Will My Baseball Cards Go Up in Value? A Simple Rule and a Hard Truth.
Let's be honest. Just about every collector, even the ones who claim to collect "just for fun," hope their cards will be worth more ten years from now than they are today. Who out there spends $200 or even $20 on a Mickey Mantle or Mike Trout card in hopes it will lose value? On the other hand, none of us has a crystal ball, which means that most of the time we buy cards having absolutely no idea how their values will change over time.
With the critical disclaimer that nothing I write here should be regarded as financial advice, my goal in this article is to provide a simple rule all card buyers need to think about before making any big purchases. Rather than keep you waiting, here it is: Will more people want the card later than now? Really, this is just Econ 101, supply and demand.
To illustrate the rule, I'll use the example of a 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr., card.
Will more people want this card twenty years from now than today? A collector arguing in the affirmative might cite Junior's amazing stats and his standing as one of the game's most popular players ever. On the other hand, is there any reason to think his popularity will increase from its current level? Short of an ESPN docuseries, it's hard to imagine anything that would trigger such a shift. On the contrary, his popularity is greatest among those of us who saw him play, and let's face it: there will be fewer of us in 20 years than there are today.
That's not to say your Junior cards are guaranteed (or even likely) to go down. After all, there are a couple background factors that, other things begin equal, tend to put upward pressure on the price of just about any finite resource over time.
- Inflation - Over time, the price of just about everything goes up. It just does.
- Population growth - At some point in the future, the U.S. will have a lot more people, but the number of Upper Deck Griffey cards will remain the same. Put another way, our Griffey cards will become more scarce, at least relative to population.
Ultimately, though, population growth alone doesn't guarantee increased demand for our Griffey collections. What we really need to see is an increase in the number of prospective buyers, and for this to happen, the Hobby itself needs to grow, not shrink. Here I'm not talking about Fanatics becoming more profitable or collectors pulling sick hits. When I say grow, I'm focusing on the number of new collectors. In other words, we need future generations to love cards as much as we do.
I began this article with a simple rule: Your card will go up in value if more people want it later than they do now. But here's the hard truth. This doesn't happen by itself. My Hobby News Daily colleague Samuel C. Evans, M.S. Ed, recently put forth a call to action focused on making the Hobby more welcoming, inclusive, and accessible to the next generation of collectors. For one thing, it's the right thing to do. And for another thing, the future value of our Upper Deck Griffey cards may well depend on it!
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.