Welcome to my Sports Illustrated/TIME magazine blog – Your collector’s guide to the latest hobby updates and insight into what’s trending now.
 
 This blog is meant to be an experienced voice, guiding interested investors/collectors down the path of the most informative decision making possible.

As our hobby expands, “fair pricing” has become a hot topic.  I hear and read about the lack of comparables (the holy grail in the card hobby), but that objection is easily remedied.

Mags are a little different in that exact comparables are scarce but indirect comparables are readily available.  It makes a lot of sense that there are certain issues and grades that can logically be compared to each other.  Using these parameters – athlete, year, POP, and grade, you can easily and accurately, arrive at a “comparable”.

So when you see a 64 CGC 9.4 Brooks Robinson for $33,000, you can use these parameters to gauge if it’s a good buy or not.

Graded SI mags have experienced such growth in buyers that the demand is catching up to the supply.  That has long been the drag on the hobby. 

It’s important to note, there are such low levels of supply that once this supply/demand concept starts to turn, issues at the top of the scale (most valuable) will become unstable, and rise in price, until a balance, again, is reached between supply and demand.

The message here is that the high grade SI vintage newsstand magazine is no longer a secret.

And when everyone is buying Mickey Mantle, that’s the time to buy Willie Mays.

Stay tuned in my next blog for the next big thing.