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Sports trading cards have become a booming hobby for old and new enthusiasts
The trading card business is booming, bringing in some high cash values for sellers. FOX 10's Matt Galka reports
PHOENIX - When it comes to sports, buyers and sellers look for valuable and rare sports cards as the trading card business is booming and some companies are having a hard time keeping up.
The sports cards market has seen a big increase due to the pandemic and at AZ Sports Cards in Phoenix, buyer Don Drooker says he's seen everything.
"It's been strong for 10 or 15 years but the last year and a half has been off the charts and mostly our sense of it is that people were stuck at home. No sports on TV, some of them weren't working remotely and went and found something to do," Drooker said.
As the card market has sped up, things haven't slowed down with people trying to get cards Professional Sports Authenticator graded.
"People read about what was going on with the hobby and they started thinking, 'well gee, my cards must be worth a lot of money so maybe I will get them graded and they'll be worth,' and the sense was, 'let's get a lot of stuff graded,' and what happened was too many people decided to do that and probably sent in things that really weren't valuable enough to get graded, but they went ahead and spent the money anyhow," Drooker said.
The higher a card is graded the more it could be sold for.
"The Trout card that sold for a few million dollars this year, is because it was the only one. Topps only made one of that particular card, called a refractor, and it says one of one right on the card someone's going to want to be the one who owns that card," he said.
Cards are not all winners, however. The card market comes down to investments and a little luck to make some real money.
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