Welcome to Sports Memorabilia Insider for March 22nd, 2022 – FREE Edition.
Each week we give you the scoop on undervalued, mispriced and hidden gems in Alternative Investing.
Table of Contents
Sports Memorabilia This Year
The sports memorabilia index managed to recover slightly last week after a brutal prior week as it climbed 1%.
Last Week
Baseball memorabilia, perhaps aided by the end of the lockout and beginning of spring training, gained 5% on the week, more than offsetting the 2% decline of basketball memorabilia.
The Rally Julius Erving game-worn jersey surged 103%. It was joined in the ranks of the top advancers by two vintage game-used bats: the Collectable Clemente bat was up 62%, and the Rally Mantle bat gained 39%.
The Rally Ruth bat buyout offer may have investors looking for the next baseball vintage bat that could be a buyout candidate.
Basketball memorabilia from two of the game’s legends led the decliners as the Otis Magic Johnson sneakers dropped 42% and the Collectable Kobe Bryant #24 jersey fell 34%.
Auctions
No major auctions concluded last week.
The Goldin Monthly Sports and Pop Culture auction did have a complete Joel Embiid game-worn uniform that closed at $12,000; Collectable has a photo-matched Embiid jersey in early access with a market cap of $37,500.
Buyouts
Shareholders of the Babe Ruth 1924 game-used bat on Rally accepted a buyout offer of $89.50 share, resulting in a 5.3% gain since IPO and last trade; we had an active buy recommendation with an inferred value of $250.00 per share.
This Week and Next Week
Fractional Market IPOs
Collectable has the only IPO of the week as they offer the Barkley jersey in early access:
1994 Charles Barkley Phoenix Suns Game-Wor
- Market Cap: $151,000
- Retained Equity: $0
- Inferred Value: $70,000
- Drop: 3/22/22 on Collectable (early access)
- Our View: [INSIDERS ONLY]
Secondary Markets
No new sports memorabilia assets debut for live trading this week.
Auctions
Heritage’s March Showcase Sports auction wraps up on Saturday, March 26.
Several ticket stubs are featured, including a 1919 World Series Game 7 ticket stub in a game that featured the infamous Black Sox’s (currently at $3,360; only 6 tickets in the PSA pop report). Also a 1979 NCAA basketball semi-finals ticket stub signed by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson (currently at $19,500).
Vintage sports magazines, another emerging asset class, are also represented with a 2002 Tom Brady Sports Illustrated issue (CGC 9.8) at $13,800 and the first-ever Sports Illustrated issue (CGC 9.8) at $3,360.
The Gotta Have Rock and Roll Sports 2022 Spring Auction concludes on Friday, March 25, with several interesting pieces:
- Robert Clemente Game Worn 1966 Glove – current bid of $52,000; worn by Clemente during his MVP and Gold Glove season.
- Tom Brady Photo-matched 608th TD Pass Ball (11/14/21) – no current bids as potential buyers may be understandably leery after Brady’s recent unretirement and the $500K final TD pass football auction debacle.
- Babe Ruth 1923-1930 Game Used Bat (A7) – current bid of $20,000; in lesser condition than the recent Rally Ruth bat that was bought out; will be interesting to see if and how much of a value the buyer of the Rally bat got.
- Mickey Mantle 1950 Joplin Miners Scouting Report – current bid of $10,000; notable if only as evidence that even experts sometimes don’t recognize generational talents.