Month: September 2018

Monthly Mailbag #2: How do Back and Grade Effect T206 Pricing?

A question I had on pricing is: How do you take backs into account for pricing?  I know there are multipliers out there for mid-tier and rare backs.  But, when a card has a low population (5 or less 10 or less ect.) How do you determine prices for those?  How do the prices move as grade goes up?

Im my opinion, there is no easy answer to this question.  While helpful, the back multipliers will almost always be off in one direction or the other in practice.  If you’re trying to price a mid-tier back in order to sell it and you use one of the back multipliers, typically one of two things will happen:  Either it will sell right away because you had it a little too low, or it will just sit there because the back multiplier estimate was too high.

Personally, I have never paid any attention to the multipliers that people have come up with.  Even years ago when I was just getting into buying the tougher backs, I always tried to base values/prices on actual sales.  These days I have seen so much price data over the years that I just kind of know values instinctively.  It took quite a lot of price research and buying/selling to get to where I am now, but anyone can do it.

If you want to get more precise with your value estimates for T206 mid-tier and rare backs, I have a couple of things I would recommend.  First, follow the tougher backs that get listed in auction format on eBay.  Make a guess as to what you think the card will sell for, and then when the auction ends, see how close you got.  I’d recommend keeping notes of all the cards you observe so that you can review them in the future.  You can do the same with any cards that sell via an Auction House.  The second bit of advice is a pay service.  You can pay $4 for 24 hours of access to vintagecardprices.com (VCP).  When I was learning this stuff, I would pay for the 24 hours of access a few times a year, and spend a few hours searching tons of data and taking notes.

Obviously, doing this type of price research is only appealing if you’re really passionate about the mid-tier and rare backs.  If you mainly just collect the T206 set based on fronts, but want a quick way to estimate values, I wish I could be more helpful.  If you find yourself in that situation, I do have a couple bits of advice.  First, you can always ask me for my opinion.  I can be reached here via the “Contact” button on the site, or via net54 (Luke) or Facebook.  Alternatively, it might be worth the $4 to log into vintagecardprices.com (VCP).

Let’s look at an example:  Let’s say you have a Ed Killian Portrait with Cycle 350 back in a PSA 3 holder, and you have no idea what it’s worth.  Here’s what I would suggest you do.  Look up the PSA and SGC Population Reports for Killian.  Then look up a few other players’ Cycle 350 Pop Reports.  This will give you an idea of the relative scarcity of Killian versus other poses in the Cycle 350 subset.  The more poses you can look up, the better.  Then, log on to VCP, and look up sales data on Killian, and all the other poses that you checked Pop Report data for.  While you’re there, I would also check sales data for all the other Cycle 350s.  You’ve already paid for 24 hours of access to VCP, so why not get your money’s worth?  While browsing VCP, make sure to make note of the date that cards sold for.  If you see a card that sold in 2009, I wouldn’t use that piece of data to help you price your card.  Sales from the past couple years will obviously be the most helpful.

One more bit of information to keep in mind is if you happen to be trying to buy or sell the highest graded copy of a given front/back combo, you can expect that card to command a premium.  There’s no magic formula to figuring out the value of the highest graded copy, but it’s something that can be learned in the same way you would learn the value of the Killian Cycle 350 in a PSA 3 holder.

Is Eddie Collins finally getting the respect he deserves from T206 collectors?

When I got into collecting T206s in 2010, I remember thinking Eddie Collins and Nap Lajoie were priced lower than I would have expected based on their status as all-time greats.  It didn’t take too long for me to get acclimated to “the way it is” in the T206 marketplace, and I kind of forgot about that notion for a number of years.

It seems something interesting is happening with Collins’ T206 lately, at least in higher grade.  Back in June, a PSA 5 Old Mill Eddie Collins sold for $1,302 in a PWCC auction.  It caught my attention because I owned the same card not too long ago.  I sold it back in December 2017, for $689.  That’s a pretty big price jump in just six months.  My price wasn’t crazy low either.  I think the card sat in my eBay store for three or four months before it sold.  A similar (and arguably nicer) PSA 5 Old Mill sold for $700 on eBay in February 2017.

A similar thing happened with a Collins Sovereign 350.  On August 12, 2018 a PSA 5 sold for $1,327, also via PWCC auction.  Back in November of 2016, Heritage sold a different PSA 5 Sovereign 350 for just $454.  In my opinion both cards are equally nice.

Obviously, two cards selling for surprisingly high prices doesn’t necessarily indicate a trend.  However, it does appear that some Piedmont and Sweet Caporal backed examples have followed, at least to some extent.  Back in April 2018, a PSA 5 Piedmont 350 sold via Buy It Now on eBay for $850, which is $183 more than the closest sale I could find on VCP.  A PSA 3.5 Piedmont 350 sold for $390 on eBay three weeks ago.  There’s no recorded sale on VCP that comes close.

So, is this a legitimate trend, or something else?  I’m skeptical of the recent PSA 5 Sovereign 350 and Old Mill sale prices, but I do think we’re seeing an increase in value that is long overdue and likely to become the new “way it is” for Collins.

 

Will Christy Mathewson be the Next Hot T206 Hall of Famer?

2 Comments on Will Christy Mathewson be the Next Hot T206 Hall of Famer?

In the last two or three years, we’ve seen some crazy price increases on a group of key T206 Hall of Famers.  Ty Cobb’s Green Background Portrait was the first to move, followed soon after by Cy Young’s Portrait.  Cobb’s other T206s began to see an increase as well.  I was a little slow to recognize the pattern, but when the Walter Johnson Portrait began to appreciate in value, it was hard to ignore.  There has also been a spike in the value of all three Nap Lajoie poses, as well as Tris Speaker.

So, who’s next?

I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb by suggesting Christy Mathewson.  The three biggest stars in the T206 set (Cobb, Johnson and Young) have already seen an uptick in value, and I think most people would agree that Mathewson is the fourth biggest star.

Which pose?

One thing all these run-ups have in common in that one pose was the first to move.  For Cobb, the Green Portrait was essentially anointed as his most desirable card.  In my opinion, the Green Portrait isn’t any more beautiful than the Bat Off Shoulder or Red Portrait poses.  However, what it has going for it is relative scarcity.  There are far fewer Green Portraits in circulation than Bat Off Shoulder or Red Portraits.

It’s much easier to pick a favorite pose for Cy Young and Walter Johnson.  To me, Young’s Portrait is the clear standout among his three poses, and choosing the Johnson Portrait over the Hands at Chest is the biggest no-brainer of all time.

For Mathewson, I think it’s a pretty tough call.  His Dark Cap pose is arguably the best looking of the three, but the Portrait is also a beautiful card, and there are fewer Portraits out there.  Obviously the White Cap pose is also a great card.  However, in my opinion, the fact that it’s so visually similar to the Dark Cap makes it hard to imagine it as the next hot card.

I’m hedging a little, but I can see both the Dark Cap and Portrait getting hot in the coming months.  Of course there’s always the chance it never happens.  After all, it’s pretty obvious at this point that Mathewson is the last remaining huge star who hasn’t seen a price spike.  All things considered, I think betting on Mathewson to get hot is a pretty safe move.

Undervalued Front/Back Combos and What it Means for the Market

Lately I’ve been thinking about why we see certain cards, or certain groups of cards come up for sale more often than others.  I think the tendency is to assume that the cards you see more often are more plentiful than the ones you don’t see as often.  In most cases, that is a pretty safe assumption.  However, sometimes there is more going on than meets the eye.

The perceived market price of a card often has a lot to do with whether that card is offered for sale or not.  There are some  obvious exceptions.  Dealers (who are not also collectors), and anyone liquidating a collection, are not going to take the market for a certain card into consideration when making their decision to sell.  However, when a collector feels the need to sell a card (or a few cards), they are more likely to choose a card they feel is either valued correctly by the market or overvalued rather than one they feel is undervalued.  Multiplied by hundreds of collectors over time, you can imagine the impact this has on the cards we see hit the open market.

Essentially this is just a discussion about supply and demand, so I realize I’m not breaking any new ground here.  I felt like it was worth a post, though, as it isn’t something I have seen discussed anywhere that I can recall.  A few weeks back, a tough American Beauty 460 showed up on eBay as an auction.  That listing was the impetus for this article.  It occurred to me you just don’t see them for sale often at all.  Obviously, they are quite scarce, but so are Piedmont Factory 42s, and there is never a shortage of those on the market.  My conjecture is collectors value their American Beauty 460s more than the price they would expect them to sell for, and therefore they stay in collections.

The converse seems to hold for the “Elite Eleven” Piedmont 350s.  With only around 100-150 of these known to exist, they are pretty scarce as a group.  However, in the last year, I think I’ve seen around 10-15 of them for sale.  The same phenomenon occurred when Ty Cobb’s Green Background Portrait began to rise in value a couple years ago.  Right before the run-up, it was tough to find one for sale.  Once the prices began to skyrocket, they started coming out of the woodwork.  Every auction had three of four copies.  Collectors clearly felt the return they expected to get would meet or exceed the value they placed on the card.

What does this mean for the market going forward?  I think it means that, until the market corrects for some of the currently undervalued backs, we’ll continue to see a dearth of them available for sale.  I don’t know how often other collectors use this rationale in deciding which cards to keep or sell, but it factors prominently in my decisions.  Obviously each collector is going to have their own ideas of what is overvalued or undervalued.  After all, if everyone agreed, the market as a whole would likely reflect this.

Monthly Mailbag #1: Aggregate Scarcity v.s. Relative Scarcity

This is a topic that I have touched on in the past, but never dedicated an entire article to.  I actually intended to write a post about this over a year ago, but it took a conversation with a new friend to jog my memory.

Q:  Regarding back scarcity and pricing/value.  I would think supply and demand would dictate pricing more than the perceived scarcity of a particular back, but it doesn’t seem to be the case? 

A couple of examples – You have a Carolina Brights Dots Miller PSA 1 priced at $769.  I understand the Carolina Brights back is the 11th most difficult.  But that specific card has a graded population of 15 – higher than the Clarke batting Sov 150 (25th in back difficulty) I am getting from you (I just have the PSA pop of 2) for $235.  Does the relative scarcity of a particular front-back combination have a greater affect on the cards value than the perceived scarcity of the back in general?  Thanks.

This is a topic that I could talk about for hours.  Ever since I got into T206 back collecting, I have been interested in why the market values scarcity the way it does.  Before I get into it, I think I should explain what I mean by aggregate scarcity and relative scarcity.

“Aggregate scarcity” is my definition for the overall scarcity of each back.  When you look at a back scarcity ranking list, such as this one at T206resource.com, you are looking strictly at aggregate scarcity.  Aggregate scarcity focuses only on the back.  The back scarcity rankings on T206resource.com tell you that there are fewer Broad Leaf 460s in existence than Drums, and fewer Drums than Uzits.

I use the term “Relative scarcity” to help me dive a little deeper.  It takes a couple new bits of information into consideration.  First, the number of poses within a given subset.  For example, the American Beauty 350 No Frame subset consists of 37 different poses.  The Cycle 460 subset consists of 109 different poses.  According to the back scarcity rankings, American Beauty 350 No Frame is the rarer back of the two.  So overall, there are less AB350nf backs in existence than Cycle 460 backs.  If you just want one copy of each back, that back scarcity list is really all the info you need.  However, if you take a deeper look into things, you may start to see inefficiencies in the market.  Although the AB350nf back is scarcer in an aggregate sense, every single AB350nf pose is more plentiful than the Highest Pop Cycle 460 pose.

For instance, there are 15 copies of Nap Rucker (Throwing) with an American Beauty 350 no frame back in the combined PSA and SGC Pop Reports.  His teammate Kaiser Wilhelm’s Cycle 460 only has 4 graded copies between PSA and SGC.  In terms of relative scarcity, the Wilhelm is in a completely different stratosphere.

The second application of the term “relative scarcity” is when dealing with a certain front/back combo that is rare in comparison to other poses with the same back.  To illustrate, let’s look at Kaiser Wilhelm again.  His (With Bat) poses is fairly plentiful with Old Mill back.  Between PSA and SGC, there are 37 copies graded.  In contrast, Wilhelm’s (Hands at Chest) pose is one of the scarcer Old Mills, with just 6 copies graded between PSA and SGC.

This is what my friend was talking about when he referenced the Sovereign 150 Fred Clarke (With Bat) he bought from me.  Earlier this year, Pat Romolo and I published some pretty compelling evidence that Clarke (With Bat) was on a sheet that was short-printed with Sovereign 150 backs.  That article can be read here.  As far as Sovereign 150s go, Clarke (With Bat) is scarce.  However, when one does come to market, it probably won’t sell for much a premium.  This is due more to incomplete information than anything else however.  Very few collectors realize that front/back combo is scarce, and even fewer have seen the research that Pat and I published.

On the other hand, many more collectors are aware that Carolina Brights is a rare back, and prices tend to remain strong despite the fact that some poses (like Dots Miller) have populations in the teens.   Though prices don’t seem to be depressed for higher pop cards like Miller, I think you do sometimes see those cards take longer to sell because some of your prospective buyers already have a copy.

The “relatively scarce” front/back combos may fall through the cracks and sell for a depressed price if sold by someone who doesn’t realize what they have.  However, once they are in the hands of a collector who recognizes their significance, they often stay there, or require an “above market” price in order to change hands.