I left the country in 94 and didn't return until early 99.

Before I left I remember tons of card stores that opened up and many had a great mix of sport and non-sport product. When I would see that a production number was 50,000 boxes my math skills would calculate 1000 per state. If a state had 100 card stores (realistic at the time) then it meant only 10 boxes per store. Low production....woo hoo! Can only imagine what sports product was cranking out with.

What I'm saying I didn't really see is bulk sports collectors getting into non-sports. Desired high value prices for what collectors were collecting back then never materialized. Which would have been fine but the cost of product kept going up. Also had to add in the cost of protection products we had to buy so that every card can be a 10 forever!

Cause aside, do you think this price explosion we are seeing is a bubble, or something else?

Personally I go back and forth on it. . .

Pricing on Crisis is a bit of an eye opener for me. I'm not sure who is paying these prices. Is it speculators who are afraid of missing out on the next big comic title, or is it collectors?

Outside of crisis I think it is pretty clear there are outside influences driving the prices on a lot of Marvel cards -- probably a combination of Covid/Lockdown, hype from influencers and now perhaps speculators. . . Certainly the growth has not been organic.

It was pretty obvious the Marvel Universe I hype was not sustainable based on the print runs, but some of the newer Marvel stuff is legitimately limited -- especially compared to the old Marvel sets.

I go back and forth -- I can't figure out if this is a bubble and I should SELL SELL SELL, or if this is not a bubble. Will prices remain the same? Crash? Come down some but still stay much higher than they were? Continue climbing?

How many of you have casually compared what your collection was going at four years ago and now?

I didn't have a single card selling for $1k or more, now I have at least 18. Many of my other cards have at least doubled. If I had any interest in selling now would certainly be a good time.

I don't quite get the Crisis prices (hey! good slogan!) as many of them have signed before. I think this will settle but we'll just have to wait and see. I am not paying $300 for a Marv Wolfman card.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mykdude,

It is difficult to even come up with cards that were selling for over $1000 4 years ago -- I'm sure there were a handful, but now there are a lot.

If you haven't checked out the value of your collection recently you should.

$100 is the new $1000, and $500 is the new $2000+

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
It is difficult to even come up with cards that were selling for over $1000 4 years ago -- I'm sure there were a handful, but now there are a lot.

If you haven't checked out the value of your collection recently you should.

$100 is the new $1000, and $500 is the new $2000+

Also noticing more and more cards you simply can't find any more. Most recent I couldn't find was Christina Hendricks from Firefly.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
I didn't have a single card selling for $1k or more, now I have at least 18. Many of my other cards have at least doubled. If I had any interest in selling now would certainly be a good time.

And that will be the test, when you go to really sell. When they break out the magnifying lenses and tell you everything that's wrong with your cards or you just can't find that level of buyer. Not jinxing you, hope you have them all, but selling any collectible item always sounds better and easier than when you aren't trying to do it.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

Also noticing more and more cards you simply can't find any more. Most recent I couldn't find was Christina Hendricks from Firefly.

I've noticed that on some cards too (wasn't aware of the Hendricks though) . . .

In fact I just paid what I felt like was 'too much' for a Pop Century autograph after I kept losing auction after auction . . . I'm worried that the supply is already drying up and it won't be too long before these cards are just not available.

This is a time to think about what you really like and want to keep and what you should sell while it's hot. We saw values peak around the mid-2000's and then the 2008 recession forced a lot of people to cut back, sell part of their collections, or get out entirely so a lot of nice cards became available at good prices which meant values dipped in general. The recovery from that was slow but the pandemic ended up not just bumping up values of many cards but launching them skyward. If you have a card that you can sell for $1000-2000 now and it was going for $400-500 in 2019, you should sell it now because the likelihood is that it will be back to $400-500 and maybe less ten years from now long after the speculators have moved on to other items. Or do you think that knee-jerk people like speculators are going to stick with Marvel cards that long?

If you are getting a kick out of your cards including the ones that have jumped hundreds of dollars in value, you should keep them. You have to consider that if you sell any, they will be tough to replace for at least a few years.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
How many of you have casually compared what your collection was going at four years ago and now?

I didn't have a single card selling for $1k or more, now I have at least 18. Many of my other cards have at least doubled. If I had any interest in selling now would certainly be a good time.

I don't quite get the Crisis prices (hey! good slogan!) as many of them have signed before. I think this will settle but we'll just have to wait and see. I am not paying $300 for a Marv Wolfman card.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
If you are getting a kick out of your cards including the ones that have jumped hundreds of dollars in value, you should keep them. You have to consider that if you sell any, they will be tough to replace for at least a few years.

[/QUOTE]

I have found that you can never replace a collection once you sell it. Maybe a couple of pieces, but you built it by spending not just cheaper money, but also by spreading it out over time. Owning a large card collection of moderate expense and then trying to reconstruct it after breaking down the best bits can't be afforded now by that same collector. Unless you are leaving whatever the hobby is, collectors tend to regret the ones they will never have again.

Which is why I think the reason to sell any possessions that you just enjoy is not just because the price is really good, but also because you have something worthwhile to do with the money made at the time. Something better or more needed to buy. Otherwise, what happens is that you just run through the money made because you have extra now and wind up having neither your profits nor your collection in no time at all.

I was thinking more about cards you might have bought because they were a good deal or to complete a set back in the 90's or 2000's but maybe they don't mean as much but are worth real money now rather than selling one or several you like because the price is right. There are cards I like but if someone offers me $1000 for one that was nice to have but it's become less special over time, I might have to do that. I could get some other card(s) I really want and maybe get a burrito too.

Yeah, that's a different story. If you have no attachment to it, and it's just something you picked up, or got intending to sell down the line, then of course it seems like the time to try it before the pendulum swings back.

Buy low, sell high, works for everything.

I was just talking about the idea that some collectors wait years and years for their collections to be worth something, only to then hand all their hard work over to someone else. I can't do that myself, unless I absolute need it for some other reason.

The increasing prices for me have been a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand the price increases are a dream come true.

On the other hand many cards that I've been holding off purchasing are now selling for more than I want to spend.

Also when individual cards are selling for mortgage payments -- or more. . . for me it changes the equation on keep vs sell.

It also makes me kick myself when I made decisions that turned out to be poor -- like buying 39 copies of Ari Graynor's autograph when she was announced for the Bad Teacher TV show when I would have been able to spend the same amount of money and get 15-20 Meghan Markle autographs.