Baseball Cards Price

Baseball card value question (Not how much is this worth)?

I asked this question before, but did not really get any responses. Would it be possible to make a common baseball card valuable? Just out of curiosity... Lets say that someone with a lot of money, who loved a certain player, decided that they were going to buy all of this particular players 1991 Donruss cards that he could find. So he goes to E-bay and every local card shop that he can find and everybody that he knows and exhausts all the resources that he can find to purchase every one of these cards that he can get his hands on. I am being optimistic here, but lets say that he is able to get 65% of the cards that were printed. Would the other ones out there escalate in value? If not, what if he burned all but one of his? Off the wall question, I know, but I thought I would change it up a bit... The answers that I did get before said that commons would not go up in value unless the player became a star, but is scarcity not a contributing factor to a cards price also? Thanks for any answers.

Public Comments

1. Good question... I think you are right. I he burned all his cards then the value would have to go up. It would be just like rare misprint cards. I have a Terry Pendleton card that says Tony Pendleton, which is worth more than the exact same card that says Terry because its rare. I think thats why cards become worth so much money, becaues of the rareness. If everyone in the world had a Nolan Ryan rookie card, it would be worth 50 cents haha. Very good question.
2. Basic law of economics is supply and demand. Even if you could miraculously find/purchase 65% of a common card (which you can't) all you've done is limit the supply. W/o the demand, all you have is a million of the same card. The only demand (besides the spattering of the players friends/family MAY have) is for the ppl that will try to build a set. This will require one of ea. card. Bear in mind you would also be competing w/ the tens of thousands of factory sets that include that card ... many remain unopened. What you seek to do would cost you more money than the value that you would end up w/ rocket arm- What you describe is an error card. These started out in shorter supply when there was a corrected version to take it's place in production. If the manufacturer did not correct the error, those error cards rarely have more value. If it was Pendleton's rookie card (and if I remember correctly it was), the listed value is due to that. Even if you have 2 versions of the same card, many of the error versions started out w/ significant value but soon declined to scarcely more value ... it all depends on the supply/demand. The '89 UD Dale Murphy error card and the 89 F Ripken F___ face card set a trend for demand for the errors. Many ppl thought that Donruss intentionally produced errors because there were so many in their 90 edition of cards. Error cards soon fell into disfavor. The 89 F card was of "Billy Ripken" ... not "Cal"
3. Drying up the supply of a card that is not and never will be in demand isn't going to do much in the way of return on investment. Particularly for a set such as 1991 Donruss, which was massively overproduced. Even 18 years later, the entire supply hasn't been sopped up by the collector market (even factoring in landfill allocations). The "demand" half of the equation needs to be addressed. Now, if some Joe Obscurekid was in that set, and then ran for president, that'd help immensely. But most of those guys are probably selling insurance or garden equipment these days.
4. that is one of the most interesting questions that i have ever read on Answers! definitely starred, but, possibly not answered to your liking. although i agree with the supply/demand argument that blu posted, i would still have to believe that with the correct proof of this accomplishment and the fact that, for example, T206 'common cards' receive top dollar, there would be no reason that the card in question would become rare and sought after. i, for one, would love to own such a piece, while others would'nt. that, i guess, would be where the demand comes in. i could argue for and against this question all day, i assume, but, my conclusion would be that any rare card that exists in such a minute number would be priceless and in demand.