I was scrolling TikTok today like we all do when I stopped on the 17th sports card content creator making a video talking about the “frothiness” of the sports card market.
I have officially had enough of hearing people warning of a market top. (Also can we stop using the word froth, give me something else please.) Using fear or just making up a narrative to generate content or get people talking is just never what I am going to be about on my platform.
I’ve been writing about the card market now for almost 5 years, I’ve been writing regularly here on this newsletter for 3 years. In 2021, we saw a spike in the card market that was largely driven by a very unusual economic environment that included historically low interest rates and stimulus checks to keep people afloat following the pandemic.
That activity resulted in a very unhealthy and unusual run-up in almost all asset classes, including alternatives like sports cards. When that bubble burst, modern cards and speculative player markets were mostly impacted. Vintage cards sat through a year or so of more flat-line price action. Some of the ultra-high end cards like the ‘86 Fleer Michael Jordan PSA 10 topped out at ridiculous prices (The all time high sale on that card is still over $800,000 - more than double the recent sales this past month around $400,000.)
Outside of a few poorly timed top-of the market sales in that time period, almost every single card, across every vintage hall of fame player is up more than 100%. In fact on my podcast last week, I talked about several key vintage HOF player cards who have seen 100% or more growth in just the past year! (The Mickey Mantle index on CL in just the past year is up 117%)
Speaking of Card Ladder, they just published August public sales revenue - and not surprisingly, we posted a staggering new all-time high in total public trading volume at $885.09M for the month of August alone.
Just last week, Heritage closed their biggest auction of the year which I wrote about here on the newsletter.
Heritage set all-time highs across a number of key iconic cards including the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner in SGC A grade and 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8, two of the most important cards in the overall vintage card market. It was the highest grossing sports card auction in Heritage’s history.
There are more serious investors and collectors coming into the space for the first time, right now. I am talking to new card shop owners, sports card investors, and entrepreneurs in the space every day.
There is a cultural phenomenon happening currently when it comes to collecting. It’s become a popular part of pop-culture again. It’s also become a new alternative to art-work and self-expression for an entire generation of people.
I talked to Gary Vee about it at the National - (go back and listen to last week’s podcast) and we spent some time talking about a new category of vintage NON-SPORT cards that are now gaining a lot of media attention and headlines as their prices take off.
This price activity has seemed to make people think we are near a “market top”. That could not be any further from the truth. Even if the entire Vintage Non-Sport Market Tripled in size from here, then went to literally 0, it would be completely non-consequential to the card market.
There was nearly $900M in PUBLIC transaction volume that occurred LAST MONTH. If you include private sales and transactions at card shows and all the undocumented live-selling revenue - I wouldn’t be shocked if the total transaction volume in the industry was closer to $10B in just last month.
So if a Batman Rookie card that was trading for $500 a few months ago is now trading for $5,000 - sure that is an interesting headline- but that is less than a drop in the bucket of what is really happening and shifting the card market.
Last year after Kevin O’ Leary aka Mr. Wonderful entered the card market and bought the dual logo man Michael Jordan / Kobe Bryant card, there was a ton of online commenters talking about how the market was hitting a “top” and that it was “frothy”. Here’s the piece -
What the biggest sale in Sports Cards History means for the Vintage Card Market
Well in case you’ve been living under a rock the last few days…
I closed that article by giving my outlook on the card market for the remainder of 2025 and beyond with the following:
“I believe 2025 will continue to be a banner year for the sports cards and collectibles industry. The future outlook on sports cards remains to be very bullish.
The amount of corporate investment is a longer-term trend that will be hard to reverse. There’s so much attention and capital being committed to the industry right now - and the lag effects of that capital will play out over the foreseeable future.
These effects will trickle down from the higher end categories of cards all the way down to lower grade, and highly sought after cards of all time greats.
As the card market continues to evolve and mature, there is more liquidity coming into the system, which in turn will raise prices as collectors get more comfortable seeing these cards also as alternative assets.
So if you are reading this now - just be happy you’re already ahead of the game, as we are still in early days of what this market truly can become.”
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Yea. Flash forward a year, let’s check in on a few stats:
Public Transaction Volume from August ‘25: $422M
Public Transaction Volume from August ‘26: $885M (+109%)
Mickey Mantle Index: +117%
Jackie Robinson Index: +108%
Hank Aaron Index: +87%
Roberto Clemente Index: +80%
Ted Williams Index: +88%
We have seen record highs across all the most important and iconic vintage cards over the past year. Auction houses are posting 2x the total revenue they had from a year ago. We are seeing more and more investment from prominent private equity firms, celebrities, and large corporations allocating significant capital and resources towards the collectibles industry.
If you think this frothy, please by all means go ahead and sell your cards and watch from the sidelines. Keep your “froth” in your mocha latte if you can though and out of the content. I’ve had enough of it.
I can assure you I am not planning on selling any of my longer-term hold pieces, and will continue to accumulate great cards both for myself and the Bonkers Cards LIVE shows and my own private client list to help with their portfolios and collections.
If you’re looking to get more involved with collecting, are looking to buy or sell, or just want to have more content to check out related to vintage sports cards, consider subscribing and joining the Bonkers Cards Club. You can also email me with any cards for sale or questions at bonkerscards@gmail.com
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Save my next eBay LIVE show:
I’m going LIVE this Sunday Night at 8PM est on eBay LIVE!
I’ll have a ton of awesome vintage sports cards up for sale, come join the chat, check out some cards and hang out with the Bonkers Cards Community:
LINK TO SUNDAY’S SHOW:
https://www.ebay.com/ebaylive/events/Icuv448gXoF0Zzcv
the "heating up" language fatigue is so real, feels like every third video is either calling a top or calling a bottom depending on what they're trying to sell that week