The Hot Yet Disheartening State Of Sports Card Collecting
There’s no recreating the days growing up, perusing the dustiest and most authentic flea markets eastern Pennsylvania had to offer in search of “card guys.” Card guys, as my mother and I referred to them, were men who sold sports and other trading cards at their stands or splintery wooden tables across the many farmer’s markets, fleas, and auction halls in our area. Some of these characters were collectors themselves, while others were just in it for the hardly lucrative business. This was the mid-90s; the latter part of the golden age for sports card collecting — still amidst the heat of the junk wax era — when everyone was mostly buying for the sake of owning a Jordan rookie. There wasn’t yet big money in cards, though anyone buying up packs to break or copping singles was doing so in the slight hope that someday these bad boys would be worth something.
That time is now, apparently. The sports card market is the hottest it has ever been, according to influencers, card investors, and others who have made collecting and reselling their entire online persona. I wouldn’t have been aware of this had I not just recently come back into possession of the exceedingly decent collection I built up when I was a young lad purely buying for the thrill and excitement that stem from hoarding tendencies. While the values of NBA cards, specifically, have shot up and more than doubled in a year, there’s a couple unfortunate facts that come along with this market skyrocket.
Namely, the “hobby” isn’t what it once was. I’m not sure if card collecting can even be labelled a hobby anymore. What was once populated primarily by people who just liked owning cards — young sports fans and older guys who needed some shred of light — is now overridden with opportunistic douchebags just looking to make a buck. The name of the game is no longer owning a Kobe Bryant chrome refractor to look at and admire because he’s your hero and it happens to be an attractive card. Goals have shifted towards buying that Kobe Bryant chrome refractor at a low price from some poor sap who doesn’t know what he has, paying money to have it graded by an organization that decided they’re important, and then selling that Kobe for thousands.
The other unfortunate fact, which likely isn’t a saddening new development for dedicated longtime collectors, is that grading is of essential importance if you truly want to make decent money selling your cards. Being that grades are in high demand, and therefore companies like PSA are overwhelmed with submissions, the process is more expensive and tedious than ever.
Several months back while visiting home, my sister, who I hadn’t seen in 3 years, disappeared into her basement storage area and returned with a tupperware container. In it were 3 shoeboxes and 2 binders full of NBA cards. Despite having forgotten this collection existed, I was thrilled to see these cards and now preoccupied with reviewing them, doing a little research, and seeing what value they may hold. After all, I hadn’t actually purchased a card since 2004, so there was no sense holding onto them even longer. The last I had even held these boxes was in 2012, when I took my compilation to a small sports card shop in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where the less-than-enthused and far-from-welcoming owner with a thick mustache and bubbling beer gut told me “These are worthless.” Mind you, he didn’t even scavenge through the boxes and eyeball specific cards. After a quick introduction and glance over he informed me nobody’s buying NBA cards. Either he was in a mood and just looking to disappoint a desperate college student, or he was right — the market for NBA cards in 2012 was nearly nonexistent.
8 years passed, I was reacquainted with these cards, and even if the demand for them were no higher it would still be fun to look through and see what I had. Man, I must have been bugging my parents for a lot of money at those fleas and auctions growing up, because my collection was nothing to sneeze at — Loads of rookies from All-stars during my youth, like Iverson, KG, Tracy McGrady, Dirk, Paul Pierce, and others. A slew of interesting cards from 80s and early 90s players like Karl Malone, Barkley, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, and Hakeem The Dream. Several ordinary Jordans. A few 70s cards from the likes of Pete Maravich and Dr. J. Even a 1986 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Fleer sticker, which I’m still banking on while simultaneously not trying to set overly high expectations for.
The extensiveness of the overall collection and abundance of great player cards had me ready to do my research. I took to eBay, looking up specific cards, filtering to “sold items” and “highest price,” and lighting up at the thought of receiving these amounts. Card values on many notable ones I had were ranging from $400 to $15,000. Numbers alone were telling me the market must be popping. Then I took my research to blogs and YouTube, and that illuminated a whole world of which I wasn’t previously aware.
I figured the online realm of sports card investors and their shops and presences would be limited to Blogspot pages that looked like they haven’t been updated since 2008. To my surprise, there are thousands of current card blogs, and hundreds of YouTubers dedicated solely to sharing their collections, offering advice, and making predictions about the cards set to increase in value. Not old school YouTubers, either. These are regularly updated channels with large subscriber counts. To my even bigger surprise, influencers in the marketing and investing spaces were talking about sports card investing.
New Jersey personified, Gary Vaynerchuk, has been spending much of the pandemic creating content about sports cards, in the form of podcasts, YouTube videos, and blog posts. Gary V is a marketing influencer who does truly have a sway in online trends and an eye for what’s next in social media. He’s a purveyor of “hustle culture,” which I think is where you just talk about how many streams of passive income you have. Most importantly, Gary V is a man of influence who people turn to for internet culture forecasts, start-up ideas, and income advice.
When a man with an enormous following and legitimate influence is urging his readers, watchers, and listeners to invest in cards, it’s clear the game will no longer be dominated by lonely guys, old school collectors, and young hopefuls. The call from investing influencers to buy up cards transforms collecting from a hobby to an investing strategy like buying real estate, but instead of purchasing a loft to rent as an Air BnB, you’re buying a Zion Williamson card for $25, having it graded, and reselling for $200 a couple weeks later.
That call from investing social media personalities didn’t go unanswered. I watched obsessively as more sports card YouTubers posted videos more and more frequently. Guys and gals will film themselves busting open a box of packs from a range of years (the Panini boxes from recent years seem to be a big draw,) and tearing pack after pack on the hunt for any card that might be a hit. They document their PSA returns, where they go through the graded cards they’ve waited months for and finally received. The goal remains landing a PSA Gem Mint 10, the highest possible grade based on the card’s centering, surface, and corners, which merits the biggest selling price. Grading, though, is another issue itself, and right now the focus is YouTubers and podcasters buying up boxes and encouraging their audiences to do the same.
I’ve hit nearly every Target in a 20-mile radius on the hunt for packs of basketball cards. It’s not so much about the investing potential as it is about the temporary thrill of ripping a pack which also brings me back to far more innocent and exciting days. Unfortunately, the card sections in every one of these Target stores are bare, save for Magic Cards, Pokemon, and a few boxes of NHL cards. NBA and NFL are cleared out in each location, and those are just the ones around me. I can’t say what the lay of the selection looks like in other regions, but I CAN blame the market and subsequent flood of investors for there being no packs readily available.
This isn’t quite as disappointing to me, a guy who used to love collecting with a current desire to reignite that love, as say a father and son in the card hobby purely for the joy of it. Packs and boxes of NBA and NFL are difficult to come by, except of course online for outrageous prices from greedy bastards who decided to buy out Target and Wal-Mart.
Panini Prizm NBA box cases are selling on Ebay for 40 grand. Boxes from years with the most desirable cards, like 1986 Fleer Wax boxes, have been sold for $150,000. Buyers are paying over 6 figures for the mere shot at a Jordan rookie. Even in the absence of Jordan, a Barkley, Karl Malone, or Isiah Thomas rookie wouldn’t be terribly disappointing. It’s not crazy to theorize there was a time in the 90s when you could have found that very same box for $40 at a flea market from a guy on his third divorce.
The prices of cards themselves aren’t the only cost that has been jacked up. As of late, PSA, the pinnacle of card grading services, is now charging $50 a card for grading. The cost of having your card looked at and subjectively numbered has doubled in several month’s time. We could call that criminal, but they have to match demand.
Earlier this year, as PSA was overwhelmed with submissions, investors turned to the quote unquote lesser services like BGS and SGC for their grades. Given high volumes across the board, however, collectors were waiting awhile for submission returns regardless of which organization they submitted to. Hopefuls signed up for 30-day returns and waited 3 to 4 months. PSA recognized the madness and hired new employees, easing up on long return times, and winning back card collectors who were slowly starting to favor other services.
Those familiar with grading need no explanation. In short, a high card grade is, in some instances, the difference between earning $10 and $10,000. The name of the game is still receiving a PSA Gem Mint 10, the highest possible grade. Raw cards are an unlucrative risk. Graded cards remain where the money’s at. Even variation among grades greatly affects how much a seller can make. For example, a 1986 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Fleer Sticker in PSA 10 sells for $12,000. A PSA 9 sells for around $2,000. That’s a remarkable difference. Furthermore, a 10 from BGS or SGC isn’t as valuable as that highly coveted PSA 10. Your money-making opportunity in the card business still comes down to grades, but you’re going to have to wait awhile for your graded cards returned, and it’s going to cost you more than ever to even have them graded.
When Pawn Stars cast members are online displaying their card hauls, and DJ (or whatever he is) Steve Aoki is flashing his collection in Instagram stories, it’s safe to claim this is no longer an innocent, “purely for the fun of it” hobby. For some it may be. Plenty of longtime collectors or through and through sports fans still love having some cards to hold onto. On the flip side, there are people who have always been in this hoping to make money. Card collecting isn’t a new avenue for passive income, but it’s grown to be a wide path open to anyone and everyone who’s looking to cash out. People who have enjoyed the hobby for years are forced to pay more for cards and the grading process, but in turn they’re making more money off their collections. New collectors who entered the game already sitting on a stack of dough have a much easier time building up their lot. That’s the most disheartening fact, truly. What was once inexpensive fun for fans and collectors who had partial hope they could one day make money has transitioned into a game of investing that favors the greedy who are in the chips with or without their collections. A market this volatile is impossible to predict — it’s already down from mid-year, but still red hot. We’ll all just have to take our chances and hope holding onto cards wasn’t stupid.
