your thoughts, comments and opinions please

[DonTheLegend]

i have been thinking about something for a few days and its something ive given some serious thought to.

id like your opinions please.

can a single collector drive a market by his or herself?

can one person make such an impact as to inflate prices or values for a particular item?


allow me say that i am not bold enough to think that i, as a single player collector can do such a thing. not with the vast amount of GU items that are potentially on the open market. nor do i think that highly of myself to think that is what is happening to me or the things that i currently collect.

like i said, it was just something that i kicked around and with the way that i feel about collecting and how i strive to hoard certain player items, could it be possible.

thanks!


-Donny

[jayt1234]

I believe there is a basketball jersey collector out there whose name escapes me, but I think this guy wins every high valued auction on NBA Auctions. It has gotten to the point where if people see his name as a bidder there really is no reason to continue bidding because he will win at any cost.

For this reason I would say yes that one collector could change the market by themselves.

Just my 2 cents.

Jay

[bigtruck260]

Yo Donny -


Yes. I think that that is entirely possible. I would bet that you have a more cumulative collection of your particluar player than anyone else in the country. There are guys who have multiples of that person, but not to the extent you do.

I think if the market dries up in 20 years, you will be in good shape.

Now, if you are driving bids up because you are in competition with another person - that's a whole 'nother story...unless you win and the person that buys it from you pays your premium and you make a profit.

The Cardinal collectors know about demand. Especially those who saw that Mulder bat sell for $500+ last year. For guys that are putting together complete 2006 team bat sets, that will always be a topic at trade shows.

Dave

[SkubeBats]

Yes one person or a company can control the market. There is a company that I think is hurting the game used bat market. They buy every bat they can and then jack the price up so high that normal guy can't afford any thing they sell. They have the thought if your dumb enough to pay there prices then why not do what their doing. It's a shame because their wrecking it all for the rest of us.
Thanks!
Jamie
jlschultz180@wi.rr.com

[DonTheLegend]

Yes one person or a company can control the market. There is a company that I think is hurting the game used bat market. They buy every bat they can and then jack the price up so high that normal guy can't afford any thing they sell. They have the thought if your dumb enough to pay there prices then why not do what their doing. It's a shame because their wrecking it all for the rest of us.
Thanks!
Jamie
jlschultz180@wi.rr.com

i agree with what you are saying. it creates an artificial type of "supply and demand " theory which, in my mind , kills a little bit of the hobby with every sale.

i, personally , have no intentions of buying or hoarding for the sake of resale or driving up a particular item. to me, if the items is worth $20 or $200, its all the same becaus ei truly never "intend" on selling it. i would love it the same because i really enjoyed the player and collecting his items.

great responses guys. im interested in hearing more if anyone else has something to share.

[worldchamps]

That guy is exquiste-something

Yeah I think so, I look at some of the things that I have won or bidding and it seems that there are just a couple people that go after the same items.

IE there were a pair of shoes I was wanting really bad...to the point of overpaying for them. Well I lost because there was another person with the same philosphy. WE both did snipe bids, i assume, and the shoes sold for twice what they would have had either I or him not seen the auction.

[DonTheLegend]

Yo Donny -


Yes. I think that that is entirely possible. I would bet that you have a more cumulative collection of your particluar player than anyone else in the country. There are guys who have multiples of that person, but not to the extent you do.

I think if the market dries up in 20 years, you will be in good shape.

Now, if you are driving bids up because you are in competition with another person - that's a whole 'nother story...unless you win and the person that buys it from you pays your premium and you make a profit.

The Cardinal collectors know about demand. Especially those who saw that Mulder bat sell for $500+ last year. For guys that are putting together complete 2006 team bat sets, that will always be a topic at trade shows.

Dave

what started out as a "wow, this is a pretty cool item" has ended up to be an addiction.

my first Lankford item was a '95 road BP jersey that i bought for $50 about 12 years ago. i then bought a bat and a pair (my only pair) of cleats and it just took off from there.

great discussion. thanks.

i guess if you have enough money, you can change the market pretty quickly.

there have obviously been some items i have missed over the years, but not too many. if i am aware of an item, i will usually try to score it.

Dave, i am with you on the fact that it seems like Cardinals (as well as a few other MLB teams) memoribilia is generally in high demand and collectors waste little time jumping on those items. seems they'll pay a premium as well.

hopefully the market treats me well until i find every item im looking for (which is seemingly everything).

[suave1477]

i have been thinking about something for a few days and its something ive given some serious thought to.

id like your opinions please.

can a single collector drive a market by his or herself?

can one person make such an impact as to inflate prices or values for a particular item?


allow me say that i am not bold enough to think that i, as a single player collector can do such a thing. not with the vast amount of GU items that are potentially on the open market. nor do i think that highly of myself to think that is what is happening to me or the things that i currently collect.

like i said, it was just something that i kicked around and with the way that i feel about collecting and how i strive to hoard certain player items, could it be possible.

thanks!


-Donny

Donny yes most definitely 1 person can drive up value on a player / team items including you.
It is not a just a matter of there is a lot of stuff on the market but more of how much of it you grab.
For example I myself at one point drove up the market and not even purposely on Strawberry Baseball cards. I just went into this phase of having to own everyone I can get my hands on especially on ebay. Even though there is a lot of them out there it became tough for other buyers at that time to buy them because I was bidding, so unless they were going to go beyond in bidding I was determined to win. So I (again not on purpose) drained the market on certain card companies producing certain Strawberry cards.

Just to give you an example There was a Strawberry card that came out last year and I really liked it and it was numbered up to 500 by Topps, I own about 200 or more of them. That means left on the market is only 300. So I just made that card more rare then it is.

Hence I drove up the value.

Here is another interesting way to look at it. When you own 10% of stock in a company your allowed to have say of how the company runs its business. Why??? 10% may not sound like a lot but when you can imagine how much stock a company may have out to the public it can be a lot especially if you own 10%
So I use that as a comparison to the Game Used Hobby if you can say you own 10% of a particular player or team, then you have some power to the rarity on the market.

As being the resident Strawberry collector I can easily say I own 10% of his Game Used Stuff and not to mention what I own between autographs, baseball cards and other Strawberry memorabilia.

[kingjammy24]

there was an LA Times article awhile ago about a young, wealthy guy in LA who's avocation it was to buy rare red wines. (there's a whole "rare wine" hobby out there complete with auctions, forgeries, etc). anyway, this young man was considered very astute and discerning in choices. he was also so wealthy that he won every item he wanted at auction. the article mentioned that due to his voracious purchasing, he had substantially changed the market in his particular niche. prices had risen solely because of his purchases. he had effectively reduced the supply and increased the auction prices singlehandedly.

ultimately, i don't think that a single person can necessarily dictate the market because we're not talking about essentials here. people don't need to buy game-used items. if the price becomes too high, they'll just walk away, unlike food, electricity, etc., where people have little choice but to pay the current rate. that said, i do think a single person can influence the market simply by virtue of the fact that they can lock up all the inventory thereby compelling other buyers to shell out more because of the rarity. let's say i locked up literally every single 2000-2008 yankees gamer. every single one. then i said i'm not willing to let a single one go for less than $10k. most people would walk away and learn to do without. however, a few well-heeled collectors who want a 2000-2008 yankees gamer badly enough would pay because there's no other way for them to get one. in that sense, i've singlehandedly influenced the market.

jamie, in reference to your example, a company can buy every bat they want but if their prices are genuinely "too high" then very few will buy, the company will have massive amounts of inventory, and eventually they'll be forced to reduce prices. there's no way around it. afterall, noone's forcing people to buy their bats. if the price is too high, people simply won't buy. if people won't buy, then how will company stay in business? pricing my manny lee jersey at $25k doesn't mean i'll actually get $25k. if i need to sell it, and i don't get my asking price then i've only got 2 choices: go out of business or reduce my price. unlike individual collectors who can refuse any price and sit on an item for 10 yrs, companies need to sell their inventory relatively quickly. if they don't, they can't pay the bills and bankruptcy will shortly follow. if the company manages to succeed, they only do so by selling their inventory and if they do this, then clearly the prices weren't "too high". short of monopolies on essential items, the invisible hand of the market almost always works.

rudy.

[Billyu40]

Hey Donny,

Email me when you get a chance. I have a Ray Lankford question for you.

Thanks

Billy

[Billyu40]

Sorry Forgot the email Billyu40@hotmail.com

[RKGIBSON]

Sure they can. I see it happen in the collector car market all the time. Guys start going after certain things and pay what it takes to buy them. Even when things are not for sale, most things have a price where it is ridiculous not to take the money. When it becomes common knowledge that a certain price was paid for a item, it forces the price up on everything similar. Then dealers pickup on it and raise prices. Pretty soon everyone is buying one before they are all bought up.

I worked for Otis Chandler, Times-Mirror & LA Times Editor in Cheif, who was one of the weathiest men in America, Billions. He was single handedly responsible for the Muscle Car boom in the late 80's by doing what I described.

Big dealers do the same thing. I had a dealer told me once that I should buy a item right now because it was going to be more expensive after a certain date. I ask why he thought that. He said I am the biggest dealer in the market. He was and still is very high profile in his field. He said, I am going to raise my prices 10% across the board. When I do all the other dealer will follow. It happened.

It just takes one or two big sales, of certain things, to make the market react. Manipulated auctions can do the samething. Everyone is scurring around to find a similar item to the one that brought big money, hoping for a fast profit.

Roger

[ndevlin22]

Lets just say if it weren't for a particular person on Ebay that buys up a lot of the higher priced bats, authenticates them, then sells them, I'd probably have 100 more bats to my collection.

In my opinion, he ruins any ideas of what bat prices truely are. He has the money, which I understand and kuddos to him, but dont use your Louisville Slugger records of every player that ever played basically, get on Ebay and buy up every nice bat, authenticate them, and turn around and sell them for three times the price you bought them for. Thats not the reason why LS has a contract with you! Not for your advantage. This actually really gets on my nerves! Not listing any names or anything:)

[SkubeBats]

ndevlin22,
I would have to say that were on the same page. I think he is a big problem with in the game used bat market. No one can compete with him, and I think he is taking advantage of the hole collecting community by doing this. I don't know how they can buy a bat then grade the bat and then sell it on their own web page, something is wrong there!! They will ruin it for the rest of us. I hope their happy with themselves.
Jamie

[bigtruck260]

Lets just say if it weren't for a particular person on Ebay that buys up a lot of the higher priced bats, authenticates them, then sells them, I'd probably have 100 more bats to my collection.

In my opinion, he ruins any ideas of what bat prices truely are. He has the money, which I understand and kuddos to him, but dont use your Louisville Slugger records of every player that ever played basically, get on Ebay and buy up every nice bat, authenticate them, and turn around and sell them for three times the price you bought them for. Thats not the reason why LS has a contract with you! Not for your advantage. This actually really gets on my nerves! Not listing any names or anything:)

...the writing is on the wall - but like you said, you have to have the $$ first, right? It's the business principle. Every hobby has that aspect...I would guess that authentication helps in some ways but ensuring that there is legit PRODUCT out there.

...and at the same time, it does drive up prices. Kind of like the way PSA drove up the value of prisitne cards by slabbing them and applying a grade. Certainly there are guys who buy superior cards and coins, have them graded and then put them in a store window somewhere on the internet.

Dave

[ndevlin22]

Heck yeah Jamie, it looks as though we are on the same page. Don’t get me wrong bigtruck, I don’t have a problem with authentication, I think its great. –The problem I do have(without getting too in depth) is that he specifically has all of those LS records for auction house purposes. LS and “himself” have a contract for this. But, in the meantime, he goes out on Ebay, finds a particular bat/bats that spark an interest, looks up the bats in his LS records(that he is supposed to be using for auction house purposes, according to LS), buys them, then authenticates them, and sells them from 3 times the amount. I just think thats wrong, and hurts the hobby tremendously.

Now, when you contact Louisville Slugger for obtaining bat records, they will have no part of it. Haha, trust me, I’ve tried. Actually getting quite nasty with me. They explain that they have a contract with “him” to do auction house authentications. Little do they know that he’s using their records for personal gain!

Yikes, I’ve had this on my chest for quite sometime now. I could be totally wrong about how I feel about it, but thanks for letting me vent guys!!!:)