Back in the spring of 2020 when the pandemic started, people started collecting Pokemon and sports cards again. Topps came out with a series called Project 2020 where they enlisted artists to re-imagine classic baseball cards – they’d release 2 cards a day for 200 days for a total of 400 cards. Resellers noticed around card 88 – the Ken Griffey card by Keith Shore with a print run of 99K cards. At the time, the #1 card – the Ichiro Ben Baller card that had a print run of 1.3K was going for close to $1,000.
Anyway, I bought A BUNCH of the Griffey card. Once you factor in tax, it came out to be about $16 a card. These days, I’m probably netting $2 a card after fees and shipping. So yeah, I’ll be writting these off as a tax loss for a looong time. I find it a bit ironic since the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey card was also the height of the 80’s baseball card era.
Lesson learned – Get in at the beginning; not when everyone has also figured an item is hot.
