Many credit cards have experienced price advances ranging from 1,000%-2,000% in the last 24 months. There are two main reasons for these price increases:
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A strong credit card collector base
Credit pieces have a strong collector base, which means most cards are tightly held. This is particularly true of the scarcer cards. This means that if someone wants to buy one, they usually have to pay a high price to get a long-time collector interested in selling.
Most collectors keep desirable duplicates back as traders. Credit card collectors know that once a particular piece is sold, they’ll probably not get a chance to own another one, so cards are priced high.
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Credit cards were priced too low
Prices for credit cards and credit pieces started out low. For example, a few years ago national paper credit cards were available for $2.00 each. Now national paper credit cards can be sold for $40.00, a 2,000% increase.
If a collector really wanted a particular paper card, it would be reasonable to assume he might be willing to pay another $20.00 for it or a price of $60.00. The collector figures “So what’s another $20.00? Big deal.” In a sense it is a “big deal,” depending on what percentage increase you’re looking at.
The collector figures a price movement from $40.00 to $60.00 is just a $20.00 advance or only a 50% jump. Collectors of just a few years back see something they paid $2.00 for jump $20.00 in one transaction or a percentage increase of 1,000%. Now the $2.00 card is worth $60.00 for a price increase of 3,000%.
These are the two main reasons credit piece prices have large percentage increases, tight supplies and inexpensive base prices.
Copyright 1988 by Greg Tunks
