Tyler Hilbert | 2024 I.S. Symposium

Name: Tyler Hilbert
Title: Playground to Portfolio: Uncovering the Potential for Investment Grade Returns in Collectible Sports and Pokémon Cards
Major: Business Economics
Minor: Statistical & Data Sciences; Physical Education
Advisor: Dr. Amyaz Moledina & Dr. Colin Davison

On August 28, 2022, a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for $12.6 million. High price sales such as these sparked interest into the investment capabilities of collectible trading cards. Current literature suggests that collectible investments are unlikely to be competitive with traditional assets, such as stocks and bonds. Furthermore, existing investment literature fails to address the continually growing trading card market. This thesis explores the sports and non-sports card market to see if there is potential for investment-grade returns. We use card sales data scraped from PriceCharting.com from Jan 2021 to Dec 2023, covering the baseball, basketball, football, and Pokémon card market. We then compare returns between collectible cards and the S&P 500 and a risk-free bond index. We also use linear regressions to demonstrate which card characteristics correlate with higher return in the short- and long-run. We constructed portfolios of collectibles and show that they underperformed the S&P. For example, a portfolio of all sports cards returned -0.39% annually while the portfolio of all Pokémon cards returned -4.72% annually. In the short-term, only card age correlates with an increase in portfolio value, with all other card characteristics showing little affect. In the long-term, the oldest or newest rookie cards of the best players have the highest return. These results coincide with the consensus on the card market that cards, as collectibles, are not normally a good investment. However, some cards are worth the money.

Posted in Symposium 2024 on April 19, 2024.