New Shimmer
“Wife: New Shimmer is a floor wax!
Husband: No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping!
Wife: It’s a floor wax!
Husband: It’s a dessert topping!
Wife: It’s a floor wax, I’m telling you!
Husband: It’s a dessert topping, you cow!
Spokesman: Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!”
That 1976 Saturday Night Live fake commercial for a combination dessert topping and floor wax reminds me of the debates raging across the chat boards over the monetization of the hobby. Some say cards are toys; some say they are investments. Guess what? Both are right and wrong. The toy argument is not a good argument because it is exactly what can be said about nearly everything (tangible and intangible) that we use to store value. The things in this world with intrinsic value are land, food, fuel, weapons, and medications (and maybe some really good recreational drugs). But securities, art, cards, even a dollar? All trinkets.
The investment argument doesn’t really fit most collectors either. I bought a lot of great cards a long time ago not because I thought they were good investments but because I enjoyed them. It was my golf club membership, my season seats. The fact that they are turning out to have been a spectacular investment wasn’t my goal, but it is a bonus. I was happy owning them when they were worth $10 a card rather than $10,000 a card. The value increase does soften the wifely criticism of my childishness, so there is that.
Unfortunately, confronting today's high prices puts a collector like me in a quandary. What to do with a beloved collection when it must be insured and stored in a safe deposit box and viewed mostly in scans, that is the question. Sell it? Trade it for something else? Keep it until I drop dead, and my daughter has to worry about liquidating it? And with what things cost, do I wait for prices to drop to get that next card? Will prices drop? Paralysis by analysis is a real risk for any collector with a budget.
With all of these considerations, I have to ask the question of why would a middle-class collector buy anything substantial now? It’s a really thorny issue to parse. I think of it in terms of the ‘why’ behind the hobby. We collect because we enjoy it, because demand, not need, drives value. None of us need cards, not the way we need food or water or even need to take a good dump in the morning. We like them and we want them, but we don’t need them. So, if I am to enjoy my leisure activity, sitting by waiting to time the market isn’t gonna cut it. So how do I decide what to buy?
My thought is to buy carefully and thoughtfully, but not fearfully. One very good reason I can think of for not being afraid of carefully curating and expanding my collection is the flow of money into hobby infrastructure. Over the last several years and even right now, despite high prices on so many cards and items, lots of very smart people with very strong business experience and lots of capital are entering into hobby-related businesses: auction houses, grading services, publishing, data services, storage, and so on. They are already adept at using every tool at their disposals to drive consumer demand in their other endeavors. Is it realistic to think they will suddenly lose their business mojo when it comes to the hobby? Or is it more realistic to think that they will use marketing and other tools to keep things moving onward and upward, at least until the economy unequivocally shits the bed for everyone, and in that case, there are no safe havens, you just wait it out.
Which brings me to the 1952 Topps Mantle: someone on N54 recently asked whether to sell 80% of a collection to get one. I said no, but only because I really enjoy my collection and wouldn’t want to swap most of it for that card as a collector (I opted for a Gehrig RC instead), but I would consider it as an investor. Consider this objectively: it is an asset that has a 40+ year track record of price increases well above inflation. Which is more reasonable, to assume that the price of the item will stop following a decades-long trend, or to assume that the card will retain and likely increase in value over the next ten years, especially with the number of investors who have a real financial interest in expanding the hobby? I'd go with the latter. I know that past performance is no indicator of future performance, but a track record is all we can go by when it comes to hard asset investments, and the card has an insane track record. As do many other cards.
The other reason I would buy a 1952 Topps Mantle even at today’s prices is because the demand has created cachet for that card. Name a single postwar card with comparable recognition and status of the Mantle. Not possible. The 1952 Topps Mantle and the T206 Wagner are the cornerstones of a collection, marks of excellence, of your collection having arrived, of your being one of the uber-dipshits of the hobby. The interest in the card even has started to transcend collectors, to the point where non-collectors know it and are impressed with it. The development of a following beyond the die-hards and into the popular culture tells me what I need to know about the long-term prospects for the card. There are likely to be short term fluctuations, as with any asset, but the market trend is upwards over the long term and there is no reason to think otherwise.
One admin note: I will be moving to a bi-weekly publishing schedule. I’m too lazy to keep up this pace.