Are We In A Sports Card Bubble?

Sports Cards Bubble Market in 2021…Boom or Bust?

Over the last 12 months, during the year of COVID, we have seen the largest boom in the sports cards hobby in 30 years. The reasons can be debated, but it’s clear that the pandemic has brought a lot of people into the hobby – and maybe not for the first time. The interest and subsequent booming values of “junk era” cards are all the evidence we should need to draw the conclusion that 30 and 40-somethings who’ve lost jobs or are working from home have dug back into their old collections, dusted off the old binders, and have downed a heaping gulp of nostalgia.

The hobby has been on the rise – especially the interest in NBA and NFL cards – for a number of years, and my theory is that people with time and extra money (thank you stimulus) started dabbling again for the first time since the early ’90s and saw that the hobby had a lot to offer.

Well, nostalgia is powerful, and fast forward a year and just look at the absolutely CRAZY prices for cards that we all know and love, but that we also know are not particularly scarce. Take the iconic 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr rookie card as example. PSA10 examples are selling currently (as of February 12, 2021) for $5300. A year ago, you could acquire one of these for about $650. That’s an 8-fold increase in 12 months. Among retired, hall of fame names, even established current players, that kind of increase would be unheard of pre-2020. And it’s happening like this across the board with hall of fame, legendary players. And prices are nuts for even modern, current players, and of course, even prospects who have yet to play a single game.

So what should we expect? As things start to get back to some sort of “normal”, I would expect trading card values to come back to earth a bit and level off, but because of the tremendous interest we’ve seen – not just in trading cards and collectibles, but in bitcoin, NFTs, and other non-traditional investment opportunities – I don’t think we’ll see values fall to post-junk era prices again. The last year may have inflated prices to historic proportions, and those who bought high might lose some money, BUT in general, I think this last year has been very good for the future of the sports card hobby. All of our collections and investments have, most likely, appreciated handsomely in the last year. So sell high (if you’re smart), but if you’re holding or just collecting, I think you’ll be happy with the appreciation your cards will likely have for a number of years to come.

Just my opinion of course. Everyone has one 😉