Postcards: Let Me Tell You About a Baseball Card...

They're still alternative investments... and there's another wave of opportunity coming in the future. ͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­ Forwarded this email? [Subscribe here]() for more You are a free subscriber to Postcards from the Florida Republic. To upgrade to paid and receive the daily Republic Risk Letter, [subscribe here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Postcards: Let Me Tell You About a Baseball Card...]( They're still alternative investments... and there's another wave of opportunity coming in the future. [Garrett {NAME}](floridarepublic) Aug 16 floridarepublic   [READ IN APP](   Market Update: We’ve been green for a few days. As I’ve explained countless times, the markets tend to squeeze higher when we see oversold on both RSI and MFI simultaneously. That’s what happened last Monday. Now, we’ve wiped out all of the losses since July 31. Liquidity is strong, and central banks are kicking the pain train down the road. --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Fellow Expat: I want to show you a baseball card. This is the 1981 Fleer Sticker card of all-time stolen base leader Ricky Henderson. If this card is graded by PSA (a company that rates cards based on quality on a scale of 1-10) at a rating of 10, it’s worth $295 based on a recent auction. It won’t get that reading… but I’ll bet it’s worth about $50. Now… let me show you another card. This is a 1982 Topps Cal Ripken rookie card. At a PSA rating of just 6 (which this likely is), it’s worth $89. And then these three cards. These are the rookie cards of Ichiro Suzuki - the all-time hit leader (across two leagues between Japan and the U.S.). If any of these three cards are rated a 10 out of 10… (the one in the middle is my best hope). It would be worth up to $1,500. Now… you might think that I’ve owned these cards forever. I haven’t. What if I told you I found value where another man believed it to be trash? I’ve only owned them for four days… And I paid a pittance for them. What if we understood value investing through the lens of baseball cards? Life and Cards I grew up on baseball cards. When I was ten, my father gave me a 1955 Bowman Hank Aaron card. It’s beaten to hell, and it may be worth $150. It is my favorite baseball card ever. My father had Mickey Mantle rookies. He sold a lot of them in the 1980s. He still owns a complete set of the 1951 Bowman cards. That’s one of the hardest sets in the world to put together. It includes the first Mickey Mantle rookie card. The 1952 card, which is more famous, is rare because the owners of [Topps dumped most of them in the Atlantic Ocean in the late 1950s](. My childhood collection isn’t as good as my father’s. I grew up with lots of overproduced cards. In the 1990s, Topps printed way too many baseball cards as they tried to maximize profitability on the craze of rising card values from my dad’s era. The card company’s rivals expanded into names like Upper Deck, while legacy names Donruss and Fleer printed countless cards that are mostly worthless today. That said… I have a theory about the cards from my generation. A financial hypothesis. And it might make me a lot of money. Hello Neighbor The 1989 Upper Deck series has one card worth a lot of money. It’s Ken Griffey Junior’s rookie card, the first in the series. This is a picture of the card, which I don’t own. It’s just pulled off eBay. All the other cards in this article are mine. So, let me tell you about my theory on a card like the one above. When I was a kid, collectors my age got a complete set of cards. What did we do with them? We put them into books with plastic sleeves. A decade later, when we learned that our best cards might be worth money, we took them out of the books and put them into plastic cases—cases like the ones you see among my groups of cards. My theory is that thousands of GREAT cards are stuck in binders and boxes in basements, storage areas, and closets across America. And there’s a reason. When we were kids, we took all of the great cards out and ignored the cards that would later be worth a fortune because the rookies or second-year players eventually went on to make the Hall of Fame. We only took the stars of the time out of the books… and ignored so many great young players who hadn’t reached Star status yet. Which means there could be untold fortunes in those binders and boxes across America. The Ichiro card is a great example. So, too, is this Rickey Henderson card above... So… I’ve been stalking. I’ve been looking for a long time to test this theory. Last Sunday, I finally got my chance. A man in Maryland posted on Nextdoor that he had 16 Home Depot boxes of baseball cards. His son had long left the house, and the son didn’t want the cards. He wanted $50 a box for the cards, and stickers in the Nextdoor ad showed that the cards were from 1978 to 2003. I offered $50 to open two of the boxes. If I liked what I saw, I’d take all 16. I opened the first box and found hand-wrapped cards from… the 1989 Upper Deck collection. Five cards were on top of the pile, all of which were the second card in the collection. It was the rookie card of a player named Luis Medina. [1989 Upper Deck #2 Luis Medina RC - NM-MT - Picture 1 of 2]( The son had removed all of the Ken Griffey Jr. cards… the first card in the deck. However, many other cards were still in the pile. Including a pristine Randy Johnson rookie card. [K18,761 - 1989 Upper Deck #25 Randy Johnson RC - Picture 1 of 1]( And if it’s graded at a 10 - it’s worth up to $80. At a 9, it’s worth $15. I bought all 16 Home Depot boxes. This is just half of the mess. In the last week, a $500 investment… could be worth a small fortune. I’ve found some incredible baseball cards in this pile. They include Randy Johnson’s Fleer rookie card (this is in perfect condition but likely an 8 at a PSA due to the centering of the images). There are Nolan Ryan cards from 1980 to 1994. The Ichiro rookies you saw above. It's a pristine Rollie Fingers rookie card. Multiple George Bell rookies. Roughly 55 Cal Ripen 1989 Fleer cards are in great condition—Manny Ramirez’s rookie card. A PERFECT - and rare - Ken Griffey Jr. “Hostess Baseballs” (yes, the cupcake company card). [That might be worth $60](. Chipper Jones’ rookie card (perfect). I bought about 135,000 cards… and I keep finding surprises. The man who sold them to me… was going to throw them out right into the landfill. He thought they were worthless. The son thought so, too. But I speculated on a theory. I had conviction. And I took a chance. Now, I have countless hours to think about baseball, look for perfect cards, and make a sizeable ROI on my social media bet. How much could this all be worth? Well… that’s the great adventure in it all. My point today is that one man’s trash can be another man’s treasure. Whether it’s alternative investments like baseball cards or a beaten-down stock that a retail trader may dump, you have to stay vigilant and look for opportunities by occasionally turning over rocks. I’ll keep you posted once I start grading these cards. We’ll apply this same thoughtful process to our stock selections during the next selloff. I’ll have more tomorrow on why I think that’s coming sooner rather than later. Let’s get a list together… Stay positive, Garrett {NAME} Disclaimer Nothing in this email should be considered personalized financial advice. While we may answer your general customer questions, we are not licensed under securities laws to guide your investment situation. Do not consider any communication between you and Florida Republic employees as financial advice. Under company rules, editors and writers cannot recommend their positions. The communication in this letter is for information and educational purposes unless otherwise strictly worded as a recommendation. Model portfolios are tracked to showcase a variety of academic, fundamental, and technical tools, and insight is provided to help readers gain knowledge and experience. Readers should not trade if they cannot handle a loss and should not trade more than they can afford to lose. There are large amounts of risk in the equity markets. Consider consulting with a professional before making decisions with your money.   [Like]( [Comment]( [Restack](   © 2024 Garrett {NAME} 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 [Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing]()