As a prospector are you concerned that..

Are you concerned that people will stop buying a player's card/cards when their on a hot streak?

Example: Ryan Howard's Bowman Best auto RC was selling for over $1000 back in 06. Now they sell for $100-$150.

Joba's Bowman Chrome autos hit $300 I believe in 07, now thy could be had for $20.

Delmon Young's chrome autos peaked at around $275 and they've dropped to $20-$30 even after the great season he had last year for the Twins.

Strasburg's bowman auto's hit $500-$600 last year..and do around $200 now.


My question is, do you think people are learning not to buy into the hype because the card's have no where to go but down?

Do you think there will always be people jumping on the banwagon and spend a sick amount of money just to have a card of someone who's red hot?

Huh?

Your examples show that people are clearly buying into hype, IE: over valued pricing.

People are typically too dumb to learn. Apes.

Nick1190 said:

Are you concerned that people will stop buying a player's card/cards when their on a hot streak?

Example: Ryan Howard's Bowman Best auto RC was selling for over $1000 back in 06. Now they sell for $100-$150.

Joba's Bowman Chrome autos hit $300 I believe in 07, now thy could be had for $20.

Delmon Young's chrome autos peaked at around $275 and they've dropped to $20-$30 even after the great season he had last year for the Twins.

Strasburg's bowman auto's hit $500-$600 last year..and do around $200 now.


My question is, do you think people are learning not to buy into the hype because the card's have no where to go but down?

Do you think there will always be people jumping on the banwagon and spend a sick amount of money just to have a card of someone who's red hot?

Click to expand...

It seems to go in cycles, usually after someone like Pujols or Mauer makes people a ton of money and keeps going up long after people have been saying, "there's no way it goes higher." Things like the economy also play a role.

its a good question, but all i can say is:

ALBERT PUJOLS :mrgreen:








my guess is that people want to get in cheap and hope they dont miss out. Bowman Chrome Pujols auto rc could be had for a few hundred dollars back in 2002-2003.
I think thats what collectors are hoping for. They hope that that player not only becomes a superstar, but an all time great down the road.

There are many different tiers of prospecting an everyone gets on or off the bus at different points

some ppl buy in low around 1-5 dollars a prospect an sell when they can get 2X-3X ROI

then people buy into prospects around the 10-30 mark looking to do the same

this goes on an on

the people buying into a prospect at 100+ is looking for this prospect to be the generational type (pujols) where his cards go through the roof.

The smart prospector doesnt play into the end game. The risk is very high but every once an awhile the return is great to.

Nick1190 said:

Are you concerned that people will stop buying a player's card/cards when their on a hot streak?

Example: Ryan Howard's Bowman Best auto RC was selling for over $1000 back in 06. Now they sell for $100-$150.

Joba's Bowman Chrome autos hit $300 I believe in 07, now thy could be had for $20.

Delmon Young's chrome autos peaked at around $275 and they've dropped to $20-$30 even after the great season he had last year for the Twins.

Strasburg's bowman auto's hit $500-$600 last year..and do around $200 now.


My question is, do you think people are learning not to buy into the hype because the card's have no where to go but down?

Do you think there will always be people jumping on the banwagon and spend a sick amount of money just to have a card of someone who's red hot?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Two of your examples (Joba and Delmon) are HUGE busts (yes, I know DY had a good year last year, but he's far from what he was supposed to be), and the other one is having major surgery and will miss over a full season. Obviously, those cards will drop in value. Where's the problem?

NO

Collectors always go hook line and sinker into the next big hype train. Just look at Bowman wax prices again blowing up. Where are all these people claiming they were never going to buy Topps cases and boxes ect... All talk, people can't line up and spend fast enough for this years Bowman.

no one will stop, well let me rephrase that... the stupid ones won't stop.

No not at all, the thing that remains here is that projecting prospects is something that people love to do. Just as previously seen a home run in the minors might have more of an impact on a players cards than a double in the big leagues. Its almost that people don't care about actual performance, but about what they can dream a prospect to become. To be honest with you 99.99% players will not come close to those expectations and you will see their stuff fall (very few examples against this Pujols being one of the few.) This is why I will always try and sell and not look back.

Great idea for a thread. Sellers - including manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of individual cards - will always try to come up with new ways to get people to buy their product, this hobby of ours is of course no different than any other industry. Making a list of all the different marketing techniques would make for a most interesting thread and would make for great reading for all the novices out there.

But you're right, if everyone had the knowledge of the folks on this board then most new cards wouldn't be worth half as much as what they're worth today and people wouldn't start putting up serious cash for cards until a player was just about retired and in the HOF. Most sellers aren't really aiming to sell to the people here, they're looking to sell to those who don't know any better and have money to burn - one could say many sellers are trying to take advantage of many potential buyers out there.

If most people knew better then prices wouldn't be as volatile as they are now as prices wouldn't be as propped up by short-term investment activity.

Casebreaker said:

its a good question, but all i can say is:

ALBERT PUJOLS :mrgreen:








my guess is that people want to get in cheap and hope they dont miss out. Bowman Chrome Pujols auto rc could be had for a few hundred dollars back in 2002-2003.
I think thats what collectors are hoping for. They hope that that player not only becomes a superstar, but an all time great down the road.

Click to expand...

I agree this is the root of it all, however, the big flaw is that there won't ever be another Pujols situation. Not unless Topps randomly decides to only print 500 cards again for the total print run of autos. With base autos, plus refractors, blues, golds, supers, etc. There are too many available to drive prices up to Pujols levels no matter how good a player gets.

Interesting responses. I guess they'll always be people who have money to spend on high end cards. i just dont understand people who purchase cards, that can be had for half the price a month later.

Nick1190 said:

Are you concerned that people will stop buying a player's card/cards when their on a hot streak?

Example: Ryan Howard's Bowman Best auto RC was selling for over $1000 back in 06. Now they sell for $100-$150.

Joba's Bowman Chrome autos hit $300 I believe in 07, now thy could be had for $20.

Delmon Young's chrome autos peaked at around $275 and they've dropped to $20-$30 even after the great season he had last year for the Twins.

Strasburg's bowman auto's hit $500-$600 last year..and do around $200 now.


My question is, do you think people are learning not to buy into the hype because the card's have no where to go but down?

Do you think there will always be people jumping on the banwagon and spend a sick amount of money just to have a card of someone who's red hot?

Click to expand...

I think that if you bought at those prices, you should not prospect in cards.

Also, if you did not sell at those prices, you should not prospect in cards.

There will always be players who are the next big thing, and also, the next big bust. It's just all a matter of being smart with the numbers and selling when you should.

Zithy said:

Nick1190 said:

Are you concerned that people will stop buying a player's card/cards when their on a hot streak?

Example: Ryan Howard's Bowman Best auto RC was selling for over $1000 back in 06. Now they sell for $100-$150.

Joba's Bowman Chrome autos hit $300 I believe in 07, now thy could be had for $20.

Delmon Young's chrome autos peaked at around $275 and they've dropped to $20-$30 even after the great season he had last year for the Twins.

Strasburg's bowman auto's hit $500-$600 last year..and do around $200 now.


My question is, do you think people are learning not to buy into the hype because the card's have no where to go but down?

Do you think there will always be people jumping on the banwagon and spend a sick amount of money just to have a card of someone who's red hot?

Click to expand...

I think that if you bought at those prices, you should not prospect in cards.

Also, if you did not sell at those prices, you should not prospect in cards.

There will always be players who are the next big thing, and also, the next big bust. It's just all a matter of being smart with the numbers and selling when you should.

Click to expand...

I think some people are misunderstanding the question.

Obviously if you buy Joba chromes at $300 and dont sell them at that price then you have no idea what you're doing.

The question was, will there always be people who will buy these cards for an inflated price once the player performs at a high level of play.

Having the correct information about any purchasing decision makes all the difference.

But also the hobby's de facto "stock market" LOL (aka ebay) isn't transparent enough on its own, anything can happen there. Less transparency = greater likelihood of loosing one's shirt if investments were to get truly serious. I think regular people will start catching on to this as well.

Also lots of people still like to think of baseball cards as being a simple and "honest" hobby, but when there's money to be made in anything, anywhere - even relatively small amounts of money - things don't usually stay "honest" and "simple" if left to its own devices. After all, peoples gotta get paid...

So its not really surprising that unassuming people can easily loose big amounts of $ no matter a player's performance...but then again some people already know the dangers of spending money in what's essentially a disorganized mess. The best thing is to grow the hobby so that regular people have the necessary information and to make everything as transparent as possible.