When You Play Your Cards Right

By Nisvan Guzman

“Ziooon! Zion auto!” exclaimed Tommy, a “breaker” from the collectible sports cards store, Cards and Coffee, in Los Angeles. It was 1 o’clock in the morning, and he was transmitting live on Instagram from the store’s stockroom to an audience of over 200 viewers. Tommy had just ripped open a new pack of high-end collectible basketball cards. Each pack holds a random assortment of current and former players, and inside this one was the elusive Zion Williamson rookie card autographed by the player himself.

Many in the sports industry consider Zion the second coming of Lebron James, so naturally, his rookie cards were considered extremely valuable to the sports card collecting “hobby” community. “So sick! Congrats!” commented user @23jordan707 as the live feed was flooded by floating, disappearing heart emojis.

Before Zion came along, there wasn’t much hype around sports card collecting. In 2018, one could easily walk into their local Target, stroll to the toy aisle, and find shelves stocked with an abundant amount of boxes of the latest basketball, football, and baseball trading cards. They would sit on the shelves for weeks as people walked past them and didn’t even bother to look at the new products.

All of that changed in 2020, when the spreading COVID-19 pandemic kept people indoors for months and shut down the professional sports world. Then, in August 2020, news broke that a baseball card had set a record for the most expensive card sold to date ($3.93 million). It featured one of the best players in Major League Baseball (MLB0, Mike Trout. It was graded a “mint 9” by BGS, the toughest professional collectable grading company in the world. It was also autographed by Mr. Trout and one-of-a-kind in existence.

Seller Dave Oancea originally purchased the card for $400,000 in 2018. “I always think outside the box. Most people for $400,000 would want to buy a house, not me. I want to buy a baseball card,” he responded when asked on his personal YouTube channel about why he purchased the card.

The news attracted sport lovers, collectors, and people who just wanted to make a quick buck. Suddenly, the packs of cards sitting on the shelves of Target were getting scooped up faster than the hand sanitizer during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Oscar Gonzalez started going to Target every Monday through Friday hoping to catch the vendor who stocked the shelves with sports cards from Panini, the company that manufactures the cards). “One time, I showed up at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday and there was a line outside...I already knew it was for sports cards,” he said. “I waited for one hour, until I heard somebody say he’s not coming.” The store protocol for handling the restock was to make guests wait outside while the vendor filled the shelf. On this day, however, there was no vendor inside the store. People were simply waiting outside for the chance that he might show up that day so they could get first dibs.

One day, Gonzalez was able to get his hands on a couple packs but was hesitant to open them. “What if the cards inside are worthless? I could sell the unopened packs and double my money,” he thought. It’s true that a single card could be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. But a large percentage of the cards end up being worthless because they are not rookie cards, or are of less successful players. Gonzalez ended up ripping open one pack of the cards, selling the rest on OfferUp for $100, pocketing a $60 profit. Target and other big box stores were not the only businesses affected by the surge in sports cards. Professional grading companies that grade cards and other collectibles were backed up for months and even had to suspend services because people were submitting their cards for authentication at such a record pace. The reason people send their cards for evaluation is, like fine art, to potentially increase their value over time. A card graded a “gem mint 10” is worth nearly three times more than an ungraded card.

Still, Gonzalez found himself constantly returning to Instagram to watch the live online feeds of people opening their card packs, known as “breaking the wax.” One feed, The Coffee Breaks, usually streamed late into the night, featured celebrity guests and regularly offered free giveaways. The livestream also connected likeminded collectors.

“What should I do with my brick cards?” post- ed Gonzalez on the live feed. Brick cards refer to the cards that have little to no value. “Send them to me,” responded Jordan, another viewer. They both communicated and Jordan was willing to cover shipping costs if Gonzalez sent him the cards. Gonzalez agreed and was happy to clear some space in his closet. Jordan was happy to add the cards to his collection.

“Jordan and I became friends,” Gonzalez said. “We love talking about the latest releases, what we picked up that week, and about our favorite teams”. When Americans were promised stimulus checks during the pandemic, Gonzalez already knew what he was going to do with the money. As soon as the money hit his Chase account, he hit up eBay, where collectors can buy single cards, packs, boxes, even whole collections. He knew exactly which card he wanted, a 2017 Patrick Mahomes Optic rookie card. Gonzalez added the card to his watch list and 15 seconds before the auction ended, he placed his bid - $565.00 - nearly his entire stimulus check.

Gonzalez believed his purchase was an investment. Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs had already won their first Super Bowl and were on their way to another Super Bowl appearance. But things did not go as planned.

When the Chiefs made their second consecutive Super Bowl appearance in 2021, Gonzalez saw the value of his card quickly rise to nearly $1,000. He was tempted to sell his card, but hesitated. “What if they win the Super Bowl again and its value goes even higher?” he thought. Gonzelez decided to roll the dice and keep his card. It turned out to be a bad decision because Mahomes and the Chiefs lost that year to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ten months later, that card was selling for an average of $471. In 2021, the collectible card hobby really exploded when the record set by the Trout card was broken in January by a Mickey Mantle baseball card and then again in August by the 1909 Honus Wagner card, which sold for $6.6 million.

However, the demand and interest for collectible cards has slowed since the height of the pandemic, especially since sports are back in full swing and fewer stores are livestreaming packet reveals on Instagram. But many collectors are still buying card packs, keeping an eye out for any big reveals online, and hoping the next big thing to be found is still in the cards.