The trading card craze continues and in some instances, is turning violent.
Target announced Friday they were temporarily suspending in-store sales of trading cards after a man was assaulted outside of a Target store in Brookfield, Wisconsin.
Trading cards continue to be a hot-ticket item for many reasons and making a quick buck is at the top of the list.
“You got guys that are buying all these cards that know nothing about the sport or nothing about the card,” said Sam Ericksen at Twin Cities Sports Cards in Golden Valley. ”They’ll buy a box of Prizm basketball cards for $20 at Target only to sell it online for $100 or $120.”
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The trading card boom has been building for several years according to Ericksen, however the demand being witnessed now hasn’t been seen since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
“There were so many card companies then and they started to overproduce cards,” he said. “Cards from that era are referred to as the ‘junk-wax era’ because very few have value.”
Now, with only a handful of trading card companies in business with rights to specific sports, players and teams, production has slowed down.
“What you have now is a lot of demand but they’re not going to just pump out all of this product to meet the demand,” Ericksen said. “Companies don’t want to dilute the market and make everything worthless like in the 80’s and 90’s.”
Unfortunately, the low production has led to skirmishes and dangerous situations, including a situation Ericksen witnessed first hand at Target in Minnetonka.
“I was there a couple of a months ago when a huge fight broke out and cops were called. It’s been happening all over.”
Reports of those incidents is putting a bad image on collecting, according to Ericksen.
“Nine times out of 10 it’s not the people who actually collect who are doing this,” he said. “The people getting into altercations are people who quit there jobs and go around to Target and other stores to buy-up their inventory in order to sell and make an insane amount of money.”
Some people are making upwards of $10,000 per month in reselling trading cards purchased at big-box stores.
Ericksen says he hopes people who are in the trading card business to simply make money stop to think about who it is they are actually hurting.
“When people bring it huge boxes of cards from the late 80s or early 90s, we usually just give them to kids,” he said. “Kids are being hurt the most by all the guys running around to Wal-Mart or Target to flip all the boxes. Kids can’t get into it because they can’t find cards or can’t afford it. I don’t know a lot of 12 year old that can pay $100 for a normal box of trading cards”