THE ERA OF MILLION-DOLLAR SPORTS CARDS

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V24 2021 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 24, Number 9, February 28, 2021, Article 36

We've discussed before the rise of sports cards as a hot collectible and investing area. The New York Times published an article about it last week. It was republished by Art Daily with the great headline, "Move over, Honus: A new era of million-dollar cards is here." The classic Honus Wagner baseball card has long brought headlines and record prices, but today "players no longer have to be dead — or even retired — for their cards to sell for astronomical figures." -Editor

The modern cards are taking the market by storm, said Chris Ivy, the director of sports at Heritage Auctions. The vintage market is very strong, too, but the modern cards have joined in.

Of the top 10 prices paid for sports cards at public auction, seven were cards of modern stars who were playing as recently as 1999, and five of the 10 cards have players pictured who are still active. The list, however, is ever changing. A rising star card in the collectibles world is an immaculate so-called Logo Man card of Zion Williamson and Ja Morant (the top two picks from the 2019 NBA draft). It can be had on eBay for a cool half a million dollars — just click on Add To Cart.

The industry is at its hottest point in my 40-year history, Ken Goldin, the founder of Goldin Auctions, said in an email. It is nearly impossible to keep up with demand from buyers.

Ivy said that with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down many businesses, the sports collectibles industry expected hard times, too. But the opposite happened.

It's not something I saw coming, he said. We, like many businesses, were tightening our belts preparing for a potential downturn, but the fact that we've see so much interest and so many people jumping in the market is a bit surprising.

And the market continues to boil. Earlier this month, a 1997 Michael Jordan card fetched $1.4 million at auction. The soaring prices have created such a frenzy that investment groups are being formed to buy cards, making it harder for individual collectors to compete — even extraordinarily wealthy ones.

The driving force behind the surge in modern card values, Ivy explained, is a new breed of collector, many of whom are similar to Davis — millionaires in their 40s and 50s who see sports cards as both a hobby and an investment. They hunt for the finest cards available, featuring athletes whom they actually watched play, like James, Trout, Jordan and the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, whose unique 1979 O-Pee-Chee rookie card sold for $1.29 million in December.

The Gretzky card belongs to the older category of cards. It was printed at the O-Pee-Chee plant in London, Ontario, Canada, to be sold in wax packs along with an almost inedible piece of gum, for kids to collect, trade or wedge into their bicycle spokes.

The valuable modern cards are a completely different animal. These packs are not sold by the thousands at candy stores, and no kid is likely to have ever flipped one in the park. The new ones are produced in micro batches, like signature wines, often with a swatch of authenticated uniform fabric affixed to the card, and the player's real signature emblazoned over a flashy chrome design.

Whereas the supply of old cards from baseball's antiquity were culled over time through wear and tear and loss, the newer cards, which date only to the beginning of this century, have scarcity built into them by limiting the supply at the front end.

I got a kick out of the photo of the collector who "brings security to the bank when he visits his LeBron James cards." The two cards pictured are estimated at $7 million. It reminds me of the spectacle of Eric Streiner marching through a coin bourse with a phalanx of security guards after purchasing the Ted Naftzger large cent collection - security theatre as a marketing strategy. -Editor