Pawn Stars

Just saw an episode where a guy came in with comics...Rick said 10-15 years ago they were big money but now they are cold. Then he talked about baseball cards...how they were hot and on fire but then used his thumbs and pointed way down to show how prices have dropped off a cliff...

Are we in for a 10-15 year glut? I just seen some M116 cards in PSA 7 holders go for $78

Hi Mark,

I did not see the episode, so I can't say exactly what kind of comics or cards were being discussed.

But there is a danger of overgeneralization with these sources. The one that comes to my mind is the recent book "Mint Condition". While the book does mention rich males slugging it out over rare cards, on a whole if you read the book, you were left with the impression that the entire sports card market collapsed in the 1990s and may be gone forever. Certainly no play of the fact that the Pre-War card market had a phenomenal boom from 2005 to early 2008 with record prices being set regularly.

I guess my point (if there is one ) is that I pay very little heed to "mass" media sources when it comes to hobbies I'm heavily involved in...each of us likely knows more about our hobby than any of these sources ever will.

Now - are we in a 10-15 year downturn? I don't really think so. I really wish there was some general indicator we could all look at. Our observations on "the market" are forced to be so one-off...so here goes! I've been bidding a bit on Ebay recently. Last week I got great prices on M116 in nice grades and C46 in PSA 7 holders at unusually low prices. This week I got THUMPED on a raw M116 Waddell (went for 4x what I thought it was worth) and several lots of Pre-War hockey that went for prices not seen since 2007 (and almost double what the same cards sold for 1 year ago)!

So...I think it is really tough to generalize, but it seems obvious to me that everything is not down...and some stuff is way up.

Cheers,
Blair

If you were the seller I was currently negotiating with, you'd think we were at an all time high in the market.
It'd better not be a board member.