There has been a lot of interest and a lot of controversy around the new idea of fractional ownership in sports cards and sports collectibles. Some of these assets have performed well and some have performed horribly. In the “horribly” category it is frequently touted by the “sports investment” community that the underlying card or piece of memorabilia was grossly overpriced from the get-go. That may be true in many cases. In other cases it is due to an underlying player’s performance not being able to match expectations at the time. And with modern era cards, it’s no secret that the modern card market has been soft to just weak.
So what happens when a prized asset on a fractional platform, say a PSA 8 example of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, gets a big premium buyout offer? The Collectable app has announced that it has received a $1,400,000.00 buyout offer on its 1952 Mickey Mantle PSA 8. That asset has been trading on its platform since January 27, 2021 after initially selling at a $485,000.00 initial public offering value. The last price trading market capitalization was at $1,194,127.23.
According to the Collectable app’s announcement and data, the shareholder approximate share price of $26.62 net per share would represents a 166.20% net return over the IPO price. The all-time high share price has been up at $38.00 per share and the all-time low has been $7.00 per share. Its per share trading range over the last 6-month period is a low of $19.26 and a high of $27.99. The image below is from Collectable.
The only registered sale via auction of this exact 52 Topps Mantle example down to its certification number (PSA cert. #50001148) was a February 20-21, 2016 Heritage Auctions sale for $501,900.00. That’s over 6 years ago as of this time.
This buyout offer matters beyond just the buyers and sellers in the Collectable app. Another example of a PSA 8 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is coming up for auction via Heritage Auctions in November (2022) as part of a large set-break. That card already has a $1.1 million big at Heritage with 22 days left, which is actually a $1.32 million bid after the buyer’s premium, and Heritage posted “Guide Value or Estimate: $2,000,000 – up.”
A closer look into recent pricing through VintageCardPrices.com and PSA sales shows the following since this IPO timeline (date, sale price assumed to be after premium and auction house)
- 2/27/2022 $1,560,000.00 Heritage
- 10/25/2021 $2,029,500.00 Goldin
- 7/11/2021 $2,112,000.00 Memory Lane
- 5/23/2021 $861,000.00 Goldin
- 4/7/2021 $840,000.00 Goldin
- 3/8/2021 $1,320,000.00 Goldin
- 2/28/2021 $885,000.00 Heritage
- 2/1/2021 $1,605,150.00 Goldin
The record breaking $12.6 million 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle sale this summer for the highest graded example of this card is still having some serious impact in the market. That card was an SGC graded card, but the PSA population report of 1,307 total graded examples (PSA only) has only 35 examples graded as PSA 8, 5 graded at PSA 8 with the “+” (.5), 6 graded at the PSA 9 and 3 graded at the PSA 10 levels.
Buyouts on fractionalized trading platforms can sometimes be on par with current market values. Sometimes they are way off. Some of the shareholders in this asset will be quite happy. Others will likely want an even higher price or they may not want to sell at any price at this time. How this all turns out remains to be seen.
*For disclosure purposes, I also have used and still use Collectable and other fractional platforms for sports and non-sports collectibles fractional ownership.
