL
And what link are you looking for? The data one?
The other poster linked their Instagram, but they have website
gemrate.com
Whatever link shows the discussion that the OP referenced.
I appreciate your help Ron.
Is the mid to low grade stuff dropping in price?
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
Like a rock.
High end, relative to pre-covid are holding their own for goat like players (Mantle, Aaron, Mays). If we're talking purchases made 10+ years ago, which I think many of us have, we are good. I collected Mays: down 27% from all-time highs, up 8x from purchase prices. I think the Koufax in question has more to do with the auction house----- Golden vs Heritage?
The PSA prices pages for Brown are not resolving right now, but that card in an 8 is 50% of all time highs and in free-fall. Another card on its way to giving back most Covid gains:
https://www.psacard.com/auctionprices/football-cards/1958-topps/jim-brown/summary/265856
The auction house should set parame> @stwainfan said:
I sold 1968 psa 4 clemente for $150 about a year ago. I have one listed now for $95 Perfect centering (sgc 4), nothing.
My observations:
9s have held better than 8s.
Football and Basketball have dropped much more than baseball.
For baseball Rookie cards have dropped more than other cards and 2nd year cards (outside the ‘52 Mantle) have held well.
There is much more distinction between cards within the grade. While a 7 (not an 8 or a 9) REA had two Aaron rookies in the last auction with a big difference in price based on the quality.
SGC has closed the gap quite a bit and a really strong SGC now beats a weak for the grade PSA.
I agree on this. I don't do any basketball but dabble in football (and only 70s). They've definitely come down quite a bit. Things are very much more affordable, and even in the higher grades.
Here's some data. I've tracked 689 sales of the '68 Topps Ryan RC in PSA 8 since I bought mine at the 2009 National for $900.
2009 Avg: $1,050.83
2010 Avg: $1,051.60
2011 Avg: $1,160.73
2012 Avg: $1,341.46
2013 Avg: $1,427.74
2014 Avg: $2,205.17
2015 Avg: $3,036.75
2016 Avg: $5,176.22
2017 Avg: $3,522.62
2018 Avg: $3,211.52
2019 Avg: $3,181.65
2020 Avg: $4,334.60
2021 Avg: $8,975.25
2022 Avg: $7,837.15
2023 Avg: $8,294.12
I have more examples like this (e.g. PSA 7 '55 Koufax RC, PSA 8 '59 Gibby RC) if anyone's interested.
When I see these threads, I wonder why so few people seem to know that PSA tracks auction prices and has for a while. Price history for all grades is posted and available. According to all cards I’ve look at, blue chips, widely traded, everything is off ATH’s by 30-50%. Some exceptions I’m sure but the trend is very clear.
GREAT information!
However, guys like Ryan, Mantle, Clemente and Koufax are not the guys you want to be looking at if your looking for general pricing trends.
Those 4, and maybe a few others, seem to sell for way more than other HOF players.
My 1982 topps shooty babbitt has held on. It was worth 1 cent in 1982 and now it's worth 1/2 cent. LOL!!!
I bought a Jerry Rice PSA 7 centered during COVID for $140 and was thrilled. They go for less than half that these days.
Kiss me twice.....let's party.
Just like everything I touch...Down to the Exits! I pulled/Bought a 8 a year ago, couldn't give it away!
YeeHaw!
Neil
1980 Topps Henderson Rookies in 8 and 9 have dropped like an anchor was tied to it
alot of the ones dropping really fast are the ones that have huge pop numbers. The Jerry Rice cards someone was talking about. There are 10,000 psa 7's. 13,500 psa 8's. and so on. Just way to many. The ones to have are the 8.5's and up the rest are to populated. It's a great card, but.
Henderson the same way. Murray the same way. Just way too many produced. 2168 PSA 9's of henderson. Wow.
Now the high grades of the superstars should have decent value but it may take another 10 years to get back where they were.
Speaking football----- the goat, Tom Brady cards have not been immune from 50% drops from covid era prices. The popular (since he's in a Pats uniform) Bowman Chrome & Bowman are good examples of big drops. Chrome pop=1146, 24% gem rate. Regular Bowman pop=466, 7% gem rate. High dollar SP Authentic down also......
I remember that big spike in 2016. that was the year of the mysterious "buyers group" if I remember correctly.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Contenders are also way down. but still up from pre covid.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Inflation. 2023 is going to be the third year in a row of 4% or higher inflation. Keep in mind the calculation of the CPI was changed in 2021 to minimize this number. So the real CPI could be much higher. The last time we had three years in a row of CPI 4% and above was 1980 -1982. This is my opinion is hurting every sector of life (Grocery, Gas, Rent, Mortgages, Housing, clothing, etc). so the people who have to choose between buying cards and just plain living have to make tough decisions.
Until we see a "REAL" change in this sector, card buying and card prices are going to be down. Think of this, everyday prices of consumer goods are up 19% in the last 2 1/2 years, the markets are down about 8%. that's a 27% percent swing in the wrong direction for millions of americans. S0 $100 of cash for the consumer in April of 2021 is now worth $73.
Spot on comments olb31 and everyone should remember this when they vote next year.
What's happening with MTG and Pokemon values? The sooner those crash, the sooner submission volumes crash. Maybe then PSA will focus more on supporting us vintage collectors.
Really, look at CPI from 1988-1991. Don't know what markets you're talking about in the last 2 1/2 years but I'm up just over 3% in a pretty safe fund and almost 10% in an aggressive fund which includes a 17% loss in 2022 and not a nickel added to it since I'm retired. Inflation hurts lower income and fixed income folks the most as discretionary spending may no longer be an option. Cards and grading are definitely not a necessity.
sayheywyo
I reviewed all the yearly CPI numbers from 1913 - 2023. There is a list you can google that has all the numbers. I didn't make them up. The stock number was taken strictly at the high of the NYSE until today. it's around 2,000 points lower. So the 8% could be 7%. But just plain living expenses have mushroomed. Since you are retired you may not realize how much housing and rent have gone up. the median income of my hometown is around 45k for a family. decent single bedroom apartments are $1,250 per month.
I'm not trying to be political, I'm just calling like I see it. And this would impact the newer collectors and/or the younger collectors and quite possible the older/retired collectors depending on their 401k. Yeah if you have a decent job and the wife works and does well, then it probably doesn't effect you as much.
It effects everyone as gas prices, energy prices, food prices, etc are way up the last 4 years. I personally know 7 people from work who were ready to retire that had to keep working. Every single person I know is doing worse today than they did 4 years ago. This definitely has caused the prices of cards to come down.
I think the way this plays out in cards is that it doesn't affect the buyer. who regularly buys $1K+ cards but it does affect the marginal buyers which is what is needed to keep prices moving. if it ever gets under control, the marginal buyers come back and there should be a reasonable price appreciation instead of declines
Even some more modern cards are down. The 2008 Topps Kershaw is down a good amount from September.
I collect hall of fame rookie cards, https://www.instagram.com/stwainfan/
Mike Trout update RC is down. But I think the reason has more to do with his injuries resulting in his playing less. But negative economic news probably figures in there somewhere as well.
1939 Play Ball Ted Williams: A very nicely centered PSA 6.5 sold for $14,500 in Spring of 2021 at REA.
Williams RC was said to be on a downward trajectory around this time last year and a gorgeous perfectly centered PSA 5 Williams sold for $7,500 in the 2022 Fall REA auction.
So I'm in on a perfectly centered PSA 5 at Heritage last month with those Covid price points in mind, and the "sky" is falling sentiment we are hearing. It sold for $18,000. I was at least happy the price was already high before extended bidding and i didn't bother staying up late.
I have noticed similar dips in other cards as well and I was waiting to see if they would fall further...only to see a rebound in them.
Moral of the story for me...if I see a difficult card I want and have been looking for, go get it, because a depression in price could simply be a buying opportunity as opposed to a negative trend, and it stinks kicking oneself for passing one up.
IMO, This only works for difficult cards because a true 'rarity' such as any 1920's Ruth card(regardless of condition) or a centered presentable Williams rookie card really are actual rarities, as opposed to an artificial rarity of a PSA 10 Upper Deck Griffey RC that aren't any different than a PSA 9 Griffey RC of which there are 40,000 examples, because there are less than 100 of those Ruth's and less than 100 of those centered Williams RC and those trends are little harder to maintain and easier to be bought up if they do drop in price.
I think that high end vintage stars are a good buy and will recover any downturn in price quicker than modern. It is a safer investment for a couple reasons: proven HOFs and limited supply in high end,
Like any investment it depends on when you got in, and your cost to get out. Which can be quite high in the case of sports cards.
I can sell 50k of the SP500 - which is up nearly 20% YTD - Monday at market open for 9 bucks. 50k in cards can cost 5-10k depending on what you have and take 90-120 days if using an auction house.
Yep. There are reasons Buffet and the like don't have Trading Card holdings.
Unless otherwise specified my posts represent only my opinion, not fact.