There are certain things that I could understand spending an exorbitant amount of money on, especially if you make a ton of it. When I saw the price that the Strasburg superfractor is going for, it had past the point of sanity by at least 7,000 dollars. I mean, this card is now eclipsing the cost of a mid size car, all for a guy that has not pitched a single pitch in pro ball. It would be one thing if it were a hundred bucks, or even two hundred, but when you get up into this price range, it becomes investment suicide.
I get that Strasburg is dominating at AAA, but there have been a handful of times where a guy who dominates at a lower level does not come close in the bigs. Strasburg looks like he will be great, but with the propensity of fireball pitchers to burn out, is it worth taking a high dollar risk on a non-autographed card? I mean, if the non auto is going for as much as it is, what happens when the auto version is listed? I think this auction could drive up the price of both Topps and Bowman Chrome to a point of craziness, even before release.
It comes down to hype versus actual production, something we have yet to be able to compare. The closest person in terms of hype and production is Tim Lincecum who had the benefit of the hype machine back in 2007. Since 2007, Lincecum has been ridiculous, winning two Cy Young awards and being a general pitching superhero. His Superfractor was autographed in 2007, and if sold today, would have trouble hitting the price this Strasburg is at with MORE than 5 days to go. Lets say this card ends higher than 15,000 dollars, is there really a good chance that it is going to be worth half of that come 10 years from now? Probably not. Is there a good chance this card wouldnt break 10K once the auto version is released and pulled? I dont think so. This begs the question then of why anyone would ever think of paying as much as this is going for.
Just ridiculous, pure and simple.