Quote Originally Posted by ironmanfan View Post
I've been collecting GU since the mid 1980's and I have to admit that potential for profit has never entered my mind once for any of the pieces for my personal collection..

I'm certainly prepared to sell my items if I had to (loss of job, medical emergencies, mortgage, etc.), but I know that I can only expect to receive back the market value of the item at the time of sale (which may be more or less than what I paid for it).

Am I in the minority here?
I agree with you. GU stuff is not much of an investment. Say you invest a grand in a jersey and three years later you sell it for $100 more than you paid, that is a 10% gain which amounts to only a 3.3333 percent gain per year over the three years. When inflation is factored in you are gaining even less than that. Also the longer you hold a piece the less it is worth for most players, including the superstars. People have a what have you done for me lately mentality and when a guy is retired and out of the spotlight for a couple of years people move onto the players of the moment and the hyped up young players, which causes demand and hence price to drop for the retired players. Look at JO or MEI Gray's websites they have jerseys of current hall of famers and retired players who are locks for the Hall selling for less than guys who have done very little if anything at the pro level. There are exceptions of course for example if someone was lucky enough to get a Brady or Romo jersey from their rookie years when they were nobodies and the jerseys would have went for a song they would obviously be sitting on a huge return no matter when they sold the jersey.