Over the last year, the hobby of collecting and selling cards has exploded. The demand for greeting cards has risen dramatically as a result of the pandemic, according to local card shops.
A Wayne Gretzky rookie card that was graded a 10 on the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) card grading system sold for $1.29 million US in December 2020. Logan Fournier, the owner of a local shop, made over $1 million in sales from his old Pokemon and sportscard collection in just seven months. To meet the demand for old cards, he plans to expand his business in the near future by opening new shops in Toronto, Ottawa, and possibly the United States.
A card must go through an eight-step process before it can be graded and potentially sold for a large sum of money. To have their cards professionally graded, owners send them to one of three industry leaders, such as PSA. The value of a card is determined by its grade, with 10 being the most valuable. According to one expert, the resurgence was inevitable due to entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk and well-known YouTubers like Logan Paul, who were introducing millions of their subscribers to the hobby prior to the pandemic.
“In any case, the trading card industry was going to explode this year. What would have happened if there hadn’t been a pandemic?” said Josh Luber, co-founder of StockX, a multibillion-dollar online “stock market of things.”
News and picture Source: CBC
