Amidst widespread market volatility, many investors are looking for ways to preserve and, of course, grow their wealth. With recent swift declines in the equity and crypto markets, investors are sharpening their pencils and taking a harder look at what they own and how their investments are allocated.

Here’s some good news: sports collectibles, and collectibles more broadly, have seen this playbook before. Reassuring to many collectors, the collectibles market has demonstrated resilience during periods of economic stress and macro uncertainty, delivering much needed diversification, returns, safe haven status, and some joy along the way.

The PWCC500, an index that tracks the investment performance of 500 of the highest market value PSA graded sports cards, offers some compelling data below:

In his March 2020 column “Taking My Hacks: The Hobby and COVID-19”, my good friend and former PSA CEO Joe Orlando penned:

“After 9/11, the hobby survived. After the financial crisis of 2008, the hobby survived. In fact, one could argue that the hobby thrived during those times, at least in relation to other markets.”

Importantly, the above was written before having the benefit of hindsight of how the hobby exploded in the wake of COVID-19. 

In a recent Barron’s interview, wealth management advisor and sports memorabilia expert Howard Epstein also points out:  “While few investments are recession-proof, the memorabilia assets class holds its value quite well in down economic cycles and tends to be among the first to recover.”

And this isn’t just a case of recency bias, following a surge of interest and performance in the sports collectibles category that has witnessed the PWCC500 outperform the S&P500 by 504% since 2008.*(PWCC)

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to 2010, when financial markets were also in flux.

A 2010 Wall Street Journal article noted that, when times get tough, high net worth individuals increased allocations to tangible assets like collectibles as a means to diversify a traditional portfolio:

“The Capgemini and Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report 2010 found that – with financial markets still in flux – high-net-worth individuals are returning to passion investment, which respondents to the survey indicated that they were approaching as “investorcollectors”, seeking out those items that are perceived to have tangible long-term value.”

Said Rupert Robinson, chief executive of London-based Schroders Private Bank, at the time: “Not only are [blue chip collectibles] tangible investments and an inflation hedge, but they can diversify exposure away from the movements in traditional fixed income and equities.”

Collectable loyalists may be sick of hearing me say that sports collectibles are at the intersection of passion and profits, but it’s true. In fact, in a Wealth Report Attitudes Survey 2018 from Knight Frank, “joy of ownership” slotted in as the No.1 motivation for collectors, outranking capital appreciation, safe financial haven, portfolio diversification and social status.

These unique and intoxicating qualities have led some advisors to suggest that collectibles could make up between 10-20% of one’s portfolio, depending on your personal risk-tolerance and financial goals.  

It is important to note that past performance is no guarantee of future performance. It’s also fair to project an increase in correlation to broader markets for collectibles as liquidity and mainstream participation continue to unfold through fractionalization; however, as we look out into potential choppy waters in the equity markets, we are invigorated by the opportunity to increase education and awareness around the role collectibles can have in your portfolio – just as it has for decades for other “investorcollectors”. 

At Collectable, we are committed to doubling down on education and content to help bring you up to speed, and to build additional structures for you to gain exposure. We are always here to help with any questions or concerns.

Sports Card Grading 101

If you’re starting out collecting sports cards or getting back into the hobby, you’ll inevitably find yourself wandering into the realm of sports card grading.  Understanding grading is crucial if you want to maximize your sports card collecting experience.

But the world of grading sports cards can be confusing.  Many people lose both time and money trying to navigate the professional grading of their cards.

Here’s your definitive guide to grading sports cards. In this guide, you’ll learn:

• What is card grading?
• Why should I grade my cards?
• When should I NOT grade my cards?
• With whom should I grade my cards?

What is card grading?

Card grading is the process of submitting your sports card to a third-party service to verify the quality of your card. It’s similar to a jeweler verifying the value of a diamond necklace or a watch.

The third party services that grade cards will encapsulate your card in a case, or what’s known as a slab. 

Many sports card collectors and investors are willing to pay a premium for a card that’s graded for a number of reasons, including:

• The quality has been verified by a third party.  The buyer knows exactly what they are getting
• They can view the scarcity of the card in a population report put out by the grading company. This shows how many times a given card has been graded, and the distribution of grades its received over time
• They can resell it for a premium over a non-graded card
• The buyer simply enjoys collecting graded cards better

As owners of cards, many collectors are eager to maximize the value of their collection.  Let’s look at an example of how getting a card graded could help us maximize its value.

We’ll take this 1960 Topps Willie Mays card.  Imagine that we bought it on eBay at this winning bid of $152.49.  This could be a good deal!

You’ll notice that in the listing, we don’t know the grade of the card.  Experienced collectors can take a guess from the images, but it’s impossible to know until the card is in your hand.
For the sake of this example, let’s say we thought this card would achieve a grade of 6.  The surface looks pretty good despite a few print defects, it’s centered well, the corners are slightly frayed (but not torn), and the edges are mostly intact

If we go to one available population report, we see that the average sold price for this card in a 6 is $513 (at the time of this writing).

Getting our card graded could add $361 to its value, an increase of  235%!! This is the easily definable value that a third-party grading company provides to our card.
Subtracting the grading fee cost of $30-50, getting our Willie Mays graded seems like a great idea if we want to maximize its value.

When should I NOT grade my cards?

One of the hardest parts about grading cards is knowing if you should grade your card in the first place.  Because of grading fees and the amount of time you might spend preparing your cards for grading and shipping them, getting your cards graded is not always the best idea.

The most important thing for you to do is your own research to find out if your card is worth grading.

There are two main pitfalls to watch out for when thinking about getting your card graded:

1. Your card is not as high quality as you think
2. Your card is not very valuable to begin with

In case number one, you might think that your card is of high quality, but a professional grader might see issues with it that you overlooked.  As we saw above, even a drop in two grades can drastically reduce the value of your card.

For case number two: you could have a beautiful card of your favorite player, but it may have been so overproduced by the manufacturer or graded so many times by other collectors that it’s simply not rare or desired, and therefore not valuable to begin with.

Let’s continue with our Willie Mays example, and dive into what happens in the first pitfall.

Imagine we expected to receive a 6, with an average sale price of $513. But the professional graders at the third party company disagreed with us; instead of receiving a 6, we ended up receiving a 2, with an average sale price of $62. That’s a big difference!

Now we’ve lost about $91 on our purchase of the card.  

We purchased the card for $153, but it’s value is only $62.  ($62 – $153 is negative $91).

This also does not even include grading fees, so we could have as much as $100 out of our pocket.
The math here is simple: if a card receives a lower grade than what you were expecting to receive when you bought it, it’s possible that you will not recoup the value of what you paid for the card.  Especially after you factor in grading fees.

Now let’s take a look at pitfall number two: your card does not have high value potential to begin with.

One of our favorite cards is this 2001 Upper Deck Derek Jeter, going for $3.75 on eBay.

You might think this is an amazing deal for a Hall of Fame player if it’s excellent quality!
If we check out the population report of this card, with a grade of a perfect 10, the average sale price is $14.  The grading company creates an additional $10.25 of value for your card, bumping your card almost 4x in value! ($14 sale price – $3.75 paid for the card).

Unfortunately, after factoring in grading fees and your time preparing the card for grading, you may not see any ROI after going through all of that effort.

Most of the cards you’ll come across fall into this category: they aren’t as desirable to collectors, so the time and money you spent getting them graded will not be recouped.

Again, to reiterate, it’s crucial that you do your own research to find out if your card is worth grading.

Here are some resources we recommend to get you started:

• Cardboard connection has a great guide on how to find the value of your card using eBay.
• PSA or SGC Population Reports to find recent and average sales.

Companies like CardLadder that help you track daily changes in prices

With whom should I grade my cards?

So you’ve done your research and think your card is worth grading.  Now, how do you decide who to go with?

There are 3 major players in the space: PSA, Beckett and SGC.

There are also two newcomers: CSG and HGA.

PSA is by far the biggest and most well known; because of this, most (not all) collectors prefer PSA because across all sports their slabs command the highest prices.

Some key factors to consider when choosing a service to use:

• Turnaround times. This is how fast a company can receive, catalog, grade, and ship back your cards to you. Recently, because of increased demand, some service levels have seen turnaround times of over a year. Of course, not many collectors are happy with this. Many of the companies are now scrambling to figure out how to use technology to grade cards faster (similar to Fast Slab).
• Pricing. Different companies charge different prices per individual card graded. There are usually a few different service levels from which you can choose. The most expensive service comes with the fastest turnaround time. If you choose an economy or bulk option, the price will be the lowest per card, but the turnaround times will be longer.
• Slab design. Some collectors care quite a bit about the design of the encasing (or slabs) that the grading company puts the cards in. Newcomer HGA has made noise because of their unique designs.
• Card Value. It always comes back to value.  Buyers will pay a premium for a certain type of card depending on the company it was graded by.  See the links below for examples and comparisons.

This was just a high level overview because there are so many great resources out there to help you choose. Here are our recommendations to look at when deciding:

• PSA vs. Beckett
• Video comparing Beckett, PSA, and HGA
• PSA vs. Beckett vs. SGC
• SGC vs. PSA: A Study
• PSA, SGC or BGS?

Conclusion

As you can tell, there’s quite a bit of nuance when deciding to grade your cards! Ultimately it boils down to:

• the type of card you’re submitting
• it’s potential value
• what YOU value most

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to do the research necessary when deciding to get your cards graded.  It’ll help you save time and money down the line, and over time you’ll become an expert in the hobby.  The more you read and the more experience you get, the decisions on whether or not to grade and what to grade will become easier.  Soon you’ll find yourself giving tips and advice to your friends and family new to collecting!

An adaption from the original article to be found Here

From the day he was born in 1931, Mantle seemed predestined for superstardom. His father, Mutt, had given him his first name to honor Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane, and imbued the young Mick with a love of baseball – setting into motion a life of meteoric highs on the diamond and a legacy that continues to outlive his much too short life. 

1952 not only represented Mantle’s Topps debut, it also represented the year The Commerce Comet really took off. Mantle made his first of 18 consecutive All-Star teams, hit .311 with 23 home runs, and 87 RBIs, finished 3rd in American League MVP balloting and added the second of seven World Series rings to his ever growing cache. 

PSA, the industry’s leading grading agency, said it best: “if there were a Mount Rushmore of cards and it was limited to one spot, this card would get it every time.”

I love vintage ticket stubs.  There may be no other type of vintage sports memorabilia that links you to the past as much as a ticket stub does. Old tickets excite all my senses at Shea Stadium where my dad and I once rooted for the Mets.  I can smell the vendors’ steamed hot dogs they served in paper napkins and the stale beer that came in paper cups. And that pungent, ubiquitous odor of cigar smoke. I can visualize the emerald field beneath the deep blue sky. And I can hear the crowd thunder when Tom Seaver fanned a batter.

Fortunately I saved a few of these precious objects.  I felt as though I owned my Field Level box seat ($4.00 in 1972!),)! even if only for a few hours during a game. No two tickets are alike because each has its own section and seat number. Mine from the early 1970s show a disconsolate Mr. Met holding an umbrella up during a shower as a reminder to fans to keep their stubs as “RAIN CHECKS.”  (Could the historically hapless Mets have chosen a sorrier symbol?)

Games watched on TV come back to life in full color. On Mother’s Day, 1972, I remember jumping up and down, yelling with joy, in the family room after Willie Mays hit a home run in his first game as a Met. My grandmother came from the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about.  I now treasure the stub from that game, which I bought along with a New York Daily News from the next day featuring full-page photos of Willie swatting his blow for $100 a decade ago.

Many are creased or have mustard stains. I call that game used, like a cracked baseball bat loaded with pine tar. Mostly, tickets were discarded, except those from World Series and All Star games which have mostly, but not always, remained static in value because they are so plentiful..

I have taken a special interest in a stub from Mickey Mantle’s first Yankee game in 1951.  About 20 years ago, I bought one for $15 at a Salvation Army rummage sale in Brooklyn. I then flipped it for $2,100 in a Lelands auction, a pretty darn good return on my investment. The ticket rose to $7,500 and remained there for years.

Then shock!  Classic Auctions just fetched $141,000 for one shortly after Lelands sold an example for $101,000. It’s not just Mantle, either.

Here are some other mind-blowing auction results.

• In November Mile High Card Co. sold the ticket from Wayne Gretzky’s debut for $102,000, one of eight PSA has graded.
• In May, Heritage sold Michael Jordan’s first NBA preseason game ticket stub from 1984 for $35,000.
• In December, Huggins & Scott sold a ticket stub from Michael Jordan’s 1984 debut NBA game $264,000 Thursday, the highest price for a sporting event ticket sold at auction.
• Last May, Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game 1962 changed hands for $44,400 in a Heritage auction. (PSA has graded 13.)
• In November, Heritage sold an autographed gem mint Tom Brady first-career touchdown ticket sell for $144,000. It was his Foxboro debut and not even his first game.
• I recently spoke to Tony Giese, Heritage consignment director, about the blazing hot ticket market for Collectable.
• But I wanted to dig deeper to understand the meteoric rise of this memorabilia niche that is virtually unparalleled in the history of the industry. To my amazement, there is very little written on ticket stubs, though they have been collected for years. Even the encyclopedic PSA lacks a web page giving context, despite giving invaluable population reports of graded examples showing just how scarce they are.  Rich Mueller, the editor of the indispensable Sports Collectors Daily, wrote an excellent story in 2019 on collecting popular World Series ticket stubs from the last 50 years that serves as an excellent primer.

True to form, he followed up on January 15 with a take on the current market. “Even as they’ve become a virtually extinct method of entry into stadiums around the world, the market for collectible vintage sports tickets has never been hotter,” Mueller wrote. “Trading cards picked up steam just prior to the start of the current decade and then exploded during the pandemic. Now, it’s the turn(stile) of the once lowly ducat that’s driving hobbyists to seek out sports ticket stubs for sale on eBay, via major auctions and elsewhere.”

Fortunately, I also found Russ Havens, the creator and manager of TicketStubCollection.com.  

“TicketStubCollection.com dedicates itself to the history of ticket stub artwork and ticket stub collecting,” Havens writes. “The site hosts over 25,000 ticket stub images from the sports and entertainment worlds, and each ticket is tagged enabling visitors to search by year, venue, artist, city, league or team. Upload a jpeg of your favorite ticket stubs and I’ll add it to the collection!”

Havens has posted a riveting presentation chronicling the history of ticket stubs, admissions passes and accompanying artwork dating back to ancient Greece.  He published“The 2016 Illustrated Ticket Stub Price Guide,” a 136-page book that was way ahead of its time.

David: What inspired you to start collecting tickets?

Russ: For over 40 years I’ve thought ticket stubs are the perfect collectible. They boast a timestamp, refer to a potentially historic event, and unlike sports cards, population numbers are maxed out by venue capacity. 

I grew up 35 miles away from Dodger Stadium before the freeway was completed. I’d go four or five times a year. There was the long school bus ride on Little League Night. Or I used to have to go to a local department store to order Dodger tickets through Mutual of Omaha. You would place your order with pencil and paper months ahead of the game, from there they sat  pinned to my bulletin board acting as a playbill (handbill?) of sorts. As much as they serve as a reminder of history, it was the anticipation of the event. They acted like handbills for me.  Later I started realizing I was incredibly nostalgic about being a kid. And you have to realize that the Dodgers’ home games weren’t televised, so being in person was so special.

Tickets are vastly undiscovered as a collectible. They have yet to really catch on.  The scarcity issue is what’s going to drive them.  No one throws them away. Everybody keeps everything now.  You can buy some recent World Series tickets for five bucks.  You can buy a nice Kirk Gibson 1988 World Series home run ticket for less than $875. Then barcoding beget digital tickets, which beget digital, which beget no ticketing at all.  Today it’s all electronic or print at home.

David: Do the big sales surprise you? Here are some explanations for their appeal:  PSA grades them and they’re difficult to grade.  They transcend generations. Again, there’s not a huge population. And they don’t print tickets anymore. 

Russ:  This is crazy big-boy stuff. Covid kicked off a lot of collections. People started getting obsessed again. We were home a lot going through closets and keeping track of what’s posted on eBay. Ticket listings went from 70,000 to 120,00 to 130,000 at a time.  The overall awareness did a lot.

David: Russ, you single out a few Holy Grails. Baseball ticket stubs from Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Babe Ruth’s called shot from the 1932 World Series, and ticket stubs from the 1919 Black Sox scandal arguably make up the top three ticket stubs from baseball. What are other suggestions?

Russ: Super Bowl 1, the gold variation. (In 2019, Heritage sold a full PSA NM-MT 8 for $66,000. PSA has graded 35). The blue variation is less desirable.

Giannis Antetokounmpo.  His debut was October 13, 2013, when he was 18. (eBay has a full PSA 5 for $7,950. PSA has graded 57). 

Tom Brady’s NFL debut. I would rather have a season ticket than the Ticketmaster version. I love the graphic design. The commercial art. They’re full color and they’re glossy. ($101,000 through Collectable IPO. Population estimated to be 30.)

The colorful 1974 Ali vs. Foreman Rumble in the Jungle Full is tough. (A full one in poor condition sold for $2,700 in Huggins and Scott in 2018. PSA population: 8). 

The Lou Gehrig Memorial 1941 ticket featuring his photo. (On eBay for $6,999, Make Offer. PSA has graded 127).

Babe Ruth’s 1943 WW2 War Bond Game ticket when he his last home run, against Wallter Johnson. (A PSA 2 is on eBay for $2,995. PSA population: 8).

Hank Aaron passed Babe Ruth with home run 715. I remember watching the game when I was 11 and hearing Vince Scully. I was 11. He was getting harassed. It was one of the most moving moments of my childhood. (Stubs go for $2,000 on eBay. Despite a sellout, there are only 110 stubs and 35 full tickets graded by PSA).

Wayne Gretzky’s 1994 802nd goal passing Gordie Howe as the all-time leader has become a sought-after ticket. (There are 31 stubs and seven full graded by PSA). My friend had season tickets, but didn’t make it to the game. Everyone went to the game, so a stub is $90-$100. But a full is $8,000, assuming the edges are clean.

David: That’s an interesting case of making a mint from missing history!  Speaking of Gretzky, you have a good story about his 1979 debut ticket as a symbol of the sizzling market. 

Russ: I believe this ticket stub transcends condition and style. Obviously one wants a Season Ticket style stub graded an 8, but most would kill for a Ticketmaster style today. (The $101,000 ticket stub at Mile High was a season version graded a PSA 3 with a mark.)

Yes, there’s an amazing story. Richard Hill was a huge collector and hockey fan as a kid growing up in Brantford Ontario.  His grandfather, grandmother and his grand uncle attended Gretzky’s debut game and kept the tickets individually. One was doused in a spilled tea incident. The other, the grandmother’s, was kept in a pencil cup on her desk. Over the years, Richard asked her to better preserve the ticket but she refused. For whatever reason, she wanted that ticket in her pencil cup. I believe she passed on before the grandfather, and the grandfather gifted it to Richard. The third ticket stub? Just plain missing. It’s been years and no one knows where it went. 

A week before the Mile High sale on November 11 he told me he was thinking of asking $2,500 but got an offer of $4,000— still a far cry from the $11,400 in December 2020, I told him. He put it on a Canadian classified sale website called Kijiji with Best Offer. On November 9, the two  highest offers for the Gretzky debut ticket were $14,000 and $15,000 as Mile High’s ticket soared.

“My phone is blowing up, as are my emails and text messages,” Hill wrote Havens. On November 10, the day before Mile High closed, the highest offer was $22,000 (almost a fifth of Mile High’s hammer price) but Hill had a huge lot of significant ticket hockey stubs from the era and was working with auction houses to sell them as a lot. Just an amazing story!

David: Wow! No seller’s regret here, as is so often the case. I’m curious about ticket stubs and full tickets with holes punched.

Russ:  Sometimes those were comp tickets or done instead of ripping a stub, so the ticket is full. It is not universal. There are so many different situations. It varied from venue to venue.

David: Are counterfeits an issue as they are in the rest of the industry.

Russ:  No., they are not that common.

David: Vintage full tickets command a premium, as much as twice or three times stubs because the population is a fraction of the stubs.

Russ: Overall, of course, you want the full one. But since 1986 teams slowly began adding barcodes and within two decades the ticket itself became less meaningful. Why? Because fans and collectors could use digital tickets for entry yet have a perfect full “unused” ticket at home. So having a ticket was no different than having a stub.At least there were printed tickets available. Fast forward 20 years and very few paper tickets are being issued. Some teams have emergency stock for generic tickets, but they’re not used ubiquitously as they once were.

David: I see a lot of full “proof” tickets without seat numbers for sale.

Russ: Proofs are acceptable to a small number of collectors. They pop up often enough on eBay. (For example, a proof Babe Ruth War Bond game ticket recently sold for $150 on eBay, compared to $2,999 for the real deal.)

David: I’ve watched two extremely rare last game Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle tickets languish for some time for $10,000 on eBay.

Russ:  Final appearance games are indeed collectable but debuts, 1st goal/home run etc and even numbered milestones are more desirable in my experience.

David: I’ve seen some of the six figure tickets in auctions autographed by the likes of Tom Brady. Should ticket collectors try to do that if it’s possible? Two other ticket experts I spoke to say no.

Russ:  I am a straight purist. I don’t believe in anything other than tickets. Autographs have no interest to me because they are ugly. An autograph didn’t matter to getting into the game. That’s all I care about. A Brady NFL debut ticket (from facing the Lions on September 23, 2000, $100,000 unsigned) is so unique who wouldn’t want that?  I think handwriting actually detracts from the value because it makes the ticket less attractive. It wasn’t designed to have an autograph. Some graphic designer spaced it just right. I’m sure he wasn’t keen to have an autograph. I’m also sure those guys were pissed when they added bar codes.  

David: So, what general advice can you give novice ticket collectors?

Russ: Do your meticulous research. It doesn’t take a creative thinker to figure out milestones like 500 homers or 3,0000 hits. Years ago, I put a Willie Mays 3,000th hit ticket on eBay for $14.50. Somebody wrote,“do you realize what you just did?” It was flipped for $571 on eBay. (In 2019, Mile High sold one for $1,000. Amazingly, PSA has only graded eight.) I’m really glad that I had another one.