Sports Illustrated Blog #89 – Values, Opportunities 

Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now.

We’re about to witness our first public offering of a high grade, highly coveted, super star Sports Illustrated magazine.  Heritage Auction has listed a 1981 Wayne Gretzky, CGC 9.4, first cover that will gavel in about three weeks. 

One development that has held the lid on even greater profit taking in our hobby is the reluctance of impact collectors to actually offer their highest valued stuff in public auction.  I’ve blogged about it several times previously so I won’t bother detailing their reasons here.

Of the many super star 9.8 and 9.6 issues I’ve sold – Gretzky, Musial, Mays, Williams, Clay, Robinson, to name a few, all are still with their original owners.  This Gretzky represents the first, five figure issue of its type to hit public auction, albeit a modest 9.4. 

Fact – our hobby has a few pioneers – those individuals that saw the value early on and have been buying the best of the best for the past five years.  For example, as part of my start-up operation, I sold a CGC 9.8 Gretzky four years ago for $8000.  At the time, it was somewhat of a buyer’s risk – but it’s easily worth ten times that amount today.   And these few pioneers are happy to keep gobbling up the most premium stuff at Super, and I emphasize Super, discounted prices that have lagged so far behind their actual and/or projected value, it’s just an investor’s bonanza.

Because they are the only game in town for now, they have self-imposed limits, suppressing the really big advances – a monopoly of sorts.  This Gretzky auction may bring out the first “no limit” buyers – buyers that will change the landscape as we now know it.  When that happens, across the board pricing will increase not incrementally, but hundreds and hundreds of percentage points at a time. 

In just three to four years, the value increases we’ve seen on these high grade, iconic issues, kind of makes you wonder when auction numbers will begin to actually reflect where the market is headed and not where it is.  Maybe Gretzky will be the first.  

I predict this Gretzky will surpass the ALL IN total of $15,000, a number I consider the ice breaker signaling the beginning of a movement that will quickly gather growing momentum.

If you can believe my value scale below – if a 1983 CGC 9.8 Jordan cover were to hit the market today (value uncertainty keeps this from happening), you would quickly understand why owners are not selling.  The top line is what I project the value for a one of a kind, significant demand superstar cover.  The rest would follow based on the top number. 

1983 Sports Illustrated Michael Jordan, FC, CGC 9.8
Believe or Not…  I’m always inviting someone to prove me wrong.
9.8 – $1MM
9.6 – $500M
9.4 – $100M
9.2 – $50M
9.0 – $25M

Is this crazy or what?  And guess what? – there are several other mag publications just waiting their turn for the same type of value increases.

What an awesome time to be on the leading edge of such a great opportunity.
Best of Luck.

I hope you are enjoying the reads on the history of SI, SPORT, and TIME magazines as well as an insight into relevant magazine collecting.

Great collecting to you and best fortunes with Sports Illustrated/SPORT magazines.

For a complete review of previous blogs, please visit www.sportsillustrated98.com