If we get in my DeLorean time machine and journey back to the late 1980s, sports card manufacturers like Topps, Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck were all busy churning out mass quantities of overproduced cards and selling them as valuable collectibles to anyone gullible enough to buy them. Wall Street was getting heavily involved in all aspects of the antiques and collectibles trade at this time, and it would have long lasting implications for today. Publically traded companies headed by slick businessmen with no knowledge as to how the collectibles market operated were busy telling their shareholders that they were going to continually sell more and more of a product that was being marketed as a collectible. Meanwhile, the folks on Main Street who were buying these mass -roduced trinkets were getting drunk off of nostalgia and the possibility of financially speculating in this brave new world. After all, these werent just sports cards, they were potentially valuable collectibles that would one day finance their retirements or even their childrens college educations. Unfortunately, things dont always work out as planned, especially when everyone is buying the same exact mass-produced items and keeping them factory sealed. This was the beginning of what is now known as the junk wax era, an era that any sports card collector would love to forget, but shouldnt. The junk wax era lasted from the late 1980s all the way to the early 1990s and then collapsed due to multiple manufacturers all producing massive amounts of sports cards with no end in sight. Collectors and speculators finally tired of the deluge of products, and the sports card industry faced possible extinction by the mid-1990s if things didnt change. Luckily, the collecting community prevailed against Wall Street and the market was reborn. Many manufacturers left the sports card business altogether, and the proverbial pendulum swung the other way. Sports cards manufacturers would now learn to use mass-produced scarcity as a clever marketing gimmick to carefully limit certain cards and products, all while producing more and more of these limited edition cards to cater to higher end collectors. The advent of the internet and, more importantly, third-party grading, would be the ultimate trifecta that the sports card trading world needed to become an unstoppable force in the current collectibles boom. Today, it is not just special limited-edition sports cards and vintage favorites like a Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle card that are being graded and advertised as investment grade pieces. Collectible trading card games like Pokemon are now a part of the growing investment trading card boom with prices approaching new highs on a regular basis. During the pandemic, prices were booming and more speculators entered the market eager to own some of the most sought after pieces. With inflation rearing its ugly head and economic uncertainty, the new norm, prices are still trending up after softening for the past few years following the pandemic. Add in the demand of Pokemon cards to the mix and now even hardened sports card collectors are chasing after Charizards and Pikachus (both popular Pokemon) due to their potential as being coveted investments. This all begs the question as to what comes next. Or a more practical question is, can this level of excitement even last? It would appear so, at least for now. Case in point: On Friday, April 11, the American Dream mall located in East Rutherford, N.J., had a surprise guest in the form of NFL all-star great Tom Brady. He was there to celebrate the grand opening of a high end trading card store that he is an investor in. The name of the store is CardVault by Tom Brady (fitting name, dont you think?). CardVault is aiming to become the premier retail store for higher end collectors and speculators who wish to invest in all things trading cards. The company has started to open up retail locations in higher end retail shopping malls on the East Coast and is looking to open up even more stores in the future (side note: here is me hoping that my favorite mall, the King of Prussia Mall, gets a CardVault store soon!). But is this strategy wise, and will it work over the long term? Thanks to the adoption of third-party grading and a plethora of high profile online auction companies catering to this market, the days of having to physically inspect and buy cards in person is no longer needed. If I want to but a vintage Pokemon Charizard holofoil card in PSA 10 condition, I can simply log onto eBay or Heritage Auctions and know exactly what I am buying and, best of all, the transaction is completely private. I dont have to worry about having security escort me to my car because I just spent thousands of dollars on a card that is just sitting in a plastic bag marked CardVault, letting everyone know I likely have something valuable in my possession. And even without this risk, rents in higher end shopping malls are not cheap. Each CardVault retail store is over a 1,000 square-feet and in order to be able to cover this expense the company is going to have to do a lot of business. Virtually no other segment of the collectibles market has retail stores of this magnitude, sans, of course, the high end luxury brands like Rolex and Hermes that use their retail locations to advertise and sell their direct products which they themselves manufacture. The days of high end coin stores have been made obsolete by online internet dealers and auction houses. Even higher end comic books are now sold online, and, in fact, comic book shops have been on a steady decline since reaching their peak in the 1990s. Video games, which have started to become collectible within the last 10 years, do have their fair share of diehard fans who have been opening up mom-and-pop type retail stores on a regular basis. But most of these stores dont bother to sell graded video games that are worth thousands of dollars on the secondary market. The internet has become the preferred way to buy and sell that caliber of item. Still, the trading card market has been growing by leaps and bounds, and if CardVault can become the premier place where both investors and collectors want to go, then the concept can possibly work. I will be taking the trek to the newest location at the American Dream Mall soon. And when I do I will gladly report back on my findings. Until then, here is hoping the collectible trading card world can survive the impending influx of even more high profile speculators entering the hobby. Shawn Surmick has been an avid collector since the age of 12. He currently resides in his hometown of Boyertown, Pa., and is a passionate collector of antiques and collectibles. His articles focus on various topics affecting the marketplace.