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04-11-2013 When I worked in card shop, there was a moment when my partner/boss was admiring a nice 1956 Topps Mickey Mantle. He said, "I like this card. You know, even if baseball cards went back to being worth nothing, I would still pay $100 for this one." That was a dozen or so years ago, and there is something about that comment that makes me think about it frequently. In this hobby, our flagship card, our "Mona Lisa," has been the PSA 8 "Gretzky" T206 Honus Wagner. This is the card of cards, the highest priced card to ever sell. $2.8 million. Although is has been speculated for years that the card was once trimmed before PSA encapsulated it, that card could be pointed to as legitimacy for the baseball card industry. It was our "See, these things aren't just for kids; they actually have value." But now, Bill Mastro has admitted to trimming this card. And no one seems to know what this will do to the value of this card. For any ordinary card, trimming is a cardinal sin. It brings the value down to around 2-5% of book...give or take. But check out some of the comments on that article. Or better yet, check out some supposedly sportscard-educated/involved commenters discuss the card on PSA's message boards or Net 54's message boards. Some people don't see this as a blow to the hobby, but I do. I'm not afraid to call this one like I see it: PSA isn't an unquestionably reputable company. It's kind of scary putting that out there. PSA is a trusted company in the hobby. Third-party graders faciliate internet trading, so people "know" what they're getting. Instead of me selling you a card sight unseen that I describe as ExMt, you (the buyer) can instead have PSA or sGC or Beckett say that a card is an Ex-Mt 6 with the flip and the holder and the sonic welding and the cert number to prove it! Brilliant! If you're a buyer, you no longer have to take the word of a dealer who might have poor lighting, poor eyesight, poor standards, or poor morals. Third-party graders inspire trust. Don't believe me - search eBay. Right now there are over 300,000 PSA graded cards and over 100,000 PSA certified autographs listed for sale. That's a lot of sonic welding. Or if you think this calls all of PSA's grading into question, that's a lot of worthless plastic. "Value" in and of itself is wildly overlooked concept in today's world. For all the talk of money - from salaries to lotto jackpots to what your cell phone plan will cost you to Pawn Stars mania to coupons to what the DOW did today - in our society, we rarely ever talk about the mechanisms that support an item's value. I have theories for this: 1) People don't like to think. 2) This is a scary question to ponder. Wanna have some awesome water cooler fodder? Check out this introduction to bitcoin. If you don't want to click the link just yet, I'll summarize in what I promise you is real life, not some sci-fi movie plot: Bitcoin is a decentralized, digital currency created in 2009 by an unknown person or group; one unit was worth $15 USD in January of this year and is now trading for around 10x-15x that price. Follow? Interested? If you care to read more, here is one rather positive review from a cautiously curious perspective. And here is one from a very pessimistic perspective. Some people are freaked the fuck out by the fact that something like bitcoin exists. They think because it is gaining popularity and "value" and being reported on regularly by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg that it is going to hit the economy with the force like a massive solar flare hitting the earth and bring us all back to the days before the Big Bang. To those people, I say, "Meh," and shrug my shoulders and smile and remind myself that life sure is fun, isn't it? Something about a dude or dude-ish consortium deciding they could create money out of thin air kinda gets my rocks off. If only I would have taken my fake plastic money when I was 9 years old and thought a little harder, I could have created this! And given it a cooler name! Damn it - where are the plans for the time machine I discarded when I was 8 1/2 years old!!! I want to scoff at bitcoin. But I dare not. It's digital. So what - so is my direct deposit...so is PayPal. How much of our "money" is just numbers on a statement, computer screen, or mobile app? I can't take it to any McDonald's in the world and buy a value meal. So what - you can't with baseball cards or even gold bullion. Go ahead, try to pay for your #11 with a 1 oz. bar of gold or PSA 6 1953 Topps Mantle (each worth appox. $1600). Unless you meet a suspiciously resourceful employee, like Danny Noonan told D'Annunzio, "then you ain't a'gettin no Coke." What else ya got? Don't like the term "decentralized"? Well, I'm not smart enough in the economics field to fully explain that the US dollar isn't based on anything but good vibes in our United States, our government, and economic bill of health, but that's the way I understand it. I have this discussion over and over with a friend of mine when we talk about gold as the most ridiculous safety net in the world. A hedge through somewhat rocky economic times, I can understand. But for people who think our economic/government/communication system is going to totally collapse, good luck with your gold, or better yet still(!) - your gold funds and derivatives. At least you could turn bricks of gold into pickaxes to fend off the first few zombies; gold funds you can only hope to make paper airplanes out of to hit bands of looting marauders in the eye. Value, readers, is based upon faith. We either want to use the item, use/experience the service, or hold onto it for a higher return. There aren't many more options than that for the things we buy. I suspect that is the reason why some people are continuing to publicly support the value of the Mona Lisa of sportscards. They probably have too much at stake to risk devaluing their own collections. They want the rest of the world to maintain faith in PSA graded cards. I hate to break it to you, but there is no end use for dollars either. Sure, they make a great cocaine-snorting device in movies. Other than that, they are just the most simple thing around to trade for good and services...something we all pretty much agree about the "value" of. The last $20 you received from a friend or a bank or an ATM - you put that in your wallet without questioning that it will buy you the same thing tomorrow that it would have today. Some day, you may have the same faith in bitcoins. All I can say is that the gap in confidence I have in bitcoins and PSA graded cards is smaller today than it was yesterday. Have fun! -T You can now find me all over the web:  Like Monster Cards on Facebook
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Inside My Brain