eBay Inc (EBAY), Collectors Universe Inc. (CLCT): Have Baseball Card Values Risen in 20 Years? Actually …

But if you’re asking whether the values of the key rookie cards of baseball’s biggest stars have risen in the past 20 years or so, the answer is clearly yes, once you factor the Gem Mint condition, professionally graded cards by BGS and PSA.

Certainly there have been disappointments — Darryl Strawberry’s career fell off a cliff during his age 30 season in 1992, and he served a cocaine-related suspension in 1995; while Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa have seen their stocks hammered for steroid-related reasons. And clearly, valuation is always a valid concern, as it is with stocks: You can’t overpay and expect to generate a sufficient return on investment.

But much as the stocks of premium companies warrant premium valuations and tend to outperform their peers, the key rookie cards of baseball’s biggest stars have tended to outperform the rookie cards of their peers, while the highest-quality, BGS 9.5 and PSA 10 Gem Mint graded examples of these cards have vastly outperformed the lesser-quality, ungraded versions of the same cards, and in some cases they’ve appreciated considerably over the past 20 years or so.

Here’s the key: If this is true of the key cards from a period of extreme oversupply, what does it say about the investment potential of more recently issued cards featuring better product printed in smaller numbers?

Stay tuned.

The article Have Baseball Card Values Risen in 20 Years? Actually … originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Jeff Hwang.

Fool contributor Jeff Hwang is a gaming industry consultant and the best-selling author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy and the three-volume Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha series. Jeff owns shares of eBay. Follow Jeff on Twitter, @RivalSchoolX, and stay posted for future articles on modern baseball card investing.The Motley Fool owns shares of eBay and Amazon.com. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Amazon.com and eBay.

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