Christmas Came Early for Sports Memorabilia Auction Houses

(PRWeb) December 24, 2006 -- The catalogs are large and glossy enough to give major department stores a run for their money. So would the bottom line.

The hottest trend in the way sports card and memorabilia is sold is via special auction "events" and December was the busiest month in the industry's history. Six major auction houses held their own on-line and live auctions generating a combined total of over $22 million in reported sales of everything from professionally graded vintage cards to a game-used Jackie Robinson bat. Several smaller companies held sales during the same time period, most of which never appeared on auction sites such as eBay.

The auction companies have lists of sports collecting clientele that await the sale catalogs with the anticipation of seeing items considered too exceptional for a simple on-line listing, even through an on-line giant like eBay. Some are average collectors might target one specific piece while others are wealthy businessmen, pro athletes or even major corporations aggressively buying items for display.

Two cards, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle and an early-20th century T206 Honus Wagner, sold for over $570,000 combined in an auction conducted by California-based Memory Lane Inc.com. Another company, Mastro Auctions of Chicago, reported gross auction sales of $12.5 million for an event that included over 2,000 items. The statistics dispute stories which circulated earlier this year that baseball cards were as stale as old gum.

www.SportsCollectorsDaily.com monitors the industry on a daily basis. Editor Rich Mueller believes the sports memorabilia hobby is stronger than ever and growing rapidly among adult baby boomers who now have significant amounts of disposable income, even during the holiday season. "There is a huge base of adult collectors, many of whom feed their connection to sports through memorabilia," Mueller said. "They are interested in high quality cards and game-used items with ironclad provenance...the older the better. And they will pay incredible sums to win them."

The auction companies have gone to great lengths to produce large, full-color catalogs complete with item descriptions that read like one created for a fine arts sale, which some believe vintage sports memorabilia has become. Baseball and other sports cards that have survived in pristine condition are graded like coins and sell for a premium well beyond what may be published in a price guide you'd find in a book store.

"The Mantle card was a rarity in that less than ten have ever been graded as highly as this one was by Professional Sports Authenticator," Mueller said, referring to the 1952 Topps issue which sold for over $280,000 including a buyer's premium tacked on by the auction house. "It's a difficult card to find in high grade, and of course Mantle's popularity is still enormous with collectors who are in their 50s and 60s and feel a strong connection to Mantle, the Yankees or just that era in baseball."

Over time, high grade vintage cards and memorabilia such as Hall of Famer game-used bats have appreciated and many have grown substantially in value. While an item that's been handled over the years may not jump much in value from year to year, going rates for a professionally graded card or piece of equipment in short supply have climbed substantially, often jumping by thousands of dollars from prior sales when results are posted on Sports Collectors Daily.    

The Wagner card, issued between 1909 and 1911 in packages of tobacco, graded only '2' on a 10-point scale by PSA, still sold for over $290,000. However, scarcity and popularity is what drives the value. Less than 75 are believed to exist in any condition, possibly because Wagner demanded the card be pulled from the set either because of his distaste for the method of issuance or the failure to agree on suitable compensation for his inclusion.

Some well-heeled collectors have begun piecing together complete sets of cards in which each has been professionally slabbed. The larger graded vintage sets, even from the 1950s and 60s, can cost a small fortune to complete because of competition for rare cards. A 1957 Topps Sandy Koufax graded PSA 9, sold for over $78,000 this fall.    

Many mainstream cards produced in the past 25 years have failed to materialize as good investments, however. "It's true that the cards released during the 1980s and early 90s were produced in huge quantities after values of older cards rose sharply," Mueller said. "There was huge demand, but now there is a huge supply of cards issued in those years, so for the most part, they're not worth much."

And before you go looking in the closet, convinced your old collection is worth a fortune, remember that most of the vintage cards selling for those outlandish prices truly look as if they were pulled from an unopened pack yesterday. "Vintage unopened packs are still around. But your best bet is to find a collector who opened his cards, put them on the shelf and hasn't touched them for forty or fifty years. That happens, but not very often. Usually they wound up in bike spokes."

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