The Modern Baseball Card Investor

by Jeff Hwang

One of the most impressive manuscripts this industry has ever seen....Dan Hitt, Beckett MediaIn the wake of the great baseball card bubble of the late 1980s and early 1990s - a time period in which new baseball card issues were wildly overproduced - everybody knows that modern baseball cards are worthless, and that valuable cards are strictly a vintage thing. And yet, many of the most valuable cards of the last 40-50 years have been printed in the last five to ten years.How is it possible that a Bowman Chrome Yasiel Puig card issued in the fall of 2013 sold for $18,000 in January 2014, or that a Bowman Chrome Mike Trout card issued in 2009 sold for $16,000 in February 2014? And how is it that two 1993 SP Derek Jeter rookie cards sold for $32,500 each in December 2013, at a time when many other copies of the same card were running in the $100-$150 range?Indeed, the investment profile of the modern baseball card and sports cards in general has improved dramatically over the past 20 years. In The Modern Baseball Card Investor, Jeff Hwang explains why, and shows you how you, too, can get in on the game. Key topics The Value of Relative and absolute scarcity, pricing power, and leverage- The Baseball Prospecting Betting on baseball s next big stars- Value Investing and the Gem Mint A value investor's approach to the game- The Supply Chain and the Value Examining the big picture and the other players in the game- Building Acquiring ungraded cards and building investment-grade assets- Other Football, basketball, and hockey cards.- And more!If you have ever bought a baseball card, this book is for you.

374 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 28, 2014

Reviews

[John Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeff Hwang has worked very hard on this book. It is evident in the amount of detail he provides in the descriptions of the cards throughout. He spent the time to provide the names of many of the best players at the time he was writing (2012) and details about all the key cards for those players with regards to pricing and a comparison between the numbered cards and the base card from the same sets.

The basic premise behind the book is the bigger fool theory. If you buy the best card of the best player in the best condition, regardless of the market price today, you will be able to sell it at a higher price later because there is always someone out there (the bigger fool) who wants it more than you do. There is always a market for the very best. So the most important thing is to know which cards are the best and target those. After establishing that premise, the book goes into great detail about many individual players and their key cards. Most of the key cards from the modern sets are either Bowman Chrome to Topps Chrome cards. The book gives describes the different cards in those sets (chrome, refractors, superfractors, autos, etc.) to show the difference in pricing power based on the quality and quantity available of those cards.

The later chapters of the book discuss different methods of acquiring cards for investment, such as case breaks, which seem to be the most popular method right now. Hwang advises against buying individual packs, and, most of the time, boxes, from large retail stores where packs can be purchased, searched, and returned to be resold. It is disheartening to me, as a collector, to read this part of the book because he does go into some detail about how investors are basically making it nearly impossible for collectors to find the best cards. As an investor, I understand the reasoning, but as a collector, I find it a little unfair.

If you want to be a serious investor and make money in a card market that isn’t booming the way it was in the late 80s, then this is a great book for you and I highly recommend it, because the information can be invaluable. However, it is primarily for investors who have thousands of dollars to invest, so I don’t think it would be useful to a collector who wants to go to a card shop or online and spend less than $100.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a VAST amount of data the author shares an examination of the collecting/handling of card inserts that can possibly be parlayed into potential sales, maybe. Occasionally clunky writing can be overlooked due to significant data. Eventually there are some color images about certain cards. Insightful.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative

Although the book was written 4 years ago it has very good insight on the modern card market. Good read