Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Dan McGowan.
A one-of-one Cooper Flag card believed to be worth millions was won in August at Baseball Cards of Rhode Island.

For card collectors, whether it’s someone hoping for a Babe Ruth baseball card or a rare Pokémon card, there’s a new way to score. In a new market estimated at nearly $8 billion in the US, lucky people are finding what they’re looking for.

Dan McGowan has a story at the Boston Globe about one exciting card acquisition, when the new kind of collecting hit the news.

“His name is Chris Card,” notes McGowen. “Seriously. If you were writing the script for a guy to pull one of the rarest basketball cards in the world — a one-of-one Cooper Flagg autographed card that could be worth millions — you couldn’t come up with a better name.

“And it all happened on a livestream [August 10] in a nondescript card shop in North Kingstown, R.I., that has been around for nearly 40 years, where the old-fashioned business of selling cards has collided with the very new business of broadcasting their unboxing to an audience around the country.

“Card started Rhody Breakers with Soren Ibsen and Chris Louth, two longtime friends he met as a student at the University of Rhode Island, turning a shared obsession with sports cards into a livestreaming business. Three nights a week, they gather at Card’s father’s shop, Baseball Cards of Rhode Island, to rip open boxes in front of an audience of card collectors. Their livestreams typically draw 15 to 30 viewers, most of whom have paid for a specific team and are hoping to land something valuable.

“One of those viewers hit the jackpot. … .

“Card was opening a pack of cards live when he began to realize what he could be holding: a Cooper Flagg Update NBA Debut Patch Autograph Topps card, a one-of-one featuring Flagg’s signature and a patch from his jersey.

“Sports card aficionados knew there was only one like it out there, among other valuable — but not singular — Flagg cards. …

“Flagg, who grew up in Maine, was one of the most highly touted basketball prospects New England has produced in decades. At 19, he became the youngest player in NBA history to score 50 points in a game, and he went on to win Rookie of the Year in April with the Dallas Mavericks.

“ ‘It really is like hitting the lottery,’ Card told me Tuesday afternoon while sitting in the shop with Ibsen, nervously checking his phone while waiting to hear from the winner, who was traveling to Rhode Island from out of state.

“The viewer paid $515 for the Mavericks. … The $515, of course, did not buy the Flagg card. It bought a chance at it.

“That is the basic premise of a modern sports-card ‘break,’ a new frontier of collecting that combines the thrill of opening a pack with the mechanics of a wager. Customers buy a spot — often a particular team — in a box or case of unopened cards. The breakers then open the cards live on camera. If a card featuring that team comes out, it belongs to the customer. If not, the money is gone and the next box awaits.

“For Rhody Breakers, Monday night’s suspense lasted 11 hours. Their typical livestreams run two to four hours, but it kept going long after the Flagg card was pulled as the guys answered questions from a suddenly captivated audience. At one point, more than 400 people were watching simultaneously.

“And because they knew they could be dealing with a card worth millions, they paid for a North Kingstown police detail that remained at the shop throughout the night, making sure nobody did anything suspicious while the card was in their possession. …

“There was another strange wrinkle: the card Card pulled wasn’t actually the Flagg card.

“What emerged from the pack was a redemption card, essentially a placeholder that entitles the winner to receive the actual Flagg card directly from Fanatics, the company that owns Topps. A Fanatics representative flew to Rhode Island and was in the shop before 10 a.m. Tuesday.

More at the Boston Globe, here.