There is lots of Macro Economic data I could reference that shows that the economy is slowing (GDP, Job numbers). Liquidity- money supply has not increased since around 2023. RE trending down.
If you guys are going to tie these sales to ‘The Economy’ please at least understand what the data is telling us. Spoiler - there is no Macro case to support this card 2x in 15 days.
Cost of borrowing will get cheaper today not because the economy is roaring, quite the opposite.
Matty is right, easiest con in the game, even seasoned collectors fall for it. Look at all the folks trying to justify what very clearly makes no sense.
Card early 2021 is selling for 10k. A BIN gets hit for 20k. A couple more sales peaks at 30k.
I am sure this board would have though the card was undervalued, the economy was ripping and these sales were legit.
That card trades for close to 10k today.
I could show you guys 50 examples like this. All the data is available if you are at all curious, and the playbook is always the same. Crazy outlier placement sale, a few supporting sales, FOMO, and eventually a slow melt.
@80sOPC said:
Ok at least a few of you get what I’m saying.
There is lots of Macro Economic data I could reference that shows that the economy is slowing (GDP, Job numbers). Liquidity- money supply has not increased since around 2023. RE trending down.
If you guys are going to tie these sales to ‘The Economy’ please at least understand what the data is telling us. Spoiler - there is no Macro case to support this card 2x in 15 days.
Cost of borrowing will get cheaper today not because the economy is roaring, quite the opposite.
Matty is right, easiest con in the game, even seasoned collectors fall for it. Look at all the folks trying to justify what very clearly makes no sense.
I think it's easy to understand why people with money, especially those who are in, or nearing, retirement where their primary source of income is an investment portfolio, would think that the economy is great and that it's booming and will continue to do so. Fun fact: There's never been an economy which did not collapse with a Gini coefficient has high as the United States has. Will we survive? We would be the first major economy the world has ever seen to do so! That's the real economic data.
I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but it's an easy assumption to jump to. If it looks like a duck... It's most likely a duck so be on the lookout for ducks. Don't assume everything is a duck. It's probably a duck. But who cares unless you're in the business of needing to predict if something is or isn't a duck. Know what I mean?
I think it gets very interesting to look at our Tony Gwynn situation from the angle of the economy, the stock market, parts of the stock market, the card market, parts of the card market and The Average Joe, which are all different things and one can do well while another does not. And it all can change kind of quickly. Today we get the news that we get the rate cut and probably two more this year. The market on the whole, maybe the news was baked in a bit. But it means more to some companies than others. The Russell 2000 companies smaller and more likely to have debt than the Dow and S&P and now that debt is cheaper to maintain. Bigger win for them than Microsoft. Stocks that are more based on the consumer and cater to The Average Joe, like Chipotle and Target it makes sense that they are not winning, while the companies that service the hyperscalers like Meta Amazon Microsoft Oracle who want to spend 50 to 100B, they are doing well.
While the stock market, or parts of it, is not the economy, the card market is not the economy or the stock market either. I remember when PWCC was getting ramped up, Brent was pitching that point heavy and providing all those metrics to support it. In bad economic times high-end cards did well. Babe Ruth yes. 89 Donruss Curt Schilling maybe not so much. Which I think can be at play now. When the economy was going through rough times it wasn't The Average Joe buying Babe Ruth cards. That space can thrive while the Average Joe is suffering because that money is less impacted in a rough economy. If I try to sell a card that has gone for $35, maybe this time I just get $28.
What I find interesting about the card market is when things felt dire and miserable in February and March I was trying to get out of the stock market and invest in high-end cards instead. Well, so was everybody else. Stuff got real expensive at that time and maybe you could call it reallocating. It was tough to get a nice card from the major auction houses at good value. Then the stock market dramatically improved and cards started to really take off. So for real nice cards, felt like a win win whether the stock market or general outlook on the economy was positive or not.
The Tony Gwynn PSA 10 is not Average Joe territory. Its not Babe Ruth territory but its high-end. So whatever this was, market manipulation or an overenthusiastic overcaffeinated individual with means, the card market is very strong and I dont see it letting up anytime soon.
While I was typing this I got a call from eBay about an issue with a card going through authentication. They apologized for taking so long to reach out to me and said they were swamped. To me, that kind of reinforces the point. The authentication space is where the more high-end cards live and they are more busy authenticating than usual.
@balco758 said:
So is it a good time to sell this?
Very nice pack! Whatever you do, though, don't open it as the gum in OPC wax packs is usually welded to that top card.
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.
grote - you probably know this. I sent in a bunch of packs for grading with notes for top and/or bottom card and they sent them back without any note. Is there something else I am supposed to do in the submission process for this?
@bgr said:
grote - you probably know this. I sent in a bunch of packs for grading with notes for top and/or bottom card and they sent them back without any note. Is there something else I am supposed to do in the submission process for this?
Did you select the player name on front or back on the actual line entry for the submission when entering the pack year, type etc or did you add the attribution in the notes. For packs, you would need to enter the line item with the player name so it looks like: 1983 Topps baseball cello pack/Tony Gwynn-Top on the line item to get the proper attribution on the flip. Once your submission moves to the Grading stage, you should also see the correct attribution on your order page.
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.
@bgr said:
grote - you probably know this. I sent in a bunch of packs for grading with notes for top and/or bottom card and they sent them back without any note. Is there something else I am supposed to do in the submission process for this?
Did you select the player name on front or back on the actual line entry for the submission when entering the pack year, type etc or did you add the attribution in the notes. For packs, you would need to enter the line item with the player name so it looks like: 1983 Topps baseball cello pack/Tony Gwynn-Top on the line item to get the proper attribution on the flip. Once your submission moves to the Grading stage, you should also see the correct attribution on your order page.
Ulysses.... goodness gracious, where in the world are you pulling economic and stock market data? Dire & miserable??
BTW, FYI, believe it or not... Int'l developed & Int'l emerging markets are outperforming US indices.... at least in my portfolio, both up over 20% ytd.
1983 OPC unopened remains affordable IMO. Same with 83T. I think they may have room to run. Tho I do submit I often fail to mis measure the correlation of the premium grade cards from a particular set and its unopened counterpart. I’m an unopened guy not a singles guy.
John
Conundrum - Loving my unopened baseball card collection....but really like ripping too
Reading is fundamental. Hope that is short enough for you.
Other than the OTC-type markets and considering major indexes, the Dow Jones would generally have the highest debt-to-anything ratios. Most of that is the nature of their businesses, but I would point out that Apple, which operates more like a bank than a tech company, largely offsets the debt-ridden behemoths in the Dow.
@sayheywyo said:
Ulysses.... goodness gracious, where in the world are you pulling economic and stock market data? Dire & miserable??
BTW, FYI, believe it or not... Int'l developed & Int'l emerging markets are outperforming US indices.... at least in my portfolio, both up over 20% ytd.
What adjectives would you choose to describe the stock market in February March and the sentiment regarding it? More late Feb to end of March. Or early April. I am attaching a pic of the NASDAQ from late February to end of March. 20,000 to 17,400. Then early April 15200. If that does not feel like a dire and miserable experience for investors okay, what would you call it? Wonderful? Hopeful? Excellent returns? Remarkable?
I am not sure why you bring up 20% for the year. I am saying the stock market has been incredible and I would expect most people to be able to do well YTD. It was just a brutal couple of months for many equity investors. If not you, Congrats. My whole point is the stock market has been so incredible that it makes sense that cards would do well too. Or that someone who made a lot in stocks could have sold them and won the Gwynn card.
And yeah, I like some International stocks but a lot of American ones are doing well now also.
And okay I realize my experience may be different than others so my apologies if I'm assuming everybody has the same experience. I am close to 100% tech and all the ripple effects of AI like energy and construction. I do have some Goldman Sachs which is probably an exception to the rule. So in times like late February to early April I lose a lot of teeth. But the other times can be very nice. I am in the very volatile stuff so I get it if others invest in less risk-averse spaces and then my position does not feel like their experience.
But I still feel like late Feb March were not winning months in too many spaces. Just maybe less damage here than there. Someone labeled it Tariff Armageddon. That does not sound like a fun experience.
But this all has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion about a card which was quite likely shot to the moon due to perceptibly strange methods of bidding. Reading is fundamental.
Whether it was shenanigans, the stock market, the economy, or anything other I suppose we'll soon see whether there is demand at these new price points which are being established. I'm personally not ready for 83s to be worth that much.
On that last point, there will be sales around the 8k number, that is part of the scam. You need to place 3-4 sales, which requires a stack of the card being manipulated.
Take a look at the Rose link I posted, or the Jordans posted here, to see how this thing may play out.
On the Jordan, that Sports Card Investor guy bought one close to those 700k sales thinking they represented legit market demand, think he paid in the 600’s or so. So basically the next card up after the two 700k sales, sells for 2.5 times previous value, basically a 400k or so lift for the seller. Imagine having 5 of those cards post that sale, and knowing it wasn’t reflective of the market. You are talking 7 figure lift. Not bad for a few months work.
@ElMagoStrikeZone said:
But this all has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion about a card which was quite likely shot to the moon due to perceptibly strange methods of bidding. Reading is fundamental.
If the discussion is the card went to the moon because of strange methods of bidding and okay everyone agrees, the discussion is over. There is no discussion.
My position is, as the dissenting juror, that its not absolutely a 100% certainty that it is market manipulation. Could be just not absolute for me.
I have bid on a lot of stuff this year where the winning bid is an all-time high. In some spaces its close to always an ATH. So in bidding I often have to say I would bid 15% over the ATH but that is it. And often I stop bidding and I lose and it can go 20 to 30 higher than the ATH. My angle is it is possible someone could even go higher than that. Could they do it even if was stupid for a number of different reasons? I say yes. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that and its fine.
There was one that sold for 4,995. So 60% higher. Definitely wow. But just think its possible some people got in a bidding war and did not want to lose and did not care about the money. Had to have it. People having more money cause of a nice equity market could have something to do with. Possibly.
Saw this last night and I feel like its part of the current situation with cards. Not saying Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank bought the Gwynn. But maybe there are more people in the space than used to be where the difference between 8K and 5K does not matter so much.
@ElMagoStrikeZone said:
But this all has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion about a card which was quite likely shot to the moon due to perceptibly strange methods of bidding. Reading is fundamental.
If the discussion is the card went to the moon because of strange methods of bidding and okay everyone agrees, the discussion is over. There is no discussion.
My position is, as the dissenting juror, that its not absolutely a 100% certainty that it is market manipulation. Could be just not absolute for me.
I have bid on a lot of stuff this year where the winning bid is an all-time high. In some spaces its close to always an ATH. So in bidding I often have to say I would bid 15% over the ATH but that is it. And often I stop bidding and I lose and it can go 20 to 30 higher than the ATH. My angle is it is possible someone could even go higher than that. Could they do it even if was stupid for a number of different reasons? I say yes. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that and its fine.
There was one that sold for 4,995. So 60% higher. Definitely wow. But just think its possible some people got in a bidding war and did not want to lose and did not care about the money. Had to have it. People having more money cause of a nice equity market could have something to do with. Possibly.
$4995 was a Best Offer BIN. There was no bid war. And, I might be inclined to discuss further the aspects of card sales which specifically apply to cards. I step away from the stock market and world economics when getting involved in such a discussion. I either don't see or care to discuss the correlation. That's just me. No matter what, I do appreciate good insight, and I'm certain you're capable of providing it. All good from here. Just making mention of my preference.
Comments
83 tony gwynn cello pack just sold for big $$$
https://www.ebay.com/itm/406207959832
Good grief, $6750!
Ok at least a few of you get what I’m saying.
There is lots of Macro Economic data I could reference that shows that the economy is slowing (GDP, Job numbers). Liquidity- money supply has not increased since around 2023. RE trending down.
If you guys are going to tie these sales to ‘The Economy’ please at least understand what the data is telling us. Spoiler - there is no Macro case to support this card 2x in 15 days.
Cost of borrowing will get cheaper today not because the economy is roaring, quite the opposite.
Matty is right, easiest con in the game, even seasoned collectors fall for it. Look at all the folks trying to justify what very clearly makes no sense.
Take a look at the history on 63 Rose PSA 8 to see how this scam plays out.
https://www.psacard.com/auctionprices/baseball-cards/1963-topps/1963-rookie-stars/184617?g=8&page=2
Card early 2021 is selling for 10k. A BIN gets hit for 20k. A couple more sales peaks at 30k.
I am sure this board would have though the card was undervalued, the economy was ripping and these sales were legit.
That card trades for close to 10k today.
I could show you guys 50 examples like this. All the data is available if you are at all curious, and the playbook is always the same. Crazy outlier placement sale, a few supporting sales, FOMO, and eventually a slow melt.
I think it's easy to understand why people with money, especially those who are in, or nearing, retirement where their primary source of income is an investment portfolio, would think that the economy is great and that it's booming and will continue to do so. Fun fact: There's never been an economy which did not collapse with a Gini coefficient has high as the United States has. Will we survive? We would be the first major economy the world has ever seen to do so! That's the real economic data.
I'm not saying it is or it isn't, but it's an easy assumption to jump to. If it looks like a duck... It's most likely a duck so be on the lookout for ducks. Don't assume everything is a duck. It's probably a duck. But who cares unless you're in the business of needing to predict if something is or isn't a duck. Know what I mean?
I think it gets very interesting to look at our Tony Gwynn situation from the angle of the economy, the stock market, parts of the stock market, the card market, parts of the card market and The Average Joe, which are all different things and one can do well while another does not. And it all can change kind of quickly. Today we get the news that we get the rate cut and probably two more this year. The market on the whole, maybe the news was baked in a bit. But it means more to some companies than others. The Russell 2000 companies smaller and more likely to have debt than the Dow and S&P and now that debt is cheaper to maintain. Bigger win for them than Microsoft. Stocks that are more based on the consumer and cater to The Average Joe, like Chipotle and Target it makes sense that they are not winning, while the companies that service the hyperscalers like Meta Amazon Microsoft Oracle who want to spend 50 to 100B, they are doing well.
While the stock market, or parts of it, is not the economy, the card market is not the economy or the stock market either. I remember when PWCC was getting ramped up, Brent was pitching that point heavy and providing all those metrics to support it. In bad economic times high-end cards did well. Babe Ruth yes. 89 Donruss Curt Schilling maybe not so much. Which I think can be at play now. When the economy was going through rough times it wasn't The Average Joe buying Babe Ruth cards. That space can thrive while the Average Joe is suffering because that money is less impacted in a rough economy. If I try to sell a card that has gone for $35, maybe this time I just get $28.
What I find interesting about the card market is when things felt dire and miserable in February and March I was trying to get out of the stock market and invest in high-end cards instead. Well, so was everybody else. Stuff got real expensive at that time and maybe you could call it reallocating. It was tough to get a nice card from the major auction houses at good value. Then the stock market dramatically improved and cards started to really take off. So for real nice cards, felt like a win win whether the stock market or general outlook on the economy was positive or not.
The Tony Gwynn PSA 10 is not Average Joe territory. Its not Babe Ruth territory but its high-end. So whatever this was, market manipulation or an overenthusiastic overcaffeinated individual with means, the card market is very strong and I dont see it letting up anytime soon.
While I was typing this I got a call from eBay about an issue with a card going through authentication. They apologized for taking so long to reach out to me and said they were swamped. To me, that kind of reinforces the point. The authentication space is where the more high-end cards live and they are more busy authenticating than usual.
So is it a good time to sell this?
Very nice pack! Whatever you do, though, don't open it as the gum in OPC wax packs is usually welded to that top card.
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.
grote - you probably know this. I sent in a bunch of packs for grading with notes for top and/or bottom card and they sent them back without any note. Is there something else I am supposed to do in the submission process for this?
Did you select the player name on front or back on the actual line entry for the submission when entering the pack year, type etc or did you add the attribution in the notes. For packs, you would need to enter the line item with the player name so it looks like: 1983 Topps baseball cello pack/Tony Gwynn-Top on the line item to get the proper attribution on the flip. Once your submission moves to the Grading stage, you should also see the correct attribution on your order page.
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.
Umm. Yup. I did that wrong. Nothing to see here.
Ulysses.... goodness gracious, where in the world are you pulling economic and stock market data? Dire & miserable??
BTW, FYI, believe it or not... Int'l developed & Int'l emerging markets are outperforming US indices.... at least in my portfolio, both up over 20% ytd.
I think they call it blather.
1983 OPC unopened remains affordable IMO. Same with 83T. I think they may have room to run. Tho I do submit I often fail to mis measure the correlation of the premium grade cards from a particular set and its unopened counterpart. I’m an unopened guy not a singles guy.
John
Reading is fundamental. Hope that is short enough for you.
Other than the OTC-type markets and considering major indexes, the Dow Jones would generally have the highest debt-to-anything ratios. Most of that is the nature of their businesses, but I would point out that Apple, which operates more like a bank than a tech company, largely offsets the debt-ridden behemoths in the Dow.
What adjectives would you choose to describe the stock market in February March and the sentiment regarding it? More late Feb to end of March. Or early April. I am attaching a pic of the NASDAQ from late February to end of March. 20,000 to 17,400. Then early April 15200. If that does not feel like a dire and miserable experience for investors okay, what would you call it? Wonderful? Hopeful? Excellent returns? Remarkable?
I am not sure why you bring up 20% for the year. I am saying the stock market has been incredible and I would expect most people to be able to do well YTD. It was just a brutal couple of months for many equity investors. If not you, Congrats. My whole point is the stock market has been so incredible that it makes sense that cards would do well too. Or that someone who made a lot in stocks could have sold them and won the Gwynn card.
And yeah, I like some International stocks but a lot of American ones are doing well now also.
And okay I realize my experience may be different than others so my apologies if I'm assuming everybody has the same experience. I am close to 100% tech and all the ripple effects of AI like energy and construction. I do have some Goldman Sachs which is probably an exception to the rule. So in times like late February to early April I lose a lot of teeth. But the other times can be very nice. I am in the very volatile stuff so I get it if others invest in less risk-averse spaces and then my position does not feel like their experience.
But I still feel like late Feb March were not winning months in too many spaces. Just maybe less damage here than there. Someone labeled it Tariff Armageddon. That does not sound like a fun experience.
But this all has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion about a card which was quite likely shot to the moon due to perceptibly strange methods of bidding. Reading is fundamental.
Whether it was shenanigans, the stock market, the economy, or anything other I suppose we'll soon see whether there is demand at these new price points which are being established. I'm personally not ready for 83s to be worth that much.
On that last point, there will be sales around the 8k number, that is part of the scam. You need to place 3-4 sales, which requires a stack of the card being manipulated.
Take a look at the Rose link I posted, or the Jordans posted here, to see how this thing may play out.
On the Jordan, that Sports Card Investor guy bought one close to those 700k sales thinking they represented legit market demand, think he paid in the 600’s or so. So basically the next card up after the two 700k sales, sells for 2.5 times previous value, basically a 400k or so lift for the seller. Imagine having 5 of those cards post that sale, and knowing it wasn’t reflective of the market. You are talking 7 figure lift. Not bad for a few months work.
If the discussion is the card went to the moon because of strange methods of bidding and okay everyone agrees, the discussion is over. There is no discussion.
My position is, as the dissenting juror, that its not absolutely a 100% certainty that it is market manipulation. Could be just not absolute for me.
I have bid on a lot of stuff this year where the winning bid is an all-time high. In some spaces its close to always an ATH. So in bidding I often have to say I would bid 15% over the ATH but that is it. And often I stop bidding and I lose and it can go 20 to 30 higher than the ATH. My angle is it is possible someone could even go higher than that. Could they do it even if was stupid for a number of different reasons? I say yes. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that and its fine.
There was one that sold for 4,995. So 60% higher. Definitely wow. But just think its possible some people got in a bidding war and did not want to lose and did not care about the money. Had to have it. People having more money cause of a nice equity market could have something to do with. Possibly.
Saw this last night and I feel like its part of the current situation with cards. Not saying Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank bought the Gwynn. But maybe there are more people in the space than used to be where the difference between 8K and 5K does not matter so much.
https://www.cllct.com/sports-collectibles/memorabilia/kevin-o-leary-has-been-building-massive-portfolio-of-trading-cards
$4995 was a Best Offer BIN. There was no bid war. And, I might be inclined to discuss further the aspects of card sales which specifically apply to cards. I step away from the stock market and world economics when getting involved in such a discussion. I either don't see or care to discuss the correlation. That's just me. No matter what, I do appreciate good insight, and I'm certain you're capable of providing it. All good from here. Just making mention of my preference.