http://www.oldbaseball.com/refs/burdickletters.html

A fun read for those interested in the hobby pioneers.

Thanks for posting the link. For anyone interested in the history of our beloved hobby, before the God forsaken money, this is some great reading....best regards

This should be required reading for the so-called self-proclaimed "backbone of the hobby" guys who look down at their noses at guys who are in the hobby for all the right reasons.

So Nagy was willing to pony up $150 for his Wagner against a book value of $50. See what happens when you overpay? When he was forced to sell it, he only got $450,000 for it.

The book Orem was writing in 1961 was "Baseball 1845-1881." He had to publish it himself and it had poor distribution. But it is a classic reference book and every collector should have a copy of it. It's on ebay pretty regularly if you don't have one (should set you back about $35 or so).

Barry,
I was especially impressed by how much the card had appreciated in the first 10 years. When I first met Nagy, in 1971, he told me that someone that very day had offered to trade him a new station wagon for his Wagner. I think he also said that someone once offered him several thousand dollars for it, but he didn't think it was a serious offer.

$150 for an old baseball card in 1961 was a big leap. Only someone really committed to the hobby would have taken the plunge.

Good thing he didn't trade the card for the car.

The money the card brought today could almost get you a 1955 Mercedes 300SL with the gull wings. That's better than a station wagon!

Barry,

It's not a matter of overpaying or underpaying and it's not a matter of money. It's a matter of being one step ahead of the next hot collectible. I rant and rave about it all the time.

Just use your hobby experience and common sense. A case in point is the T206 Wagner that just sold for 2.35 million. Let's say we just saw that sale go through. I would look at the fact that it took approximately 7 yrs. for the Wagner to almost double in value.

My next investment move would be to sell my T206 Hall of Famers, the reason for this is that most of my Hall of Famers more than doubled during the 7 year span. So instead of seeing the sale of the Wagner as a bullish sign, I would look at that as a sign to sell.

Also, I would not at the sale of the Wagner as a sign that I should be buying T206 commons. If T206 Hall of Famers are going down then pre-war guys will be buying T206 commons.

Barry, am I way off base here.

Peter

Peter- I've never been real good at predicting the ups and downs of the card market. I just buy 'em and sell 'em.

But if you bought a Wagner for $150 and sold it 40 years later for $450,000, it looks like you did quite well.