Experiment is Over - Cardtarget closing Partial Share Program

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Posted By: Jim Dale

The cardtarget.com experiment is almost over. Through tomorrow the operators \ owners of cardtarget.com are taking final offers on the cards they purchased and allowed people to share ownership in through their web site. I’m a customer of cardtarget.com and not an investor or partner in anyway so I can only assume this was due to the inability to insure the cards at a reasonable cost and come up with a means of paying for that cost. Cardtarget charged transaction fees on those who sold shares of the cards they acquired, but it wasn’t enough to cover the costs – I assume.

I know this experiment was not well received here, and in fact I was told by some involved at cardtarget not to bring it up here at times. They believed the legal work they did was sufficient, but as we all know there are two sides of any legal debate and it seemed as though most here didn’t like the idea of “shared” ownership of a card. I personally thought they covered all the bases as well as anyone could.

The little community of a 100 or so collectors though did manage to acquire a neat collection – all of which will be sold soon – some of which will be sold by vote of the share holders in the next few days. The collection included six different Broadleaf 460 backs including the GAI Authentic graded Christy Mathewson. It was brought to the community for just $3,750 and has a current bid of $7,400 with the voting due to start in the next few days. As much as that card was a success the other GAI graded cards were a failure. A GAI 9 Yogi Berra 1948 Bowman was brought to market for $5,600 and has a current bid of just $3,000. It was the biggest loser to the community.

Some of those in the community used the ability to buy shares here and there to acquire cards. One person managed to purchase one of just two Ozzie Smith PSA 10 OpeeChee rookie cards and another managed to purchase a John Elway rookie and two rare Harrington Ice Cream Cards. At one point the cardtarget.com collection of cards was valued over $200,000 by the share holders.

My own opinion was that the program at cardtarget could not attract collectors, and speculators found the risk far outweighed the reward. I think collectors might have been willing to pony up the necessary funds for insurance, but there are simply not enough of them willing to own shares of interest in a card – rather then the card themselves.

If I understand what they are doing right now – final bids are being accepted by email to the operators of the site and they will decide if the offers are good enough to put to a vote. Owners of shares will then vote, and if the 75% vote to sell the offer will be accepted, and if not the cards will go to ebay or an auction house, or possibly split between both. I’m bummed because it was fun to own a piece of a few cards I could not own the whole of – especially not in the conditions they obtained.

My favorites were the 36 Back collection including a BL 460 and everything but the impossible 4; the SGC 96 McGinnity and PSA 9 Nap Lajoie T206 cards are just amazing, and the PSA 6 AG Comiskey that I hope to buy out from the community myself – ideally.