When is it time to part with these valuable cards?

November 11, 2021 5:02 PM

I'll keep this as consise as possible. Back in the day I purchased two Michael Jordan rookie cards for about $40 bux, got them professionally authenticated, and they have been sitting in a safety depost box for the last 35 some odd years.

I am not 50 years old, married, two young kids, mortgage, etc.... My wife and I are employed in relatively safe jobs. We have some credit card debt, not too much in savings and pensions. Browsing on ebay over the last year or so, I see the 2 cards that I have combined could sell for anywhere from $13-16k depending on how collectors are feeling at the time.

Over the last few years I have been getting antsy about keeping the cards and am wondering if it's time to sell them off and put that money elsewhere (401k, Roth IRA, stock, etc...).... Somewhere, where there are less variables that could turn these two nuggets of gold into nothing. I am not a high risk investor, leaning more towards moderate growth on my few investments. Now my initial investment has paid off a million times over, but I at some point the value of these cards will hit some sort of ceiling; right?

I worry about a burglary, or a fire, or whatever, and am starting to go back and forth on whether now is the time or not to sell them off? I understand there is no right or wrong answer here.. Moreso, I am curious to what you guys would do?

posted by TwilightKid to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (16 answers total)

If I were in your situation, I'd flip a coin. Heads you keep them and tails you sell them. If you're happy with the result, then you know what to do. If you're not happy with the result, then you know what you really want to do.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 5:24 PM on November 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Sitting in a safety deposit box, they are worth nothing. In the hands of a fan, they are priceless. Sell the cards to someone who will appreciate them.
posted by SPrintF at 5:30 PM on November 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You've got two. Sell one to lock in a massive profit. Hang on to the other one for another day.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 5:30 PM on November 11, 2021 [28 favorites]

Have you thought about diversifying a bit by selling one and keeping the other? I hope it never happens, but god forbid he does something cancel-worthy and you end up with cardboard.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 5:32 PM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

At what rate are they appreciating? Is it better than the S&P 500 index? How much rent are you paying for the safety deposit box, and how much does that cut in to their appreciation?

My rando opinion is that sports trading cards seem really hot right now & it seems faddish - I’d sell. But if you’re on the fence, then selling one seems like a cautious move.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:40 PM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

I am not a "collector" type person, so YMMV, but I'd sell -- you can use the resulting money to do other things, whereas the cards just sit there, oscillating wildly in value. Card values can, and do, collapse. I mean, just recently perfect condition Jordan cards collapsed in value by more than half, who knows what'll happen, and the card market is less liquid than other forms of investments.
posted by aramaic at 5:51 PM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

If as you say you're not a high risk investor, what it means is the price to you of what you already have (your ebay estimates) is much higher than the price (in emotional regret) of what you might have: the risk of missing out on any further windfall gain. This kind of investment is definitionally high-risk, it's a single commodity with a tiny market subject to extremes of price variation. Take the money and run.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:57 PM on November 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

We are in a trading card bubble right now. Those price may go up, but sooner rather than later they will crash. I would sell immediately.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:49 PM on November 11, 2021 [8 favorites]

Without literally seeing a graph trend, I’d say they are close to their ceiling, except for perhaps a posthumous spike, which may be a tough needle to thread.

The number of people who care $15k about Michael Jordan specially is not growing.
posted by itesser at 6:53 PM on November 11, 2021 [12 favorites]

I would sell. My guess is that those who care about Michael Jordan are at their lifetime max earning potential, and you won't see more money later.
posted by crazy with stars at 7:33 PM on November 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm nowhere near an investment advisor. I just collect cards and follow the market.

Michael Jordan rookies are as close to blue chip investments as trading cards get. They are extremely liquid, always in demand now, and will always be in demand in the future. They are fantastic long term holds. There is no reason to sell them if you don't need the money.

You can get insurance that covers trading cards, and it wouldn't be prohibitively expensive. There are vault services you can send your cards that will keep them in insured custody. You could keep them in a safe deposit box at a bank. There are oceans of money flooding the hobby right now and lots of new collection management services.

The trading card market ecosystem is going to undergo massive changes over the next few years as Fanatics takes over the MLB, NFL, and NBA license monopolies from Topps and Panini. No one knows what effect that will have on card prices, but even though prices seem like they're in a bubble now, the level of interest and relevance the hobby has is nowhere near that of the 90s. To me, that implies there's still room for growth.
posted by Small Dollar at 7:34 PM on November 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

You mention you have credit card debt. How much are you paying interest on that? Is it less than you are gaining from holding the Jordan cards?
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:37 PM on November 11, 2021 [7 favorites]

I bought some bitcoins a while back and then they had their first big spike five few years ago and suddenly they were worth a few thousand bucks. It was a windfall but also a curse because it seemed like the price might go up way more, or it might suddenly crater, and now our lives were filled with anxiety about the bitcoins and suddenly I was watching the price of BTC obsessively. My partner came up with the following framing: we will take whatever potential future profits we might have if we keep the coins, and use that to purchase relief from this anxiety now in the present. We sold them and it was so worth it. Five years later they are worth 5x more, but that would have been five years of agony.
posted by PercussivePaul at 8:11 PM on November 11, 2021 [8 favorites]

If you didn't own them, would you buy them? If the answer is definitely no, you may be suffering from a bias known as the endowment effect, and you should sell. (It's not a perfect analogy because there are transaction costs from selling and also tax factors, but it's a good way to start thinking about it.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:18 PM on November 11, 2021 [14 favorites]

I have no opinion about the financial wisdom of holding vs selling, but your question sounds like you are suffering some mental and emotional strain by keeping them. Maybe examine those feelings a bit and see if the internal costs of keeping them are worth the potential for future profit.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:09 AM on November 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

P.S. these are pieces of paper with someone's picture on them. They may still be worth something in a year or two or five, or they may suddenly not They don't have any inherent utility like a vehicle or a house or something. If it were me I would sell them and buy something tangible that I need that will improve my life that I could keep and use for the rest of my life
posted by PercussivePaul at 7:19 PM on November 12, 2021