The End Of The World As We Know It

Not really, I just wanted a dramatic stinger to open my last column of 2024

First of all, to everyone a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Bah! Humbug. I hope 2025 brings prosperity and peace to our nation and our world. To paraphrase Vin Scully, I wish you a very pleasant good New Year, wherever you may be. OK, enough of the sentimental, Jimmy Stewart, angels-get-their-wings, peace and love crapola, let’s talk cards!

As the hobby settles into its brief year-end lull, I thought it might be an apt time to talk about where I see the market(s) are for various categories of cards and memorabilia. Not the mega-items we all see blazing from the headlines, but the stuff we 99% collect and care about. We all have opinions on the market, and you are entitled to yours, but you are also entitled to mine.

I keep a running spreadsheet on 100 or so pre-1980 sports cards. Mostly pre-1947, but a good run of big names in mainstream issues before 1970. After inputting the latest data, my 'index' is basically flat for the year. It is down 20% from the crazy COVID sugar high.

The first-tier legends in all sports are hanging in or in some cases going up. Even in lower grades, the Ruths and Robinsons are staying strong and demand for them is unlikely to go down as the hordes of newbie collectors cutting their teeth on ultramodern cards become more sophisticated in their collecting tastes. That PSA 1 Goudey is an entry point, not a beater, which is why it has staying power.

Ordinary cards in ordinary condition of middle of the road HOF talents are down substantially. I did really well in the COVID surge liquidating that sort of stuff that I stocked up on in the Great Recession, but I also overpaid for some collections and auction lots that I did not clear out quickly enough. This year, to generate some cash flow, I sold off a bunch of bad buys I made in the COVID market. I took my lumps, but better to admit I miscalculated and realize a loss on the dead inventory (offsetting profits on other deals) and get the money working again than to keep it tied up in an unproductive asset. Dealers take note: those midgrade Aparicio cards sitting in your cases are not getting better with age. Dump ‘em and roll the proceeds into your next deal.

Rare issues continue to do well, as they always seem to do if and when they surface. You come to market with one of those seldom-seen issues, you are pretty much guaranteed to touch off a bidding war.

Mainstream postwar vintage is largely a buyer's market except at the tippy top of the Registry caliber material. Like the 1975 Topps commons in PSA 10 that went for over $30,000 each this fall. Nevermind that there were at least two people willing to throw down the Amex black card over essentially a random number on a plastic holder, look at the power of the Registry to make a $2 card into a treasure. “The illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it. Capitalism at its finest.” Gordon Gekko. I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified.

I just looked over my eBay numbers for the year, which is where I sell my bread-and-butter inventory. Recall that I was hamstrung until June by my eBay punishment sales rate (I wrote a column on how I made a few mistakes, canceled a few sales, and learned that eBay screws over its sellers if they are 'below average'…and there is no ‘average’), meaning I did not list anything of note until on eBay for a year because it was actually cheaper to sell via auctioneers than on eBay. For the 7 months I've had since I got out of the eBay doghouse, my sales results on eBay hit 80% of my projected annual eBay gross sales in my business plan. What sells is really diverse, too, which is nice. I sell all sorts of cards, from the big four sports to vintage valentines and greeting cards, whatever I can buy opportunistically. One thing I can always count on is that I learn something new every day. I am surprised, for example, at the market for vintage Halloween postcards. I acquired some in a bulk deal and they all sold instantly when I floated them on eBay; turns out there is a real demand for them. That just adds a bit more context to what I perceive as a generally solid market for vintage paper items. Politically expedient narratives of economic gloom and doom aside, people have money, and they are spending it on quality vintage collectibles.

Then there is modern. I've tried repeatedly to sell the accumulation of post-1989 cards I have and except for certain players and issues, they are basically unsellable except in bulk at a fraction of a cent each. Maybe. In 1980s baseball, I can move the big rookies (Ripken, Boggs, Gwynn, etc.) and Bo Jackson, and not much else. In the 1990s, there's Jeter, Griffey and the rest rots. 1980s-1990s basketball actually does better, relatively speaking: more players are sellable. Hockey and football basically do not exist except for a few superstars. Every show I attend is swimming in shiny crap at a deep discount. Small tip for newbs: if everyone is selling the same thing, it is not a good investment.

Nonsports is pretty hot, actually, but “hot” is a relative term. For many of the most popular issues, ten bucks still is a lot for a single card. The older sets definitely go for more. I’ve seen a surge in prices of 19th and early 20th century cards of famous Americans like Washington and Franklin. I don't think grading has made much of an impact on nonsports as a whole, thankfully, since I am assembling some high-end raw sets of certain issues from the 1960s and 1970s that I loved as a kid and would hate to see all the nice ones sucked up into the PSA blood funnel before I can wrap up my projects.

I've gotten into racing cards a bit in the last year or two; credit (or blame) Netflix’s F1 series and reruns of classic NASCAR races for that. I watched the 1997 Daytona 500 last Sunday and it was really quite exhilarating; that’s the one where Dale Earnhardt flipped his car on the next to last lap. Racing is one messed-up card market. There is so much misinformation and disinformation out there. With virtually no organized guidance, it is a liar's paradise when it comes to hype. Very volatile market, too; prices often do not reflect rarity or age. It is also weirdly fractured. F1, Indy and NASCAR are basically treated as separate sports rather than as racing, even though the drivers regularly change over between them. The whole organizational aspect of racing cataloging reminds me of baseball about 40 years ago. Some of you old farts will remember that in the 80’s, the old Beckett guides lumped in cards that weren't mainstream insert cards with buttons, photos, etc., in an insert guide apart from the card guide. All Exhibit cards, postcards, strip cards, and so on, were in there, despite carrying ACC numbers. That didn’t end until SCD organized the Standard Catalog on a more comprehensive basis (RIP Bob Lemke). The sorting on racing is similar. Take AJ Foyt or Mario Andretti, for example, who raced NASCAR, Indy and F1. Depending on who you ask, their rookies vary by years because collectors typically don’t cross over between the drives and exclude some type cards. Bobby Unser, for example, has two 1965 cards, an expensive Marhoefer Meats and a $5 card in the Donruss Spec Sheet set. Despite being the standard gum company insert card and a rookie, the Donruss gets little respect because Unser is shown in a Pike’s Peak race rather than his Indy car. This is also true of the treatment of postcards. If you want a bargain, look for early vintage Indy 500 postcards of the great drivers and early NASCAR postcards. You will be pleasantly surprised to find cards of many legendary drivers that are completely overlooked by many collectors. The King of NASCAR, Richard Petty's 'rookie' is his 1972 STP card yet he had ten years of prior postcards from various sponsors. Dale Earnhardt’s 1988 card gets the attention but his true rookie is his 1979 Osterlund Racing postcard. Makes zero sense and I suspect it will get sorted eventually just as the baseball card situation did when someone had the time and madness to create a comprehensive guide. Hmm, now there’s an idea...

Complete sets really move when priced fairly. Any pre-1980 complete set I got in 2024 flew off the shelf, both at auction and on eBay. Partial sets rot in place, which I find really fascinating since the remaining build on many of them ends up cheaper than a full set purchase by a pretty good margin. Baller move is to look for partial sets at rock-bottom prices then try to finish them off.

FOMO and YOLO appear to be things of the past, but I don't see much capitulation yet on the vintage side, no run of panicky selling into a downward price spiral. What I encounter repeatedly instead is the other half of the price spiral, the bargain hunters. I'd say the #1 inquiry I get about my inventory is whether I have "high end" cards at discounted prices relative to recent comps. Yeah, right, here’s some spare change, too. I am looking forward to the shake-out. Reminds me of a conversation I had with an F1 newb a few years ago. Didn’t know Hamilton from Verstappen, she was all about the 'x' on her investments, which were all ultra-modern cards. I’d guess that she's no longer actively buying and is sitting on a ton of devalued ‘investments’. When people like her capitulate sell, people like me can jump in and make our money on the buy.

The money pouring into the hobby infrastructure, now that’s an interesting question as to whether it will continue. I expect that the Wall Street types who have been buying up graders, vaults and auctioneers and making hobby conglomerates and events want to try to take their companies public at some point and cash out, but they are discovering that many of the constituent elements of their businesses are low margin and difficult to scale up to a point where the public would get all hot and bothered over an IPO. I'd not be surprised if some of them quietly sold in the next 2-5 years to cash out of their positions.

On a personal note, the last several months have been tough ones for me. I had some injuries to my feet (multiple broken bones, shredded tendons and snapped and sprained ligaments). Ever see that James Caan movie, Misery? Well, it ain’t that bad but it’s been months in The Boot on one foot or the other, and I even managed to wipe out on the GDMF boot scooter and damage a wrist in the fall. Lots of pain (and no good drugs; they don’t hand out narcotics, so no percs or vics for me, but thankfully, I can get all the edibles I want OTC here in Cali). I had to cancel all of my card show dealings due to my physical issues and have been able to attend events only with a wheelchair. Let’s just say that the view from 6’4” is way different than the view from a wheelchair. My rehab goal at this point is to be able to attend the 2025 National as a fan and without a wheelchair. Regardless, writing this column and hearing from so many of you has been a relief and a pleasure, and I thank you.

Now, don’t screw it all up and drink and drive on New Year’s Eve. Remain calm and keep on collecting what you love.