The Cardboard Investment

Bubbles Always Pop

Who would have thought that a world wide pandemic would throw gasoline on the sports card market? I sure did not, because if I did this story would be much different.

Building up to the pandemic there was a few events that led up to the sports card market growing very quickly.

Michael Jordan released his "Last Dance" series which reminded a number of collectors of the other 80s and 90s stars that were featured in the film. Modern basketball was already heating up in price of super stars and now hall of famers were on fire.

Kobe Bryant dying caused collectors to further flock to basketball cards of his and other former stars. Soon cards were going for 3 or 4 times what there were a few months prior. Speculation set in and current young players with potential all of a sudden caused their cards to blow up. People in their 30s and 40s began to notice some news stories or friends talking about the value of these cards. Some people made an attempt to get back in the hobby, further the demand and price increase.

Media influencers like Steve Aoki and Gary V began promoting certain cards and grading companies. This caused a lot of people to buy the same types of cards all at one time, reducing supply while increasing demand. Online communities were growing as forums, ebay, and social media all started to feel the explosion of the hobby. Almost any person in the world could now tune in to live updates on opinions, market movements, media influences, and the ability to buy, sell and trade at all times of the day and night. Fear of missing out kicked in and people started buying things that were rapidly increasing in price, sometimes making people a fortune.

Prices of everything skyrocketed and flipping of retail products became a huge game. Buying boxes or packs of new products at Walmart or Target and selling them for 4x what you paid online. Manufacturers kept printing and upped production counts between 2018 and 2021 to try and meet demand. It was impossible as buyers would line up at these stores waiting for the vendor deliveries or they would follow the vendors from store to store. Sometimes they would buy over $500 worth of new products to flip if they were lucky.

People were throwing large amounts of money at grading submissions, all chasing the infamous PSA 10 or BGS 9.5. Collectors and resellers would send in hundreds if not thousands of cards to be graded at a time. With prices costing at least $10 per card graded, and sometimes much higher, the prices were ignored with the possibility of getting a number of perfectly graded cards that would more than cover the grading costs. The grading companies were getting swamped and delays were occurring that would force customers to have to wait up to a year for their orders to be returned. If someone was willing to pay a premium, they could guarantee their cards backs much quicker, but it also upped the overall cost substantially. The amount of these graded cards gave a pretty good idea of the amount of cards being produced by manufacturers, and the numbers were astonishing.

Many hobbyists believed that over production was what killed the hobby in the 1990's. The now artificially inflated 1990s cards were beginning to grow in popularity at the start of the andemic, and now manufacturers were printing even more cards than they were 30 years ago. With the madness that was occurring, one would only think that this bubble would burst on its own and there would be no way it would grow further with a pandemic spreading and lock downs being implemented. That person would be wrong and this was only the beginning.