Spider-Man's Rookie Card Has a Pop of 350. Pokémon has 6,000. Scarcity Wins.
I am willing to listen in this hobby. Here is what the signals are telling me about where the real upside is.
I am going to get my bias out early: I am collecting Vee Friends.
I believe in it. I am not a Gary Vee hater. If you took Vee Friends off the label and put whatever-your-name-is Friends on it, I am probably buying it anyway.
I believe in the concept. Children like animals, they like characters, and we need to teach them good character traits. I am sold on that.
My kids prove the thesis every day. My four-year-old picks up the Confident Cobra card and calls it the snake from Zootopia. The Radical Rabbit is Officer Hopps. At four and two years old, they relate to these characters in their own way.
When they ask me, “Daddy, what is the snake’s name?” I get to sit there and teach them what confidence means. What empathy means. What it looks like to be a radical thinker.
I did not buy a Vee Friends card because Gary Vee told me to. I bought it because I see a pattern in my home, the hobby, and society as a whole.
That is the principle behind everything I am about to tell you. Buy what you know and care about. The rest follows.
I Am Willing to Listen
A few years back, Geoff Wilson on the Sports Card Investor podcast mentioned that Fanatics said they were going to 10x the hobby.
I believed it immediately. Did not question it for a second. I know people who have been in this hobby a long time who pushed back on that.
As a business mind, I just think Fanatics is ingenious at what they do. Everything they touch turns to gold. Michael Rubin is operating at a level most people in this industry do not fully understand.
Now, just a few years later, we are sitting at roughly 9X. Almost there.
Here is the part worth sitting with, though. Talk to most collectors and they will say that revenue growth came on the backs of raised box prices, not from doubling the number of people walking in the door. That is probably mostly true.
My read is the hobby has genuinely grown — maybe 4x to 5x in actual traffic. But a meaningful chunk of that revenue story is the same core collector base showing up, paying more for sealed product each year.
Which means the real 10x — the one where Fanatics actually multiplies the number of new people in the hobby — has not happened yet.
I think that is the next move. And I think it runs through non-sports.
Listen to Gary Vee. Not Because He’s Loud. Because He’s Inside.
Gary Vee is a polarizing figure. I get it. You either love him or you do not. He talks a lot. People call him a yapper.
But here is what I keep coming back to. Gary Vee does marketing for Fanatics. He is on the inside track of the one company — outside of PSA — that is running the tables in this hobby right now.
Topps and PSA are driving this ship, whatever direction it ends up going. And Gary is sitting in those rooms.
So, when Gary Vee has spent the last year getting louder and more specific about non-sports — when he starts mentioning 1966 Marvel Donruss, TMNT, Transformers — I am not writing it off as noise.
I am listening.
Because what I hear underneath it is a message from Topps: the next level of growth in this hobby is not sports.
The Pop Count Gap Nobody is Talking About
Here is the data point that stopped me cold.
Spider-Man’s rookie card. Population total: 350.
Pokémon cards with population counts of 6,000 are trading at the same price — or higher.
Somebody explain that to me.
Spider-Man is one of the most recognizable characters in the history of pop culture. The entire Avengers franchise. An IP that has generated billions of dollars in film, merchandise, and media across sixty-plus years.
Yet the total PSA graded, across all grades, version of his rookie card has a pop of 350.
Meanwhile, Pokémon cards — which I love and believe in, for the record — with populations in the thousands are priced as if the market has already fully priced in the demand.
The gap between those two things is an opportunity. Not because Spider-Man is going to behave exactly like Pokémon.
At some point, somebody who grew up watching every Marvel movie is going to wake up and ask the same question I asked: “Wait, is there a Spider-Man rookie card? What does that cost?”
That moment has not happened at scale yet. But I think it is coming. And I want to be in position when it does.
What I Am Actually Buying — and Why
I do not rip boxes. Never have. I do not like the gambling aspect of sealed product. I buy singles. Always have.
That discipline made this decision easy. I am not trying to speculate on which IP Topps picks for its next release. I am buying what I know, what I love, and what I would be proud to own even if the market never catches up.
Marvel: I watch Marvel content. My son, daughter, and I play Spider-Man in the backyard. We are Marvel people.
I believe that someone like me — who came to the hobby later, not through sports — is going to discover that rookie card and want it in the highest grade possible.
TMNT: I play Ninja Turtles with my kids. That is not a niche. That is a generational franchise with no signs of slowing down.
Transformers: I have not gone deep yet, but I would love to own an Optimus Prime rookie card. And I think my son is going to love Transformers. That is enough for me to pay attention.
Vee Friends: Already told you where I stand. Collecting it, believe in it, and my kids are doing the due diligence for me every time we pull them out of my case.
The rule is simple. Only buy IP you actually understand and care about. Do not buy Magic: The Gathering because somebody told you to if you have never played.
Do not buy Yu-Gi-Oh because you vaguely remember having a pack in middle school.
Buy the thing you would be proud to explain at the dinner table ten years from now.
I Am Not Doom and Gloom on Sports Cards
I want to be clear on this before I wrap up.
I am not saying sports cards are finished. I am not in that camp at all.
What I believe is that the hobby is going to recycle itself. People get burned on ultra-modern. They lose money, they learn, they go searching for underpriced assets.
And I think they are going to discover what I believe is one of the most underrated sets in the hobby: 2008 Topps Chrome Baseball.
Not basketball. Not football. Baseball. Crazy low pop counts. Prices that have barely moved. An era that has not been touched yet by the wave of money that came into the hobby over the last few years.
A lot of collectors do not have the capital yet to get into 2000s-era baseball. But they will. And when that happens, I think the recycling begins.
Sports cards are not dying soon. Some eras are dramatically underpriced, and the collectors who have learned to look past the flashing lights are going to find them first.
The Principle Behind All of This
Ignore the flashing lights. Listen to the signal.
The creators worth following are not always the loudest ones. They are the ones with access — inside the rooms, inside the brands, seeing what Topps is prioritizing, knowing which products PSA is routing resources toward.
When those people start talking about an IP repeatedly, that is not yapping. That is signal.
I am willing to listen. I am willing to take a shot on a concept because the data makes sense, because I love the IP, and because the worst case is I own something I think is genuinely cool.
I will sit around with my family someday and talk about why I believed in Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles and a character-based card company built around teaching kid’s good values.
That is a move I am comfortable making.
It’s Totally Awesome, Dudes. Cowabunga!
What’s better than an extra pepperoni pizza or natural webbing instead of web shooters? Your favorite coffee mug.
I’m revealing myself as a freak for saying this, but I’m fully convinced that coffee tastes better out of certain mugs. I have exactly nine mugs that I will drink homemade coffee out of, nine.
That might sound like a lot compared to the normal person, they might just have one mug that they use. The way I see it, I’m losing nine mugs away from going insane.
Or am I already? Tell me in the comments!
Cheers!
Disclosures:
This blog contains general information that may not be suitable for everyone. The information contained herein should not be construed as personalized investment advice. There is no guarantee that the views and opinions expressed in this blog will come to pass. Investing in the stock market involves gains and losses and may not be suitable for all investors. Information presented herein is subject to change without notice and should not be considered as a solicitation to buy or sell any security. Revolutionary Wealth LLC does not offer legal or tax advice. Please consult the appropriate professional regarding your individual circumstance. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
🤩