Those taking the “hold” approach with respect to their baseball card collections are simply kidding themselves. Think of it in this perspective. The cards that you have from the 1980s and 1990s were once considered valuable… well, according to prices that you paid for the cards and quoted prices in publications like Beckett, they were. How many of you actually sold your cards for those same quoted prices? Hey, we’re not ridiculing anyone; we didn’t sell one! We were net buyers of baseball cards for the better part of a decade.

1. For the market to “bounce back,” baseball itself first needs to be revitalized among the youth of today. Do you see it happening? And if the answer is yes, then the baseball card market needs to re-invent itself somehow. The last time we checked, kids were buying new Xboxes and asking for iPod nanos for Christmas. And these kids are roughly the same age as we were during our baseball card phase. Baseball cards will never overtake today’s affordable and easily-obtained technological gadgets. And why would they? Think about the probability of this happening.

Second, the people who drove up the prices in the early ’90s were young kids (who are in their twenties now) and old men (and probably some women, too) who ran the card and hobby shops. The inventories of these “kids” grew over the years as they purchased packs, attended card shows, etc. and these consumers were mostly “buyers.” The buyers’ collections grew sometimes to unmanageable amounts, making storage itself even difficult. The buyers can only take in so many baseball cards under the pretense that “they are going to be worth something one day” before this madness must come to a halt. Today, we have thousands of disgruntled “former collectors” who are sitting in the wings, storing their worthless cards and waiting for a sunny day. Most of these unfortunate souls have moved on to other things, thank goodness, and hopefully have carried these valuable lessons from their baseball card investment debacles forward with them through life, so as to avoid similar predicaments whether in business, the stock market, real estate, etc.

Over the course of the late ’80s and 1990s, card buyers kept taking in cards, and the shopkeepers were the sellers. Now any shopkeeper who made a sale and refused to replenish that inventory probably made out quite well. But those who thought the boom would last forever likely got their ass handed to them as they re-invested the profits on their card sales in more inventory. This inventory became more worthless as time went on and became increasingly difficult to sell to card buyers amidst waning public interest. Let’s put this in perspective. Upper Deck cards were the hottest thing around in 1989-1991, with Ken Griffey, Jr. cards (now what a disappointment he turned out to be, remember all of the hype?) commanding hundreds of dollars. Today, we cannot even sell a sealed, mint SET of the cards from those years for 49 cents. (A reader has asked for clarification on this. Yes, the year that the Griffey, Jr. rookie card came out, 1989, the Upper Deck set sold for about $70.00. We’ve attempted to sell a new, sealed, untouched set from 1990 at 49 cents and received no bids, not to mention our failed attempts at selling Donruss and Fleer mint, unopened sets to no avail.

Whatever the case, we’re certain that you all remember that the Griffey card alone was valued in the hundreds in its prime. And now the entire set is only worth $70? On a good day? What happened? Why is no one addressing this?) The word depreciation doesn’t fit this scenario; it’s more like a momentous dive.

2. For the card market to rebound, there needs to be a resurgence of interest. This resurgence can’t possibly come from those who are already stockpiling cards in hopes that their prices will bounce back. New buyers, new aficionados need to enter the market. Please get back to us if you can argue logically that these items will rebound to late ’80s-early ’90s mania prices and the reasoning behind it. The “rare” factor is virtually non-existent in terms of cards at this point since there are dozens of cards available for most players in various sets and subsets from the deluge of manufacturers.

3. Statistical records are obliterated routinely and rather easily these days. Remember when Jose Canseco’s “40-40 club” was a big deal? No one even gives a damn about that anymore. How about the infamous late 1980s Topps “30-30 Club” member cards, with Howard Johnson being one of the “esteemed” members? Do young baseball fans today even know who the Hell Hojo is? My point is that records are broken year after year, and the juiced baseball and possible steroid influence on the game seriously accelerates this. Jesse Barfield (Note: Not in the Hall of Fame, and who the Hell even remembers him at this point?) hit something like 49 homers in the late ’80s. This was considered a ton back then. As we now know, today’s “superior” ballplayers can hit many more, Hell, even shortstops can crank 40 like it’s no one’s business.

Remember when Don Mattingly was a big deal? Unless you are a die-hard Yankees fan, you likely view Don Mattingly as slightly more than a common player these days despite some of the stats he put up. We recall paying $27.00 in 1989 for his Topps rookie card. Big mistake. Since the card isn’t technically “mint,” we doubt we can sell this card for $2.70 today. Any buyers out there? If so… sold to you at $2.70. The underlying point here is that the value that is built into cards as the player breaks or sets new records diminishes as his record is broken in future years and he gradually fades into obscurity.

4. Today, the baseball card industry has built this facade of “card grading” into its never-ending tunnel of greed. Now, we as collectors are expected to pay to mail our cards to “grading companies,” let their experts pore over our cards for weeks on end (and we’re certain that they don’t do this even though that’s the impression that is given), and then send us an official certificate with our card encased in plastic to tell us that we are grade “PSA 8.5.” This process is NOT cheap, either! In many cases you will spend more on the grading process than your card is worth! The bad news is not too many cards out there are PSA 10 or in “perfect” graded condition, despite the care you took to store them over the years. We advise you to look at completed auction results on eBay and you will see for yourself the large discrepancy between card values of various graded ratings. If it’s not in pristine condition, you’re not going to make much on it.

By W.U. of Baseball Card Death and I Complain. All rights reserved. Content may not be duplicated without proper crediting. All content is the original, registered trademarked content of the aforementioned Web sites, subsidiary companies of IComplain.net. Unlawful use of this content will be prosecuted.

[tags]disposable income,baseball card,collectible market,investment mistake,value[/tags]