T206 prices seem to be on the rise as of late.
Anyone else notice this happening? All across the board, T206 prices have been going crazy in my opinion. Not only higher graded examples either, but even low grade commons are seeing a spike.
I haven't been in the market for T206s in a while, but now that I'm looking at them again, they are quite a bit higher that what I remember buying them for. It wasn't that long ago that I was buying lower grade commons for $10 - $15 a piece, whereas now they are selling for $30 - $40 each. You can still find a nice poor example for $20 but that's even inflated.
PSA 3 commons selling for $100? Lower tier HOFers selling for multiple hundreds? I'm not just talking about graded Cobbs selling for $5K plus, but the run of the mill T206 instead.
I'm seeing this on Facebook everywhere. Forget about what delusional eBay sellers are asking for their cards as BINs and ridiculous starting bids. Those are just stupid.
Here's an example of a card sold on eBay. This is a common Anderson, Providence in rough shape that sold for $52.00 including shipping. How? What's so special about this card? It's a common back too.
Another example below shows a poor condition common that has a back stamp that sold for $64 including shipping. I understand that back stamps are becoming more popular, but the paperloss on the front of this card should have devalued it considerable regardless of the back stamp.
As a side note, I have added this back stamp to The Great T206 Back Stamp Project (Shameless plug).
These are just two examples of T206s that, to me, seem to have sold for crazy prices. But I guess this is where we are with these cards these days.
Will they ever come back down to reasonable prices? I don't know folks. But my gut says they aren't going to come down much if at all. T206s don't tend to go down in value over time. They are certainly in an upswing right now and I feel like I should've bought more a few years ago. I just can't bring myself to pay these prices of today.
Not to fret however. There are still other issues that I like that haven't yet exploded in price so I can still play in the prewar sandbox. But I'm a little disappointed that T206 seems to be too far gone for me at the moment.
I used to pay around $100 for low grade SGC HOFers (lower tier of course) and those are now going for $200 - $250. I just can't do it. I'm thinking of selling mine but I really like them and just can't do it. There are a few things I'd like to but that I would be able to pick up if I did sell my T206s, but I'm just not ready yet.
So what about you? Do you see this increase in prices like I do? Are you selling during this time?
Enjoy the hobby all...It's a great one.
3 comments:
I have similar thoughts that stretch back a decade or so. Somewhere in the 2010s, T206s stopped appearing in $5 boxes at shows and the bulk of that era, regardless of condition, started selling one-by-one on eBay or at shows. Our OBC friend Mike jokes (or perhaps is serious :-) that once you have two cards, you started the set. For me, it takes about half a set to be collecting it and you can't find "half a T206 set" for sale outside of auction listings that go for huge money. The need to buy tobacco singles one at a time will be a high wall to climb for any of those sets, so I expect to stick to smaller issues barring a titanic shift.
I suspect the modern market acceptance of new products that sell at high prices impacts old pricing. Once people are used to Topps selling blasters or boxes for $50+, they're ready to spend a similar amount on old stuff like one T206, even in low grade. If Topps still offered single packs for $1-2 as their primary product, I bet you'd see older sets hanging around that level.
Very interesting take Matt. I can see the correlation between the modern stuff pricing and the older stuff vis a vis people doling out $50 for a modern product and not feeling the hurt spending the same on an older card. I hadn't thought of that. It certainly makes it tougher to live in my favored world of prewar though. Great insight Matt.
Agreed, I would love for there to be a "safe" area of prewar that stayed low thanks to a mix of little-known subjects and low grade.
At this point, it appears European cigarette and candy cards have that space all to themselves. Not much American stuff left that qualifies!
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