A Share of a Near Mint 1949 Babe Ruth Baseball Card, Please

Like many collectors, I enjoy my personal baseball card collection and every few months pull out my baseball card albums to thumb through highlights such as my 1948 Bowman baseball cards, my 1968 Johnny Bench Topps rookie card, and my autographed 2000 Fleer Greats of the Game cards. But I still dream of the truly elite cards-top condition cards of hall-of-fame rookies and sharp tobacco-era cards that are far beyond my price range to purchase.

These baseball cards were out of my price range, that is, until CardTarget.com began selling shares of these elite cards on its internet page in 2006. Now, I own small portions of nearly fifty vintage cards in top conditions, including a 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams rookie graded PSA 8, a 1948 Bowman Stan Musial rookie graded PSA 9, and a 1963 Topps Mickey Mantle grade PSA 9. The CardTarget market even has a one-of-a-kind card that is nearly one-hundred years old-the only known T206 card of hall-of-fame pitcher Christy Mathewson with a rare Broadleaf 460 tobacco brand back.

Another card that is nearly one-hundred years old is a T206 tobacco card of hall-of-famer Napolean Lajoie in amazing PSA 9 condition! CardTarget also has other sports represented in its collection, including football cards such as mint condition rookie cards of Gale Sayers, Walter Payton, and Joe Montana; basketball cards like a top condition Michael Jordan rookie; and hockey cards like a Wayne Gretzky rookie and a 1911 card of goalkeeper legend Georges Vezina. There is even a single female athlete-track and golf legend Babe Didrickson.

Shares of each of these cards sold at CardTarget for $10 a share, with 165 to 1,600 shares of the cards offered depending on the card's value. After the shares are sold-sometimes in a few hours, sometimes over one week-collectors can buy and sell shares via the CardTarget.com web page. Some cards have jumped in value, with the Mathewson card with the rare back rising in price to nearly $20 a share. Others have fallen in value, with a 1948 Bowman Yogi Berra dipping to about $5 a share. Most cards currently hover within a dollar of the $10 per share price. Because the cards are backed by an elite vintage card that is insured and stored in safe deposit vault, the share prices are tied to the values of the cards on the market.

Thus, the 1948 Berra Bowman card's share price dropped as auctions of similar cards showed the card was initially overvalued, while the collection's five rare T206 cards with Broadleaf 460 cards have risen in share value due to their scarcity. In a few cases, cards have even been purchased outright out of the market, with the shareholders getting payment based on their portion of shares owned and the total sales price. For example, a 1958 Topps Willie Mays card in PSA 9 condition sold from the market yielded about $15 per share for each shareholder.

Owning a share of high priced items is not a new concept. Famously, Wayne Gretzky once co-owned the highest graded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card with several other investors. Most sports teams and many works of art are owned by partnerships. But CardTarget has innovatively created an internet model that allows small shares of these cards to be owned by hobbyists and to be bought or sold on their web page with a modest 6 percent seller's fee (much less than the postage, handling, and auction fees required for traditional card sales).

The obvious question is why buy shares of a card that I will never see or touch? Indeed, this is not a substitute for my collection in my bedroom closet. But I will never own a 1941 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio card graded in near-mint condition on my own. Now, along with 65 other collectors, I do own a share of the 1941 DiMaggio. I cannot hold the card, but I can go to the CardTarget.com page to see high quality scans of the card, see prices for recent auctions of similar cards as well as track the share price's fluctuation, and exchange comments about the card with other collectors on the web page's message boards.

I can follow my investor instincts and buy more shares of cards that I think are undervalued, hoping to sell for a profit later, or buy more shares to lower the average cost per share of my collection if prices decline. I still have my 1948 Bowman cards in fair to good condition in my personal collection, but I also own shares of the key Berra and Musial cards from this set in close to mint condition via CardTarget.com. I have learned more about some of the most famous and sought after vintage cards in this hobby by owning shares in CardTarget over the last few months than I did from having a personal collection sitting in my closet for the last few decades.

(Author's note: The CardTarget partial shares market is available at www.cardtarget.com. The author is not financially connected with CardTarget, but is a user of CardTarget's eTopps and partial shares markets.)