Memorabilia market slumps

Wanna buy an autographed Barry Bonds baseball? Cheap?

Longtime memorabilia dealer Mike Weber has three such balls, squirreled away while the San Francisco Giants slugger pursued baseball’s all-time home run record.

“I knew that he was probably dirty,” Weber said, referring to allegations of Bonds’ steroids use. “But he could also end up in the Hall of Fame. I paid good money for them. But now?”

Weber got a wistful, faraway look as if he saw his investments dropping into McCovey Cove like some of Bonds’ homers. “I can’t sell them now,” he added. “I took them off the market. Nobody wants to buy them.”

Fans used to pay hundreds for a baseball autographed by Bonds or Roger Clemens or Mark McGwire. But the bottom has dropped out of the market for their memorabilia like a sinker in the dirt.

“They’ve really dropped, no question about it,” said Rich Mueller, editor of sportscollectorsdaily.com. “McGwire especially; the rise and fall of his rookie card and historic home-run balls were phenomenal. They plummeted completely over the steroids allegations.”

McGwire set the gold-to-lead standard for collectors. His 1985 Topps rookie card (featuring the former A’s star as a member of the United States Olympic team) soared to $3,000 in 1998. It’s now under $10.

“He was as hot as they come in the late ‘90s,” Mueller said. “But when he came before Congress (in 2005), his stuff fell out of sight. And Bonds is kind of the same way.”

Sports memorabilia represent a $1 billion business. But investors gravitate to older items and away from controversy.

“This industry is really driven by vintage stuff,” said Mueller, a former sports anchor on Sacramento’s KTXL and longtime collector who now lives in Indiana. “The value of items from the 1930s and ‘50s are consistently good and continue to rise.”

Players involved in the current controversy are, well, just too new and too available. “Scarcity is key,” Mueller said. “There are only so many Lou Gehrig (items) out there.”

Weber has more than 10,000 signed items in his sprawling memorabilia store in the Phoenix area. His shop, Hall of Fame Collectables, is the largest of its kind in the Southwest.

Name the sport or the athlete and Weber likely has a signed memento. Football, NBA and stars of yesteryear are hot sellers. Brett Favre, Joe Montana, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Ted Williams and Nolan Ryan bring top dollar.

“Through all the years and all the sports, there are thousands and thousands of athletes,” Weber said. “And every one of them has some memorabilia out there. The players involved in this (steroids) scandal make up maybe one-millionth of the business.”

Baseball’s Mitchell Report named 86 players, but the controversy threw a curve into the market for only a select few stars.

“After Bonds and Clemens, the other guys are nobodies,” Weber said. “There was no market for them anyway. “

The list of other devalued players includes Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco. A player need not admit to steroids use. Just the accusation is enough to make his signature slide.

For example, an autographed Clemens ball slipped from $500 last year to about $225 now and sinking.

Bonds’ autographed mementos peaked in 2001 during the slugger’s record-breaking, 73-home run season. Game-used bats with his signature went as high as $15,000. Now, those sticks are valued in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. His autographed baseballs sold for $360 to $500. Now, they’re offered at $200 or less. A quick check on eBay this week produced 11 below $100.

“I haven’t had a request for any Bonds stuff since November,” Weber noted.

Historic home runs represent another layer of the market. Bonds’ record-breaking 756th home-run ball sold in September for $752,467 including a 20 percent commission. The actual bid was just more than $600,000.

Home run No. 755, the ball that tied Hank Aaron’s record, sold for $186,750, according to Sotheby’s/SCP Auctions.

Bonds’ last home run ball, No. 762, was up for auction online this week. SCP Auctions hopes the souvenir, snagged by a 24-year-old fan in Denver, will hit seven figures, but that’s unlikely.

None of these Bonds souvenirs was even in the ballpark of the $3 million bid for McGwire’s then-record 70th home run ball from his 1998 season. Bought in January 1999 by Spawn comics creator Todd McFarlane, it toured the country with other record-setting home run balls dubbed the McFarlane Collection. “It sounds better than ‘The Guy Who Has More Money Than Brains’ collection,” McFarlane said at the time.

The super-priced balls are more about personal promotion than investment, Mueller noted. “If it was only collectors bidding, you wouldn’t see anywhere near that kind of money.”

Hitting memorabilia sales harder than any drug scandal is the current downturn in the economy, say sellers. Collectors have less money to spend on any item.

In its annual retailer survey, Card Trade magazine reported that hobby shop sales were down 47 percent in 2007 from the year before. Some card companies such as Upper Deck are cutting back production because of lack of buyers.