Any of you out there who collect baseball cards know that the value of baseball cards has plummeted over the years. It’s only the rare cards like a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in mint condition that will fetch six figure numbers. But overall, all of those great cards from the 70s you have that used to be worth over $100 have fallen off the face of the earth. But did you know that Topps has created a completely unique kind of trading card?
They’ve started a whole subculture of digital trading cards. These are cards that are nothing but images on your phone. You collect them and trade them, and many of them are insanely valuable. It started with baseball (an app called Bunt, which launched April 2012), then football (Huddle launched September 2012), then soccer (Kick launched in August 2013) and most recently, Star Wars. And that’s when things really opened up to a whole new audience of fans. And that’s when these cards started getting incredible attention.
Kudos for Topps for seeing this market or rather creating one entirely. Would you spend almost $225 for a single digital image of Han Solo from the original Star Wars? Most people would balk at the idea. But for many people who use the app Star Wars:Card Trader, they would kill to have that single image in their collections.
To find out more about the entire process of valuating these cards you can read the full account on io9.
