TARGET HALTS SALES OF TRADING CARDS

Target says it's done with trading cards — at least for the time being — after a dispute outside one of its Milwaukee-area stores escalated into violence and multiple arrests.

A spokesman for the retail giant said in a statement that it will stop selling MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokémon cards in stores on Friday out of an abundance of caution, but that they'll still be available online.

The company declined further comment.

Demand at retail establishments, especially big-box stores, has swelled, collectors say, as enterprising card flippers descend on stores, purchase their inventories and resell them at sometimes four or five times their retail price online, where The Hobby, as collectors affectionately call it, has been sequestered during the coronavirus crisis.

But collectors say it was getting harder to come by new cards at big-box stores even before the pandemic because flippers are notorious for scouting out stores' restocking schedules and parking themselves in front of store entrances early in the morning to buy up inventories.

It has led to a surge in valuations for cards of all types, with some Pokémon cards quadrupling in value in the past year. One collector told The Washington Post he has sold baseball cards in recent months once worth $50 each for upward of $500. It's also ignited fierce competition between flippers angling for hits, or the most valuable cards.

The new entrants have divided the hobby squarely into two camps: Traditionalists who buy and sell cards as a pastime; and new-school collectors who trade cards as they would investments, looking to short the market and take advantage of the space's volatility. The trend has repeated itself in other collectible markets through the pandemic, including comic books, coins and stamps.

It's collectibles versus commodities. That's what we're facing right now, said one collector, who goes by the name Kyle and runs the Wax Museum basketball card podcast. Like many collectors, he prefers to shield his identity to avoid online harassment from other collectors. That's been the new wave during the pandemic. There's a lot of nostalgia with cards, but people see the sales. They think they like the cards — maybe they have a past connection to them — but they really see the money. It's more interesting than the stock market, he said.

It's probably easier to project a player that's going to get better than analyze tech start-ups.

The surge in interest has renewed connoisseurs' concerns about fraud, which is rampant in the hobby. New collectors make for easy marks for so-called doctors, who illicitly alter cards to improve their appearance and resubmit them to grading companies in hopes of higher appraisals. Rising prices have only increased incentives for such activity, and doctoring scandals within the hobby have led to high-profile prosecutions and federal criminal investigations.

To read the complete article, see:
‘Collectibles versus commodities': As Target halts sales of trading cards, collectors reckon with fast-changing hobby (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/13/target-pokemon-baseball-cards/)

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