| Couple of things to be aware of:
- Liquidity. Trying to sell cards is tough, unless you sell way below "book"
value.
- Saturation. The baseball card market is *WAY* over-saturated. The bottom is
falling out of the newer cards. There are so many sets/versions out there.
- There seems to be "hot" markets for newer stuff, with everyone trying to
get 100's of the latest hot rookie, hoping for that expensive card, while
older stuff (which holds more solid value), gets put on the back burner.
Check out the sports memorabilia notes file for the opinions of the serious
collectors.
John Piekos
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| Cards are hot now, but who knows about twenty years from now?
Check out what happened to other collectibles--they get their
moment in the sun, then they fade.
When people start selling stamps, paintings or coins on an
investment basis it's time to get out: remember that the value
of the item rests ultimately on "real" collectors, who love
the things and buy from disposable income. How much is that
population willing to pay for the existing supply of cards?
-John Bishop
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| "_Baseball_
"THE ELLIOTT WAVE THEORIST presented a full page detailed discussion in
the October 30 issue arguing that after 89 years, the trend of increasing
popularity of baseball had given eight major signs of topping.
(Immediately thereafter in the post-season, team owners signed 34 players
to contracts guaranteeing $258 million. Barry Bonds will make over
$45,000 a _game_, more than former top heroes made in a year; talk about
locking in "Bond" yield...)
"The discussion three months ago concluded with some practical advice:
If you're an investor, take profits on baseball cards. If you're
a player, sign a long-term contract. If you're an owner, sell your club.
"That writeup apparently came at the top of a spike, just before a dramatic
reversal. Here's a hot-off-the-press announcement of what's happened since:
[quote from 1/27/93 WSJ article detailing 31% earnings drop
in baseball-card-maker Topps].
"Peter Kendall has just obtained data on baseball attendance during this
century. As you can see by the chart, the figures appear to have traced out
an exceptional Elliott Wave, ending with the 1992 season. Notice that the
1981 strike brought attendance back to the preceding fourth wave, just as
it was scheduled to do. When the data is plotted on semilog scale (not shown),
the entire rise from the World War I low in 1916 forms a wedge, which has
bearish implications. At minimum, then, _baseball faces its largest
percentage drop in attendance since it became the national sport_.
At junctures such as this, it is even appropriate to consider that it may
fall far enough out of favor in coming years to cease _being_ the premier
national sport.
[sorry, unable to reproduce chart that was included]
Quoted with permission from the Feb93 issue of THE ELLIOTT WAVE THEORIST,
Elliott Wave International, P.O. Box 1618, Gainesville GA 30503, 1-404-536-0309
Keep the Larry Bird but sell the baseball cards. When the general public
rushes in, it's time for the smart money to head for the exits.
John
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| I just read two articles in the paper the last week that
have bearing on this. One of them was similar to .3
which indicated the *dramatic* decline of baseball's
popularity citing that only 6% named a baseball team when
naming their favorite team and only 4% named a baseball
player when naming their favorite athlete. It also pointed
out that
- there is no national baseball contract for weekly
games
- many kids growing up today have *never* seen a
world series game to completion
Do you remember the excitement of catching World Series
scores when in school? Rushing home at the bell to catch
the last few innings on t.v. or radio?
Baseball, for numerous reasons, is in decline. Collectables
are dependent upon collectors which is dependent upon interest
in the sport.
The other article discussed card collecting specifically noting
that the market is oversaturated, that some companies are *losing*
money and that many people who got in as investors are starting
to get out (because the sport itself does not hold them to
stay in - only money which isn't necessarily there). Collecting
is starting to go back to being done by collectors, but this still
has quite a ways to go. Sounds to me like now is a bad time to
get into collecting, but that if you must, get quality cards from
the 60s and 70s which have a relatively stable price and you can
hope that they will continue to rise.
Collis
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| This rings true at my house.
My 8-year-old son is very interested in following sports - especially
basketball. He has, however, an absolute zero interest in baseball.
His explanation: "it's boring".
I confess, I must agree...
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