Anyone wanna buy a Ken Griffey Jr Rookie Card ?

Shawn Smith Collective

stickfig13 wrote:

Why are cards worth so much less now?
I have cards that were worth a lot back in the day, but are worth nothing now..???

Supply and demand, the same thing that drives all economics.

I'll work backwards for a sec...starting in the late 90's, collectibles went from big business to a MONSTER business. Company's began to print cards in short-runs, which created true value in the cards (and comics, and lots of other collectibles), because the pool of people holding these cards was tiny to begin with and over time, would become smaller as far as as who still had them in top condition. That's why so many new cards are worth so much when so many old cards are worth so little. It's not the same type of market/business it was prior to the late 90's.

Now working back to some of the cards you had that were worth something in the past and are worthless now...the people who collected them as kids weren't offering them for sale (putting them into the market) for a number of years, therefore the demand outweighed the supply and the value went up. As the kids grew older and saw the value of their cards, especially with the advent of ebay and other online marketplaces, the market became flooded with these cards and values started to slide.

The difference between the old and new cards is this:

If a new card is limited to a run of 1,000...it's supply will never increase. The value, generally, will only go up as more and more lose their mint condition or are lost/thrown away. However, a 20-year old card with a print-run in the tens of thousands can see the pool of top quality cards increase more and more as cardholders stop collecting and decide to start selling.

One of the key moments that changed collectibles forever was Spawn #1 from Image Comics. Collectors and speculators hoarded the comic by the case, so the demand quickly outpaced the available supply and the value skyrocketed...years later, everyone tried to cash-in at once and the value plummeted when everyone realized how many issues were out there in mint/near-mint condition. The comic became worthless and found its way into $1 bins. This has since been avoided by limited print-runs from publishers and has created strong first and secondary markets for collectibles.

So now Griff hit #600 and everyone with his rookie card wants to sell...but they missed the boat already. Real collectors and speculators were buying the cards long before he hit #600 and they got the cards at lower values. Now newbies will come in looking to buy, not necessarily understanding how collecting works, and will pay an artifially high price for the cards. Then when it's determined how many are out there, the prices will fall, speculators will have made nice profits and the newbies will have overpaid for their cards. The beauty of this for the true collector/speculator is that they know most newbies will then throw away the card, or give it to a kid, or something that will result in it being destroyed, shrinking the pool of top condition cards...eventually the value of these cards will rise again (though probably not substantially) and they'll be able to make a nice little profit on whatever cards they held back during the rush.