The convergence of commerce and gambling and its place in the hobby in 2026
Josh Luber white papers have become a tradition. It seems like every once in a while, Luber - co-founder of StockX and Ghostwrite Founder - goes into hiding and comes out with a tome on the industry.
In 2021, it was "Trading Cards Are Cool Again" and this week, he brings us, with his co-author Jesse Einhorn, "The BlindBoxification Of Everything."
I'm not going to convince you to read all 30,000 words, but it's easy to jump around.
But there are many parts of it, which are outstanding.
Here are 10 points that are made:
A 17th century mathmetician came up with the phrase "The hunt is greater than the capture" and that very much applies to the blind box, the break or the repack.
The push in digital repacks shows how that game is being played. Luber says Courtyard's revenues in March 2024 was $243,000. By last August that number skyrocketed to $78 million.
While there's always talk that cards are now a rich man's game, kids can get the big cards by buying into breaks.
When they sell their big hit, there's a sentiment from collectors that it's all about the money. How about it's more about the thrill? Luber and Einhorn say, "Possession isn't the point!" I'll never forget when I went to a breaker's office and a guy who spent $3 million on breaks was selling back most of the his cards.
Emotion is a huge part of why we want something and that emotion can be more tantilizing than the object itself. We want Birkin bags because there is a waitlist and a Ferrari because you have to be invited to get one.
The hunt for the industry's two most prominent cards — the 1952 Mantle and the T206 Honus Wagner — was generated from Sy Berger's famous barge story and the story about Wagner not wanting to be in cigarette packs. The Wagner story is well known to be fabricated. As Luber explores, the Mantle one is likely too.
The connection between blind boxes, breaks and repacks and the acceptance of gambling is very well established here and the paper's authors conclude that the curmudgeons, who said the current market is not for kids, have lost. Though there is some skepticism about a possible catching of the falling knife when the two point to similarities of repacking with the bundles of mortgages sold in the subprime crash of 2008.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but there does seem to be some peril in the blind boxification of everything. If it's not really about what's in the box, if there are better ways to play games — in actual gambling or prediction markets — does the card market fall?
As Luber and his co-author Einhorn point out, the largest buyers of singles are repackers, not collectors, which means that if the repack games don't continue to stay interesting, the market could face a huge challenge.
I can't miss the amazing treat in Footnote #39. It's seventeen different authors, including yours truly, talking about the Blindboxification. Every time you reload you get a new take. My contribution is blindboxification and dopamine. I hope you get it.
Here's the link to have some fun: https://www.theblindboxificationofeverything.com/
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.
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