CHICAGO — Forget Wall Street. Jim & Steve’s Sportscards in Waukegan may have had the hottest initial public offering Wednesday: the Topps 2021 Series 1 baseball cards.
Collectors grabbed $149 boxes filled with 24 packs of 14 cards each before they hit the shelves, just the latest example of how million-dollar sales and speculative traders are turning the onetime children’s hobby into a high-stakes investment game.
“Business is probably at an all-time high,” said Steve Wilson, 52, owner of the north suburban shop since it opened in 1981. “Investors, collectors, they’re sitting at home, they’ve got nothing else to do.”
Baseball trading cards are booming during the pandemic, with record sales of vintage cards, skyrocketing prices for new cards and an influx of collectors — old and new. Some industry analysts see pandemic stay-at-home boredom as fueling a resurgence of interest, as parents rediscover the hobby and share it with their children.
Investors who saw big returns on the stock market last year also have begun to buy into trading cards as an alternative to equities, pumping up prices for the cardboard commodity.
With growing demand far outstripping supply, it may be hard for kids to get to first base in starting their own collections.
“People are waiting in line for stores to open now,” said Jason Koonce, 38, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, an influential sports memorabilia broker who has been trading cards for fun and profit since he was 10. “The unfortunate part is it’s taking it away from the kids, because you’re pricing them out.”
Koonce said new cards are immediately worth 3 to 10 times the retail price in the secondary market, if they are sold unopened, which preserves the value and holds the promise of a future Hall of Famer or a limited edition autographed card.
Recent sales should send anyone whose mom didn’t throw out their collection rummaging through the attic.
Last month, a 1952 Mickey Mantle card in mint condition sold for a record $5.2 million. That topped the August sale of an autographed 2009 Mike Trout rookie card that sold online at Goldin Auctions for a then-record $3.9 million.
Hoping to find the next Mike Trout, speculators are paying thousands of dollars for an autographed Spencer Torkelson card, even though the top draft pick by the Detroit Tigers in June has yet to play a minute in the majors.
Torkelson is one of 200 prospects from the 2020 Bowman Draft collection, a Topps product released in December. The company randomly inserts three autographed cards into a box. The collection, which has a suggested retail price of about $150 per hobby box, sold out quickly online.
Wilson said he still has a “healthy supply” of the draft prospect boxes, priced at $500 each.
“Torkelson might never make the majors. It’s a possibility,” Wilson said. “And then all these dollars that were thrown at him or spent on his cards would go for naught. Or he could be the next greatest player in Detroit history.”
The path from quirky collectible to high-priced investment traces back to the 1991 launch of Professional Sports Authenticator, a California-based company that grades the quality of trading cards. The company uses a 10-point system, with a 10 being “Gem Mint” condition.
