Bidding currently at $30K on a fractional share of a video clip at Heritage Auctions

[Prof_Plum]

Pfft. It's not even 3D.

[chalupacollects]

Originally Posted by Mark17

I am selling fractional ownership in the following, fresh to the hobby, virtual T206 Wagners. 5 shares available of the Green background at $100 each, and 10 shares of the Red background Wagners at $50 each.

Why are the Green background more expensive? Simple, they are rarer, as only 5 shares exist.

PayPal, FF accepted.

PSA won't grade the green one..its been re-colored

[Snapolit1]

I have no idea if this will catch on. But I have no reason to mock it and talk about how it's the end of collecting, second coming of the apocalypse, etc., etc. It's strikes me as far fetched, but who knows. Innovation is good. I'm sure the guy of Wall Street who proposed the first mutual fund in 1924 was roundly mocked by every grey haired old trader in town who calmly announced without the slightest reservation that it was the most ludicrous thing they had ever heard of. A lot of things have struck me as asinine and worked out quite well for others. ("Why in the world would anyone want to buy a 4th floor walk up in Greenwich Village in NYC for $235,000??? Ha ha ha. That's the funniest thing I have ever heard!).

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Brought to you by Steak n' Chop?

[Buythatcard]

Do you realize that if you right click on the actual video and select Save Video, you will now have your own copy.

I just saved you $29,000.

[swarmee]

Interesting thing is that these items are only supposed to be sold through the NBATopShot website and transactions off site can get your account locked. We'll see if that ends up screwing the seller and buyer of these items.

[CJinPA]

These things are similar (almost identical, really) to NFT's (non-fungible tokens). It's very interesting the hobby is moving in this direction but for anyone who is involved with cryptocurrency and the decentralized nature of value and finance, they're not surprised.

When you or your spouse purchases something on Amazon, your transactions are part of their blockchain - it's all around us. Bitcoin is not a once in a lifetime occurrence, it's once in a species occurrence. I'm not trying to be too grandiose here, it's just the fact of where value is going.

Your digital art, purchased through sites like https://opensea.io/ are more secured and authentic than many of the $10 million+ Piccaso's in the market.

It's new, it's different, but it's not very surprising... Good for the NBA Top Shots for creating a market, I applaud them!

The US Fed added 40% more $$ into circulation over the past 14 months - so dollars are worth less than 14 months ago - Gold? Nobody know the supply of gold and China, Elon Musk, etc are looking to mine asteroids that are full or gold, platinum and other so-called precious metals. Not this year or even in this decade but it will happen, ongoing projects have detailed these things.

Bitcoin? 21,000,000 coins is all there will ever be - period. Tesla, MicroStrategy and major investement firms have already added Bitcoin to their balance sheet. Rumors of Amazon and Apple in very short order.

Sorry for the long post, but besides collecting Pre War baseball cards, cryptocurrency is my other passion!!

[D. Bergin]

Beyond the supreme significance of Williamson as the most-watched rookie of the 2019-20 season, and the compelling footage that perfectly showcases the size and power he brings to the game, this particular offering's status as number 1 in a limited edition of 192 elevates it to the pinnacle of desirability. Let's also recall that Williamson wears the number 1 on his Pelicans jersey, another cherry on top.

Not to Sh*t on all the cryptocurrency economists and free-thinkers here.........but this all seems very sketchy to me. Sure, you could get dirty stinking rich if you guess right, or have an "in", but 99% of the people will get left holding the bag, as usual.

It seems like a more dangerous and alluring form of casino and lottery games to me.

Take that quote above, I lifted directly from the auction listing.

From an economic standpoint, does any of that actually mean anything? I'm open to learn. Teach me. Somebody is supposed to pay over $35,000+ with the vig (auction estimate $100,000+).

Why on earth is serial #'d clip #1, worth so much more then Clip #192? Is it really because Zion wears #1, "elevating it to the pinnacle of desirability"?

I've gotten e-mails from the Chief Treasurer of the King of Nigeria that are more convincing then that.

I assume there's a lot I'm supposed to know, outside of this auction listing, that goes unsaid, of what 1/192 ownership of this clip actually entails, and why the first share is worth more then the 192nd share (outside of it being Zions uniform number).



Sorry for the convoluted post. I feel like I'M part of the problem now.

[chalupacollects]

Why on earth is serial #'d clip #1, worth so much more then Clip #192? Is it really because Zion wears #1, "elevating it to the pinnacle of desirability"?

And what if he changes numbers down the road? Then what is number 1 worth???

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by chalupacollects

And what if he changes numbers down the road? Then what is number 1 worth???

For modern serial numbered cards, the 1/xx and the jersey numbered cards normally sell for a premium. As long as he's wearing that jersey in the clip, it will still have more value than #34 or something.
But this is the first time I've seen cards going for multipliers because they were in the first hundred or so. I'll be getting my first pack in about 45 minutes so I'll report back just how exciting it is to get one and who I pulled from the ether pack.

[jboosted92]

im more concerned how a 1989 upper deck griffey PSA 10 is now 5,000 and a 82 traded ripken is 8,000

lol

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by swarmee

... ether pack.

That may be the best name yet for these.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Buythatcard

Do you realize that if you right click on the actual video and select Save Video, you will now have your own copy.

I just saved you $29,000.

I just downloaded the Jumbo Wagner and I offer it to everyone free. There, I just saved everyone $3,000,000+

It's even graded already, so I also saved you the grading fee. Save it on several devices - thumb drive, laptop, cloud, email it to yourself, and then you can never lose it and it can never get damaged or fade (unlike those old technologies involving paper and ink.)

[AGuinness]

An auction for a fractional share of a video clip getting to these heights is hard to believe and I have NO interest in it.
But it makes me wonder - my two young boys have baseball cards, Pokemon cards, some toys and all. But they really are into and love video games.
When I was their age, I played a lot with the Kenner Star Wars figures and other toys, and it was right around the time I started to get into baseball cards. I've been back into the cards for a long while now, although not been tempted to find those toys from my childhood that I enjoyed.
These younger generations are much more attuned to digital media and I suppose this type of "collectible" could really have a market, perhaps now or perhaps in the years to come as the kids of today and recent years look to have a collection of what they are passionate about.
So very not interested myself, but each to their own.

[Casey2296]

I had a nice Sushi lunch with my 21 y old son at my office today. I punched up this thread (thank you John) and we discussed a lot of aspects surrounding this product. The discussion included what a short squeeze is, thank you GameStop, digital currency, creating demand in a market, residuals, the performance of the Apple shares I bought him when he was 3, marketing, CDO's etc. I had so much fun.

Then I pulled out a 1 of 2 known examples of an E224 Texas Tommy and said;
"I own one and one other guy owns one". And when I die you'll own one and one other guy will own one.

His reply with a wry smile? "That's cool"

[swarmee]

So I figured I'd post my results.
This $14 pack includes four common base set moments with a print run expected to exceed 15,000 copies. It was also going to have 1 card /10,000 in an insert set called Cool Cats of which there were five possible to draw in the pack. Two weeks from now, if you collect all five of them, you get a sixth reward clip only available to those having all five pack-inserted "moments." The common moments sell for a couple bucks each unless they have interesting serial numbers.

So this pack was supposed to release at 2pm CT yesterday. Getting on site half an hour early, I kept watch because they normally have website failures during the number of accesses on the site trying to secure a pack. As the time comes to reserve a spot in line to buy one of the 50,000 packs, the website logs me out. I try to log back in a few times, with the server giving me errors. I get back in and try to get back in line. It logs me out again. (They are trying to put some countermeasures in to defeat bots from buying up all the packs) The site is crashing so bad they postpone the release half an hour.

At 2:30 the site is so buggy they push the release another half an hour, but before it gets to that, the host company buys 5,000 packs for "social media influencers" before the packs are available for purchase. They announce this in the open since NFTs on blockchains can be tracked, and going from 50,000 available packs to 45,000 before anyone can buy them reeks. They can't event handle the customer base they already have and they're still trying to press out the goodwill on social media to draw more people in. After that, they announce they're delaying the release again until 7pm CT. So I get back in line around 6:40 and they've opened up the "waiting room" early. Anyone in the waiting room at 7pm is gong to be assigned a random number to get one of the 45K remaining packs. They warn you on the site that if you refresh the screen or try to log in to get another place in line, that your first account will be logged out.

7pm rolls around and I am assigned #41K or so, so I'm guaranteed to get a pack if I stick around until up to 3 hours later when I'll be given a 15 minute slot to complete my purchase. Others got numbers close to 60K so there was a lot of demand for this pack. Luckily I don't get logged out, and at 9pm I get to buy my $14 pack and open it up. 4 commons and a DeMarcus Cousins "Cool Cats" insert /10,000 copies. However, the marketplace is turned off since they've got all the people on site still trying to buy packs. Some people in the queue were either leaving or kicked off, as about 5K extra people got packs than were originally expecting to.

Woke up this morning and noticed the Demarcus Cousins Cool Cats moving picture clip was selling for $140 on site. Listed mine for sale for $130 and it sold in about a minute. All's well that ends well? It definitely seems like a pyramid scheme. Since most of their pack offerings number in the 3-5K range, it might be very hard to keep customers happy due to the overwhelming demand for this, shockingly.

[pokerplyr80]

I actually signed up for the heck if it too. The experience and delays were similar.

I bought one $14 pack.

Sold a common lebron moment for 350, John Wall for $99, and a Luka Doncic for 35. Maybe I listed too low, but they were in line with other listings and there were plenty of each.

But up over $400 in a $14 pack. And I have no idea what I'm doing or selling. Or why it has any value.

[swarmee]

You definitely beat me this round. Only got $10 in value from the other 4 clips in my pack. But 10x on a loser pack? Not too bad. More funny money to throw at the next one, presuming I have hours to stick around and am there at the right time.

[pokerplyr80]

Getting the Lebron obviously helped. It was common, #600 or something out of 15000. Aside from the fact that I don't really get why any of this has value, I don't get how a base moment from a $14 pack is worth a few hundred bucks. It was just him hitting a 3 pointer, and not a game winning shot or anything.

The wheels of today’s world are off the tracks in a serious way. I thought digital cards were dumb but this takes the cake for me.

[Kaneen]

Dang it! I just came across this thread, and I already spent all my disposable income buying Groupons to "Own an acre of land on Mars!"

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

I have no idea if this will catch on. But I have no reason to mock it and talk about how it's the end of collecting, second coming of the apocalypse, etc., etc. It's strikes me as far fetched, but who knows. Innovation is good. I'm sure the guy of Wall Street who proposed the first mutual fund in 1924 was roundly mocked by every grey haired old trader in town who calmly announced without the slightest reservation that it was the most ludicrous thing they had ever heard of. A lot of things have struck me as asinine and worked out quite well for others. ("Why in the world would anyone want to buy a 4th floor walk up in Greenwich Village in NYC for $235,000??? Ha ha ha. That's the funniest thing I have ever heard!).

Yeah but for every guy who was (in retrospect) wrongfully mocked for inventing mutual funds (or something similarily succesful) you've probably got 100 guys who were rightfully mocked for inventing things like futures markets for Hummel figurines or something like that.

This seems to me like something that will fall into the latter category. Mutual funds make sense. Apartments in NYC being expensive makes sense. This does not.

The whole thing raises a lot of red flags. It sells it as you "owning" an NBA play, but its not legally possible to have a property right in an intangible event like that.

Reading over their contract, what you have is a contractual right to "own" (defined in the contract in a different way from the legal definition of owning something as property) a "non-fungible tolkien" that only exists in their App. Then there is a huge amount of text containing disclaimers which absolve them of any responsibility to you, the person who buys one of those things, if things go south in any way shape or form. It also makes you give up your right to sue them in a court of law for anything they do.

So BUYER BEWARE. If this company goes bankrupt, or they just decide to shut their app down because it isn't making any money for them anymore then POOF, your non-fungible tolkien is magically worth zero and you have zero legal recourse against anyone.

https://www.nbatopshot.com/terms

[Schlesinj]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...c-6fc50878730c

ESPN Daily Podcast about Top Shot.

[Exhibitman]

Isn't the point of collecting to actually have something? I mean, if this is to your taste why bother physically having cards at all? Why not just download scans of the cards you like and call it a day?

I do not see the point, other than the gambling element. But then, why not go to a regular casino instead? At least you'd get a free drink.

Agreed. I guess collecting digital stuff is collecting but like you said why not just download a bunch of stuff off the net. I know these are exclusive at first but they can easily be shared. This is just people trying to figure out new ways to separate people from their money. Nothing wrong with it I guess. I'm just shocked how many people have that much money to be separated from.

[rjackson44]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Isn't the point of collecting to actually have something? I mean, if this is to your taste why bother physically having cards at all? Why not just download scans of the cards you like and call it a day?

I do not see the point, other than the gambling element. But then, why not go to a regular casino instead? At least you'd get a free drink.

Adam your funny man

[chadeast]

It seems that you are buying a collectible that has been licensed by the NBA. You are not getting any rights to the original video clip. So there is no way to monetize this investment, other than flipping it. My question is how many buyers are happy with their purchase and will treasure it for years to come, passing it down to their children and grandchildren, vs. how many are looking to flip it for a profit. If 95%+ of the buyers are just gambling to make a profit, that is a recipe for a total market collapse. At some point you need to have a large base of collectors who truly want to actually collect the collectible!

I can't help but think of the Beanie Babies phenomenon. Eventually, someone may be left with a virtual closet full of video clips that no one actually has any interest in owning.

"What collectors, as usual, couldn’t see was that there was a sole source for the Beanies—Ty, Inc.—and that source’s incentives were more-or-less directly opposed to the interests of investors and collectors. While Ty certainly benefited from the perception that Beanies were rare, they only profited off of the ones they actually sold (for a measly five dollars each!), and therefore were poised to make far more money by putting as many of them out into the world as possible. Eventually, the immovable object of mass delusion gave way to the irresistible force of market flooding. As more and more collectors realized that basically everyone had several of these “rare” items, they abandoned their obsession in droves, and people were all left feeling awfully stupid with their big tubs of Beanies slowly getting destroyed by mildew and moths."

EDIT: I see now that there is a big difference. The company that created the product gets a 5% cut every time the product changes hands! Wow, how devious!

[swarmee]

That's a completely reasonable concern. There don't seem to be long term collectors, only flippers selling to each other at higher and higher prices, similar to the modern basketball craze going on all year. People confusing NFTs with bitcoins will be disappointed, I think.

[pokerplyr80]

Well all 5 of my moments sold. I have $485 in my account from the $14 pack. The site takes 5% on all sales. All of the moments are now trading much higher than what I sold then for, but I was really just doing this out of curiosity. I have not noticed any packs for sale since, which is apparently driving up demand for these moments on the marketplace.

Withdrawals are taking 30 days or more, so for now my money just sits in the account. I'm not really worried about the 14 bucks, or even the 485 in there now. But if more packs drop I will buy another and see what happens.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by pokerplyr80

Well all 5 of my moments sold. I have $485 in my account from the $14 pack. The site takes 5% on all sales. All of the moments are now trading much higher than what I sold then for, but I was really just doing this out of curiosity. I have not noticed any packs for sale since, which is apparently driving up demand for these moments on the marketplace.

Withdrawals are taking 30 days or more, so for now my money just sits in the account. I'm not really worried about the 14 bucks, or even the 485 in there now. But if more packs drop I will buy another and see what happens.

I just purchased your John Wall layup for $99. No, just kidding.

Its getting to the point with this type of stuff where I feel everyone else exists in the real world and I must be the one living in an alternate reality by myself.

Brian

[swarmee]

The site has also been down for maintenance for over half of the last couple of days, which means people are restricted from buying and selling on the site since the marketplace has been turned off so much. So when it is open, it's getting slammed.
There haven't been any pack releases since Monday, but they have a new influx of users over that timeframe since some internet luminaries and ESPN have been mentioning it, causing a flood of new people who think it's easy money. And it definitely seems to be.

[FrankWakefield]

Digital Tulip mania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Originally Posted by FrankWakefield

Digital Tulip mania.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Best comparison ever.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

[Mark17]

If MLB did this, I would pay $20.00 to "own" the clip of Randy Johnson obliterating a pigeon with a pitch.

[WA_HOF_rookie]

Originally Posted by Mark17

If MLB did this, I would pay $20.00 to "own" the clip of Randy Johnson obliterating a pigeon with a pitch.

I read a post one day breaking down the odds of a pitch hitting a bird. It was ~ 1/30,000,000.

...so looks like that's a numbered clip!

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[slightlyrounded]

Originally Posted by Mark17

If MLB did this, I would pay $20.00 to "own" the clip of Randy Johnson obliterating a pigeon with a pitch.

If we’re doing this, I personally wouldn’t mind owning “Lenny Randle destroys Milt Wilcox on the way to first base”.

[D. Bergin]

Don Zimmer picks a fight with Pedro Martinez

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

I just watched $30 million worth of clips on youtube #likeaboss.

Like a boss! Make sure you eat!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Isn't the point of collecting to actually have something? I mean, if this is to your taste why bother physically having cards at all? Why not just download scans of the cards you like and call it a day?



I do not see the point, other than the gambling element. But then, why not go to a regular casino instead? At least you'd get a free drink.

Why store your cards in a vault? It appeals to someone. And aren't the Topps Bunt cars completely digital?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[todeen]

How about a digital clip of Lou Pinella yelling at umpires? There could be common moments, and his more outstanding antics could be cool cats moments.

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[pokerplyr80]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Don Zimmer picks a fight with Pedro Martinez

I would buy that one. With how popular this is I'm sure MLB won't be far behind

[swarmee]

The reason it's working so far is they seem to be artificially restricting pack sales, coupled with a huge social media blitz, and the inability for the majority of user accounts to withdraw any money from the site. So there is a HUGE race to snap up every single animated gif. Ones I sold for $2-3 each less than a week ago are now selling for $10-20 each because the only thing to do on the site currently is to constantly repurchase the same items over and over again.

If they now have 100,000 members and only release 5,000 in the next pack release, 19/20 of members are going to be disappointed with losing the lottery. Of course, the 5K who get a pack will be able to sell their $9 investment for $100-500 depending on the gifs they get. It's a completely explosive dynamic.

[joshuanip]

An ex co-worker who started his own fund alerted me to this site. Its a good measuring stick on what digital collectible is hot. $44M in NBA topShot! I had no idea (he even followed this). WTF is this stuff!

https://cryptoslam.io/

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Don Zimmer picks a fight with Pedro Martinez

And Big Papi destroying the dugout phone...

[judsonhamlin]

Bobby Valentine sneaking back to the dugout in shades and a fake mustache

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by joshuanip

An ex co-worker who started his own fund alerted me to this site. Its a good measuring stick on what digital collectible is hot. $44M in NBA topShot! I had no idea (he even followed this). WTF is this stuff!

https://cryptoslam.io/

Yeah, the money is flooding into the site and since there are no packs for sale, is increasingly going to flipping the same items over and over again for profits in a very short time period.

[swarmee]

Bidding now at $52,500 with 2 days remaining. And NBA Top Shot has actually blown up so much, because the management team is taking packs out of circulation in order to give them away to internet influencers and NBA players. So the hype continues to grow around this, but the servers and company cannot handle the traffic. Buying packs is almost impossible because of the huge numbers of users and bots trying to access the site in time to be part of the randomized selection to get a pack.

Secondary market values on even the newest common moments shot from $2-4 each to $50 minimum over the last week, and now those same clips are selling around $15-20. It's been pretty crazy to watch.

[SWinn]

My opinion on this is a lot different than others:

These guys bidding this up like crazy will all be buying vintage cards eventually, when they realize where the value is. It never fails. Junk card era of the early 90's: they're all buying T206 and later cards these days.

I work in futures and when cryptocurrencies came along and the younger dem. was daytrading them like nuts pretty much all of us predicted these same guys will be trading stock and futures roughly 6 months later when they realize what a waste of time it was. And they did. Retail trading apps are exploding these days, with many thanks to crypto.

So I dunno. Let them do it IMO. See ya on the other side lol.

[swarmee]

There was a pack release today at $99/pack for 6 moments: one /499 "Metallic Gold Limited Edition" and the rest /15,000 or more copies. They had 175K accounts trying to purchase during the 15 minute window they were available to get in the random line. Only 10,000 packs were awarded, and 1,000 more were held back for more influencers/players. I've seen people selling their pack they bought immediately for $1,100 cash or opening them and selling their /499 clip for thousands by itself. Then when the network opened up to trade/sell cards on site again, the servers got overloaded again and they restricted sales, again.
So if you were one of the 6% who got a pack, good on you. But companies can only provide this poor level of service for so long until their core customers get annoyed and leave. Currently only 6K of the accounts are permitted to withdraw any money because they are totally unprepared to meet government regulations, specifically the "Know Your Customer" provision.

[ASF123]

But companies can only provide this poor level of service for so long until their core customers get annoyed and leave.

Counterpoint: PSA.