A rare Mike Trout Rookie card has sold for $922,500, the most ever for a modern day card. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Dan Roberts discuss with Goldin Auctions Founder Ken Goldin and David Leiner, Topps Vice President and GM of Global Sports and Entertainment.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: There may not be any baseball this Memorial Day weekend, but trading cards are an absolute home run right now. You don't have to look any further than this Mike Trout rookie card. This find, rare version of the Angels outfielder, was sold yesterday for over $922,000. You heard that right-- almost a million dollars, the most ever for a modern-day baseball card.

Joining us now is Ken Goldin. He is the Founder of Goldin Auctions, which sold that card, along with David Liner, VP and GM of Global Sports and Entertainment at Topps, which made that playing card. We're also joined by our own Dan Roberts. Good morning to you all.

Ken I'm going to start with you. Were you surprised that this Mike Trout cart sold for that much?

KEN GOLDIN: The answer is-- short answer is slightly. We expected the card to sell for about $500,000 based on the desirability of the card itself and Mike Trout collectibles. And when it passed $500,000, we were kind of gawking at the screen with each $50,000 bid that came in after that, until it rested above $900,000.

DAN ROBERTS: Ken, Dan Roberts here. Thanks for being back with us.

KEN GOLDIN: No problem, Dan.

DAN ROBERTS: You know, when people see that a Trout card sold for more than $900,000 right now, especially with all the economic problems, I think there's obviously a disconnect between regular collectors-- because we also know that baseball cards have been booming again. People are trading them, presumably also young people. There's a disconnect between those people and then the rich collectors that are paying up for cards like the Trout rookie card.

I mean, are those two phenomenons happening in tandem? Obviously for you guys in the auctions, this is mostly wealthy collectors, who-- they're not trading as a hobby. They're buying, keeping it, and then maybe eventually they sell it as an investment.

KEN GOLDIN: Yeah, I mean, this is-- without getting into final numbers, because we still have one day left-- this will be more than double the highest grossing auction in the history of our business. We will have more than double the number of bids. We will have more than double the number of users that participated in this auction at Goldin Auctions for us.

So it is been a growing phenomenon. And I think it's actually been increased exponentially since the lockdown, believe it or not, because a lot of wealthy people don't have anything to spend their money on. A lot of them pulled money out of the stock market, because they just said if it can down that much in a day, they want hard assets. And they're assuming that, hey, if I'm going to put my money into something, I want to put my money into something that is rare, that is limited, that I can hold in my hand, and that I enjoy.

And that's why we're seeing the card and the memorabilia markets really boom. It's been in an upward trajectory for the past several years. Really, the modern card market started taking off with six-figure numbers, probably at about 2015. But the past six months have been unbelievable. And the past three months have just been shocking.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to bring in David Liner now of Topps. Good to see you, David. What about how you are-- with no baseball going on right now, what has demand been like for trading cards? I'm not talking about the big rare ones that almost sold for a million dollars, but just your normal, everyday customer.

And how are you able to engage those people? Especially the younger audience, because there is no baseball to watch right now.

DAVID LINER: Yeah, currently, we're seeing really unprecedented demand. The demand has been strong. As Ken said, the last several years, demand continues to grow.

And we're seeing growth across all of our channels. We're seeing growth at retail, with Target and Walmart. We're seeing growth at Topps.com. We're also seeing growth in our hobby market.

So the last five years have been great. The last couple months, we've seen further growth, as we've been in this lockdown mode. I think a lot of collectors are getting nostalgic. A lot of folks are at home, sifting through their old baseball cards, and rediscovering their favorite Topps cards, and going out and purchasing more.

So at Topps, as you mentioned too, we're always trying to attract new consumers into our business. We try to attract adults as well as kids. And kids are incredibly important.

And with no baseball being played right now, we are doing more on our Topps.com to engage those consumers. We recently launched a kid's club on Topps.com that kids can participate in. And some of those big numbers you hear on some of these modern and vintage cards that Topps has produced over the past few years-- those cards, you can chase the future versions of those in our current packs.

And we have packs ranging anywhere from $0.99 all the way up to boxes, you know, tens of thousands of dollars. So we try to have products available for all consumers to collect.

DAN ROBERTS: David, you mentioned how adults are a big part of this. And obviously right now, amid the pandemic, people can't trade cards physically, you know, hand-to-hand, face-to-face. I remember growing up, I loved meeting up with a friend of mine and trading cards, although I was a basketball card guy.

But was it already moving online? I mean, it sounds like in the last few years, the boom was actually fueled by people doing the openings online and the videos on YouTube, and then obviously selling them online. Has the industry shifted to become more digital already pre-pandemic?

DAVID LINER: Yeah, the shift was already ongoing. There's a big what we call a case-breaking phenomenon. This is a huge part of the industry now. And this is where there's companies that buy cases and cases of our product.

They sell spots in these breaks when they open several boxes over a few hours. They do these live breaks on YouTube, or they'll do them on Facebook. And fans can participate by buying an individual player, buying a team. And as those packs are being opened, whatever slot you bought in that break, you get all those cards.

And not only do we have people participating in those breaks, but we have tons of people watching those breaks, too. It's almost the esports of the trading card business. So we've seen that phenomenon. That started a few years back. That has really accelerated as folks aren't able to meet person-to-person.

So big platforms like eBay is a great way that consumers trade. There's lots of forums, blogs, Topps.com, and places that consumers are interacting, and able to continue their collecting throughout the pandemic.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Hey, I want to get back to Ken real quick. It's a tough act to follow after selling that Mike Trout card for nearly a million dollars. What other big piece of memorabilia do you have coming up that we can look forward to?

KEN GOLDIN: Well, we also sold-- it was kind of overshadowed, is we sold LeBron James's rookie uniform on Wednesday night for $372,000. In session three of the auction this Saturday, we have Michael Jordan's uniform from the '96, '97 season with the Chicago Bulls letter. That currently has a high bid of about $240,000. We are running a Michael Jordan and basketball-related auction in June. We have a LeBron-- we've not announced it yet, but we have LeBron James card, the rarest and highest graded, that will be in that auction, that we expect to surpass a million dollars.

And as far as Topps and Mike Trout goes, we have the sister card to the red. We have a one of one PSA 10, the only highest-rated card known, of his orange chrome refractor. And that will be in that auction. And we'll see how high that one goes.

But to a point that David said as well, is he may not even know, I'm actually an owner in Vintage Breaks, which is one of these online breaking companies. And that in itself has really made the market accessible. We literally can have 100 people participate in the buying and selling at one time. But you can have thousands of people watching online. And it really is the esports of the card collecting community.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions and David Liner of Topps, and our own Dan Roberts, thanks to you all, guys. Much to look forward to, even though we don't have live sports to watch at the moment. We cannot wait till it all comes back.