Woods & Waters; Baseball Cards with Bill Arrata

Were what. Oh do you. Oh fuck. OH OH YOU OH OH OH I LOVE YOU.

Good. You're loaded with. Water with your host. But let us remember a year ago we were talking about baseball as the market was high. And boy I'll tell you there was great interest. Everybody was picking them up. Bell Right I was I guess that night and we talked about cabs and we got telephone calls from Monterey all the way to Scott Bay or wherever it was Bill. Things have changed in a year this year and the market has changed. Market has dropped. You kind of put it on and I listen I feel to introduce my friend here John Henry Williams We've got. So we're going to talk baseball caps tonight. What's happened to them I could you

predicted this this would happen. Well happen. That's right. You'll learn in our business particularly in the stock markets they might instead of will. But the problem it's coincided not only with the overproduction of baseball cards and baseball card companies but at the same time you've got a recession developing in the economy and the worst possible events are happening and unfortunately are happening simultaneously. How much of a dip have cards taken. So give us an example. Well I was just telling John Henry before the program began that I saw a Clemente rookie for example which is a nice looking card in very nice condition and books at $800 and at least that's what a dealer should ask for in perfect condition. And I'd be hard pressed to get a third of that right now. This is all happen in 12 months. That's right. There's a

flood on the market of buyers more cards being manufactured and more collectors. What caused this. First as Aside from the general economy for first of all the many factors you've got. Many many collectors coming into the market all the time. The new issue market so to speak. OK the cards that are issued every year by all these companies I think there are like six major baseball card companies know where when I grew up there was just one tops and then BOWMAN So that was really too I should say. But now there are six and then there are a lot of ancillary companies at the same time you know like they're printing cards all the time and not by the hundreds of thousands but by the millions. OK. There are only so many collectors that can absorb all those cards at any one particular time. So you've got that part to deal with you've got an increasing supply and a demand for cards that has to have some sort of top to it. And I think which is what you're having and that doesn't have anything to do with the recession the recession just adds fuel to the fire because you've had a lot of people who have made I think the mistake of

thinking that baseball cards is like the stock market or the real estate market and making it a serious investment. And they've gone out and take thousands of dollars out of the bank invested it in baseball cards and modern day sets put them in the in the back of their garage thinking they're going to appreciate in value and now they're going to find I'm sad to say that they're going to take those cards out of the safe deposit box I would do that. But out of the garage and dump them on the market and find out that they haven't gone up but rather they've gone down in value. Why would a comment a card go down in value. If that's an older car than they're in they're not producing any more than that John Henry is a great argument and it really shouldn't. The problem with that is the relativeness of the card relative price of it. In other words. The argument there is that probably the fair market value let's say is probably closer to $600 than 800. It jumped too quickly. OK I mean after all $600 for a baseball card that was printed back in 1054 5 is not a bad appreciation for

something that cost you a penny. Like Houses It's like houses right. Certainly the appreciation factor is much greater on that Clemente card. But the eighteen hundred dollar figure is too high and the only thing I can just give us some sort of an analogy I happen to fool around a little bit with stamp collecting and back in one thousand seventy That's why I think I saw a little this coming. Back in 1970 I purchased a set of stamps which are considered the the the elite in the airmail collections and in this country and the three stamps cost me. $600. OK. By 1980 10 years later they were worth ten thousand dollars pretty gory she asian. Then they dropped from 1980 to about 1993 or 4 from 10000 down to about 800 to 2000. And here it's about where they sit today. That's where the market is so it was 600 C but you have to backtrack from 600 to 800. That's pretty good or 600 to 2000 is not bad. But if you are fortunate enough to get into the height of the market at ten thousand dollars and you know everyone gets a lot the

unfortunate people get in at the top of the market and they watch the drop. Well what caused such a drop for example in those three stamps. They're just as precious today. It is a guise of the of the stamp collector. But what happened is the same thing that I think is happening in the baseball card market. All of a sudden the stamp market which was the dominant of collectors for years and years and years. All of a sudden had investors coming into the scheme. Now investors by definition have more money than collector's collector buys one set and sticks it in his album and is happy with it. The investor comes in and he wants to buy 20 cents or 50 cents or a hundred cents. So all of this demand all of a sudden keeps pushing the price of whether it Clemente cards or Ted Williams cards or whether it be. These are these rare sets of example and stamps. OK. And they pushed them way out of proportion to where they belong. They're still scarce but they're not as

scarce and the Clemente current is a very collectible card. But you wouldn't feel very good if you paid eight hundred dollars for it look at the markets are only worth six you think will go back up eventually but it'll be over a period of time and will probably be a long time before that hype comes back to the market again. It's no different on the stock market. How about Jose Conseco the most amount of rigid cards of his I don't think he's as good a bet. You know I meant a card would be a better bet provided you can buy it somewhere near the bottom of the market. Now maybe 600 is not the bottom of it I don't think we've seen anywhere near the worst of this market yet. This is just the beginning of it. Just begun to fight so to speak. OK. And I think if you wait a little bit you may see the you may see the Clemente card. I don't want to make predictions because I can't. How do you predict the vagaries of a market whether it be stocks bonds real estate or anything how does. I don't know how to do that. I don't think anyone does. I just know or I feel in your gut and your instincts when something seems to be oversupplied and overpriced.

You are getting just off the baseball card just a little bit sure were memorabilia. Sure I want autographs. OK let's fund subject. Let's talk about autographs of your dad. For example let's take an autographed baseball of Ted Williams. This is this is a crazy thing right now because at the moment. Your dad God bless him is still alive. Therefore he has a. Able to increase the supply of baseballs that are autographed every time he goes to a show or every time he agrees to be a nice guy and sign a dozen baseballs for somebody. It increases the supply of baseball cards. Well a baseball autographed baseballs as long as the aura of Ted Williams exists and the supply of Ben autographed baseballs is still relatively small. The price of those baseballs have started to climb. But eventually that is if you're part. Hope he does. Let's look at it as a look at look at him as a commodity for our little lives another 10 or 15 years

and he continues to sign as many baseballs as he could. Then the supply is going to increase all the time as long as his hand doesn't fall off. Right. So consequently there's going to be more and more baseballs out there and eventually that market is going to get saturated too and the baseballs will finally drop in value whether it be Ted Williams or whatever. Now if this were Jackie Robinson baseball or a Babe Ruth baseball or a Gary baseball somebody who has unfortunately died then the supply of their pup balls are obviously limited but the Mickey Mantle's and the and the willing mazes of the world in the era of those big name stars or the Nolan Ryan now that he is in form right now you can buy the Nolan Ryan ball for about $30. I think it's probably overpriced. How about the increased supply of baseball how does that affect the supply of a Babe Ruth ball or the price of a Babe Ruth ball. The increased supply of let's say you have you increase the supply of Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle Joe DiMaggio baseball's outright. There are great players right. You tend to think that the prices would stay similar comparatively to great players. I mean I'm not certain but like a Babe Ruth or Lou

Gehrig their baseball price since they're dead they should be rising also at the same time has it has. OK and I owned a I think I mentioned at the last show I was lucky enough to go into New York City one time and into a stamp store of all places and he had right there on his on his counter a Lou Gehrig baseball. I gobbled up my courage and paid five hundred bucks for this ball and I thought I was actually insane. I came home showed my wife she thought I was insane too until 10 years later I found out that the $500 ball was worth $5000. OK and that's about what the market is on that Lou Gehrig baseball today. However having said that and I won't part with my card I mean my my ball because I'm a garrett fan. I think that ball will probably drop in value too because it is gone up like the Zeppelin sets and like this Clemente rookie It has gone up too fast too quickly and it'll have to come down to some sort of. Medium or some sort of happy market I find its level I guess that's the word I'm looking for. And it hasn't found its level yet. But there are a fewer supply of Derek balls is what you are driving at.

And there are Ted Williams were in because there's more to do in Baltimore GA Marge your balls coming. Coming to plan they're staying at the same price even though the the it's expand that's not gonna stay that way very long as what I'm saying that should drive the prices of the other ones that aren't going to it will only drive up the price of the other ones John Henry because of interest overall from collectors. More and more people say gee wouldn't be nice to own a garrett ball it would be nice to own a root ball. The problem is that the price of those have gotten out of hand and how many young 14 year olds or 20 year olds can afford to lay down $5000 for a Gary Ball. Very few OK. How many 45 year old 50 year old guys couldn't before nor even want to do that. So these collectibles have priced themselves out of the market and that's what happened to that example and say I mean ten thousand dollars for three stamps. OK yeah so now they have come the investors for the most part have left that stamp market. And now there are at $800 where a collector door can say well I guess I don't know the site I guess I'll pay $800 for one and a collector or who missed plenty at

eighteen hundred dollars because he said it was too damn high. Ok gets down to 600 400 300 to finally say boy I bet a pony up and buy that. So he'll the collector will buy it. The investor who bought it at eighteen hundred looks as looms at six hundred and goes away and says I don't ever want to touch baseball cards again. Like they say about stamps and I think this is I think I really think there's a there's a there's a there's a similarity here. The Honus Wagner. What happened there. Well Honus Wagner was a player a very famous shortstop as we all know for the pirates back in the in the early 1800s. And. He had his card in those days the only people that made cards for the most part were tobacco manufacturers cigarette manufacturers. And today you can look on the back of cards and see Haasan and Mecca and so forth there were names of tobacco companies. Well Honus Wagner was not a smoker. He did not believe in smoking. And when this tobacco company printed his picture on a baseball card and found out that they'd gotten away with it without his

permission he was furious and he threatened to sue the company. They hauled back all the baseball cards that were already issued. But like any collectible market a dozen or so got out and those dozen are among the most scarce baseball cards that exist today. I mean a good one meeting in perfect shape or as close to perfect shape as you can get goes for about $100000. Interestingly enough. When there is only a dozen out there that market will probably hold up better than that Clemente card or better than the government card and so forth because the Clemente card is probably I don't know five hundred thousand. I have no idea I'm just. Purely speculating the Garrett ball root balls for me are fairly prevalent they sign quite a bit of balls when they were in their heyday but there's only a dozen or so Wagner cards so there's always will be someone's ego who gets so big that he'll say yeah I'll pay a hundred thousand dollars in that car because I don't have it. So you'll need a dozen people to do that.

And that brings up a point because the forgery that there are fake corners where you heard how much is there of that going around even with autographs nor the autographs are scary. I will not buy an autograph ball unless I have some sort of a feel from where the dealer got it from I just don't want to touch it to Lou Gehrig ball the Lou Gehrig ball was a guess. That was again I could not look you in the eye today and it is push sure a Lou Gehrig ball. I think it's a Lou Gehrig ball I've had it checked out of it. I've compared it to other signatures. But how do I really know right. I bought it from a reliable dealer and that's part of what I try to do and that's what people have got to do out there. When you're buying autographs of the very very careful of the possibility of counterfeits and as far as the card to be concerned some of these counterfeit cards you got to be real careful about those as well. But if you look carefully on the bottom I believe in one of those Wagner cards that you're referring to I think it said reproduction right on the bottom of the card in very tiny print but they supposedly one of those cards that have been burned and I think maybe the

reproduction part of it might have burned. Didn't your dad have a cat out that he recalls. Yeah we it was a wasn't it was 54 Bowman wasn't. There was I guess they were they were pretty it was. You were telling me earlier was a 60 number 66. That's right. With. Who was really pierced you mean Pearsall. He will share the same number. And they weren't allowed to use the card so but they had printed it every anyway and so there were very few of them out there now of it. And that's a very one hundred fifty that that's out there. Something like that I don't know. I couldn't tell you exactly but it's few it was. Anytime anything you get a mistake was just like the the bat the head a little something written on the bottom is a mistake. That's right they don't they don't catch it everything goes up in that. So what's the value of this guy out of you. It's about $6000. Really retail. Yeah I went to a show once and a guy had a box about a foot by a foot and maybe eight or nine cards in there nine or

10 cards and was worth over $60000 just right there. Same if I grabbed this and run real fast. Get out of here. I don't want to pick on your past forecasts but you and your son started a business and baseball cut business a year ago three years ago it was a 3 years ago but when we did this television showing it and you even charge the boy interest. How did he make out with the market when the market flattened out. Well what does a parent do bud. And John Henry when you have a youngster who loves baseball he was about 13 14 15 at the time and 14 I guess at the time and he was spending his weekly allowance all on baseball cards and doing it almost recklessly I thought. So I said to him one day I said Greg how would you like to have all the money you could possibly need to buy baseball cards. Oh Jesus eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop. He says I'm going to be a catch I said yeah you're right dad. Greg there is a catch your dad's going to unfold something to you I'll lend you five

hundred dollars and I'll charge you interest. Just like the bank does and I'll be the bank here and with that $500 you can buy all the baseball cards you possibly want. And I was hoping that this might teach him a little bit about the markets. Supply and demand. How interest rates work and so forth. And every year I told him we do this for five years and you have to pay me back a hundred dollars a year for five years. And at the end of the five years the debt would be completely paid off his interest would be paid on an annual basis that on a declining balance is about 400 300 200 self-will and we see how it works. Well the first lesson he learned right away that I was pleased to see is he didn't spend the full $500 that $500 he spent about two to three hundred dollars and he always kept a couple hundred dollars in the till. Lesson number one don't spend all your money. Well he didn't want to do that because he knew he had to pay me interest me wasn't sure with the interest money was going to come from. So we held a little bit back. Well that had been his own money. It had been a different story. Now he asked me first about what about collateral. He didn't even know what collateral was I said I'm going to lend you $500

Greg I want collateral and I had to explain what collateral was he said well I don't have any collateral bad. I suggested do you get your baseball card collection. Are you sure you want me to give you that. I said You sure are sure I do. Do you what would you do if I didn't pay off the loan. I said I'd sell your collection I said that's what the bank would do. She's you're pretty tough. I said well if we're going to do this properly Greg can do it like a bank then we've got to do it properly. Well he agreed that the lure of the $500 to spend on the baseball cards was greater than the lure of possibly losing his collection so. He gave music election escrowed in a separate closet in the house took it away from him and put it in my closet as though you're done oh yes I did oh yes we're going to do this properly and the end of the story is we just closed out the company a week ago. Sorry last month because I was concerned about the overall market when telling him about it and he agreed I didn't tell him what to do or he he decides to do this on his own and he closed the company out paid me back the $500 two years early in effect had paid me roughly $100 worth of interest over the three years that I'd had that he'd had to loan out and put an extra $200 in the pocket.

So he made up made a nice profit when he was a hundred ninety eight dollars and it was the exact profit he made. I think we had he got his collateral back. I think we ought to send a tape of this to your father. You might get some idea what you think of a good idea to reflect on. What's the future. And I realize. Looking at the future the future is not as simple. Baseball cards will be around for a long long time. People think they would tease me last year you don't like baseball cause the more you think the markets know goodbyes are up. I don't think the market was no good I just said the market's too high. I said baseball is a cult in this country and it's going to be around it's been around since early 1800s card collecting that is. And I think it'll be around the year 2000 and beyond I hope it will be 2000 20 100 whatever. I just think that like the stamp market the baseball card market is going to get rid of its invest ors and hopefully go back to the Collect dollars which means the market will subside. If

it does anything like the stat market that I was alluding to a little earlier and then you'll have a healthier market you won't have these big gigantic jumps and cards are getting way way overpriced and that has to do with whether it be the collectibles or whether it be the card market itself. So I think the future of the baseball card market is strong and healthy as long as it operates in a in a reasonable fashion and you don't have investors coming in here and hyping it and getting it way out of proportion to where it should be. Is that a fair is that a danger to the market. It's a danger to any market Sure I mean you think of a young collector who had his eye on a Nolan Ryan rookie. Let's talk about that. OK. Matter of fact I had somebody ask me the other day could you get me a Nolan Ryan rookie it's for his his young 10 year old kid and I said he thought he could get one for $100 I said What are you smoking. He said well I thought you could get one for a hundred. I said how does $2000. Wow. I mean you see there's no way this father unless you're smoking something should take $2000

out of his bank account. And by Illinois Lynn Ryan rookie that was issued 25 years ago or whatever 20 years ago. I mean I love Nolan Ryan I think what he's done is great and we're not talking about that. We're talking about merely the market the price of Nolan Ryan's card and that's just one of hundreds. OK. Has gotten way out of him. It's got to come back to more normal realities. Why is a rookie. I mean this probably don't quite why is a rookie card so valuable just because it's his first card and for the Kurds. Yeah people tend to. A lot of them people tend to have ignored them in the old days. OK the Clemente cards and the first Mickey Mantle card there were fewer of them around and so forth because people didn't pay any attention to them as all of a sudden after the third fourth and fifth year when the guys start to make a name for himself why would it be fun to get that number one card and of course the number one card was and slighter. I mean less existence than it was the same thing today except that people have ignored the obvious fact that there's millions of cards of the first rookie card today that's made as opposed to Joe Blow's card. OK they're made in the same quantity. They're not

Conseco rookie card wasn't made in any less quantity than his compatriots sitting on the bench who doesn't draw anywhere near the salary that he does. But people don't see that so consequently Conseco scored is way up here and the guy earning $100000 is way down here. Why is it New York Yankee New York area the names. Appear to have the greatest of people to the general public. The cult again their coach Sure. I mean you know you're talking and you're also talking the market. I mean that was New York City still is New York City where you had the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds the Yankees at Yankee Stadium and they go all Dodgers my old buddies back in Evans field OK and the three I mean it was the only city that had three teams plus at that time it was and still is the biggest city in the country. Therefore you have more people. OK. And they worship their their teams and to be fair they had pretty good teams. I mean where can you imagine where you had three Hall of Fame center fielders playing at the exact same time against each other in the World

Series and against each other in the in the National League it with the Snyder Mays and mantle I mean it was unbelievable. So it built on itself. They produced good teams. They had good players and they have a big market and had say nothing about just what happened with Gehrig and Ruth back 30 and 40 years earlier. You've been a Dodger fan and we're getting down to closing minutes here. One would think that. Some of the old dodge of Kurds back in the days of the pier we reached as in the rest of them when they played it debits for you would be a treasure. You never hear them mention. Oh yes you know you should go there. Yeah yeah yeah. They're mentioned and they're treasured. I have a for example a Sandy Koufax card which I'm pretty tickled with because if you look at his rookie year you'll see that it shows 0 0 0 OK across the board and it will all those zeros that card is worth a pile of money today. When he couldn't even throw a strike I mean the man is as wild as the devil but yet that's his initial rookie card Pee-Wee's a rookie card of course goes back into the early

forties. But whether it be for a lower preacher rower can't be a Robinson. They're all very very valuable. The Hall of Fame dodgers like the Hall of Fame of any team are more valuable than the non Hall of Famers In other words Jackie Robinson's card is better than call for a last card for example. This is a loaded question but I think you're going to jump me over. Who had the best throwing arm for right fielder that you ever saw and you know it all for all of you. You want me to say Dewey EVANS No no no no no. But you never hear Col. Pharaoh's name. He well I won't say never he passed away within a couple of years and years ago and he used to hang up here regularly and he went to Milo with that crowd of people. What a great great person he was then Kluge wasn't in the right. You know I happen to follow his name and very careful because he was my favorite ballplayer really when I was growing up in the city. Well I'm Italian he was Italian I think there's a relationship there. He won

the batting title One year I remember which was the only year he ever did win the batting title he had that great arm. He was playing in the shadow of the of the great players and sold. He did average I think pretty close to 300 of his lifetime not to 99 3 pretty in that ballpark and he was just a steady guy and he was all done he didn't have all these fancy jobs he was a builder of the New York Go World Trade Center. So that's why he stood up there isn't a contractor with a hard hat. He was as a as an ex dodger and there he was up there in the building the World Trade Center as a contractor I mean I thought that was kind of interesting as opposed to some of the other players who've gotten jobs in coaching or are in the big leagues batting instructors or whatever I mean he got right out of baseball and had to get a job. Don't fancy pensions but we were my dick after he brought you case it with and with great you case you know of course you kept coming to my love for years and years as well as a few over and over what a coward just listen to Casey talk and you know he would around Milan and on and what a relief.

I would love to see him I never saw you can see that. What a relief pitcher. You get two baseball players together and they just talk and talk I didn't talk we just I was down at the show with Dad it was dad Johnny Pesky Bobby door. Down DiMaggio. And any Pelligrini and they got together for dinner. And that's all they did they just sat in the corner just last hour and they just kept on. Yeah I can listen to them for hours. You know that's a myth a lot of people get together so they don't talk about. That's just not true. That's exactly what they do talk. That's exactly what they will never forget a hotel room after a night game. Ted Williams grabs a broom and that's when I fell asleep in a chair. This went on all night. They got in an argument about hitting the boy.

Right down there three weeks ago you know given the question I can't believe even hit me that I love it. Oh yeah I don't know how you ever get a quiet manner you know. You know nice having you. Thank you. Goodnight everyone hope you enjoyed. You. Ergo you thought the world was tired of the gold by. Oh woe woe to the

through the cold boatload of. This program was made possible by the support of viewers like you. Thank you.