There is no doubt that the last 12 months have been unlike anything we have ever seen in the history of cards. If someone had come to me and explained the contributing factors that led to this new world order, I would have laughed so hard, I would have likely hurt myself. Because of the way the discourse of the hobby has shifted, its easy to see where people usually stand on the issue. Believe it or not, there sure is a lot of complaining given the utopian circumstances right now.
Collectors are usually very apt to comment on how insane it is that new wax is selling for what it is, especially for desirable legacy products. Pre-sale for once cheap and fun products are suddenly the cost of mid range products of previous years. Sets like Topps Opening Day baseball, the entry level door on the entry level of baseball products sold out in record time for its initial go as an online release.
On the flip side of that, are the investor chats, that are led by a group of accounts directly aimed at cards becoming the new darling of the high dollar world. Because there are so many new people buying, it presents a few different situations that can be an enormous challenge to overcome. First, knowing what cards to buy is inherently complicated. Hundreds of sets, thousands of autographs, and a community that has years to decades worth of experience ahead of any new entry into the hobby. With most of these people joining for the “money making potential” instead of the usual reasons to dive in, the ease by which these people can be influenced is unheard of.
As a result, there are a number of accusations of this new boom being funded much like a pump and dump grift, led by some of the social media influencers that have a huge following. Because their instagram posts, youtube videos and facebook engagements are seen by tens of thousands of hungry investors, a single mention can send cards soaring. Without any regulation in place, it can be a breeding ground for giant conflicts of interest that would be heavily scrutinized in other industries.
Here is how it could work in theory. Lets say a primary influencer or colleague of an influencer acquires a nice card, or a series of nice cards. Things that would normally be within reason to pick up, and not some super premium example that would be desirable no matter what. The primary influencer either posts about this card on their social media, lauding how much of a hidden gem it is, or that they have made a huge investment to pick up a bunch of that item. Naturally, being a big influencer, these posts are shared all around and the lemmings head to eBay to pick them up. Within days, the cards have shot up in value, and the original individual can now sell their investment at a multiple of what they paid.
This is an oversimplified example, but there are some major red flags that are popping up all over the place. Giant deals between friends publicized to inflate value of other copies, or similarly important cards. If it happens frequently enough, and enough of the new eyes get wind of it, the original artificial pump and dump becomes lost in a sea of sharks looking to capitalize.
If we go back in time, this isnt the first time pump and dump has been widely accused a number of times, most notably on message boards in regards to Michael Jordan cards. Many users of these sites devised that a small group of collectors were working together to increase the value of desirable and or rare Michael Jordan cards from the late 90s and early 2000s. Although nothing ever came of it, whenever a big sale would go down, post after post would pop up detailing the intent.
In terms of the current threads, I have seen accusations thrown around that range from small inflations to enormous conspiring groups, and all of them seem plausible, if not only because the public is behaving in such a ridiculously inconsistent manner. Not only does this spur more speculation of a bubble, but it points to other examples in financial history where similar schemes have been enacted with varying levels of success.
This situation is only further exacerbated by the burgeoning creation of investment services, run by well informed collectors who seem to have a following of people paying them for advice on which cards are the next to explode. The most recent example is the series of Jay-Z cards that were released in Topps products earlier in the 2010s. These cards went from generally inexpensive to highly coveted in a matter of weeks, spurred by influencers on Social Media talking about them non-stop.
Funny thing is, I would expect that because hobby discourse has become spread through so many platforms, there is as much hype generated by collectors just openly communicating about fun things they find as much as it is planned pump and dump schemes.
Being that I am generally disconnected, most of what I am picking up is second hand information, all considering that my main focus in this hobby is still generally unaffected by the boom. I have a feeling we will be discussing these types of situations for years to come, and I would guess the muddied waters will make things very complicated to trace. Other times, it could be easy to trace a wave back to the pebble thrown in an ocean. As I have said for 10 plus years on this blog, if there is money to be made, there will be many people who look to exploit the uninformed to make more of it.