Pokémon card winner Scaramucci says collectibles are asset class

Social media influencer and wrestler Logan Paul made history last week when he sold a rare Pokémon card for $16.5 million, a world record for a trading card sold at auction. The winner sees this as an investment.

AJ Scaramucci, son of investor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, won a bidding war for the “Pikachu Illustrator” card, one of an estimated several dozen cards made in 1998. be.

This is the biggest achievement in the Solari Capital founder’s short career as a collector, which began with trading cards during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I mean, Picassos are amazing,” he said in an interview, explaining the significance of the Illustrator card. “But Pokémon means much more to people than a Picasso painting.”

After winning, Scaramucci said that purchasing the card was the first act of what would be, in his words, a “planetary treasure hunt.” He said the goal he embarked on with his younger brother was to collect a number of real-world scarce assets in various categories.

Trading card markets have boomed in recent years. Monthly sales volume in secondary business has nearly doubled in the past two years, according to data from Card Ladder, an analytics firm that tracks commercial card prices and sales.

EBay On the company’s earnings call last week, CEO Jamie Iannone detailed that the biggest contributor to gross merchandise volume growth in the fourth quarter was collectibles, particularly “due to continued strength in trading cards.”

Paul purchased the illustrator card for approximately $5.3 million in 2021, which shows that he sold it for a return of more than 200%. Card Ladder’s “Pokémon index” is up 145% in the past year. Compare these gains with: S&P 500There was an increase of 15.2 percent last year. Or compare it to the “Magnificent Seven” darling Alphabet, which was up 73.4% last year.

“Growth has been astronomical, especially in 2025,” said Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, which is owned by eBay. Goldin helped facilitate an auction for the illustrator card last week. “We just have people who buy it either because they absolutely love it or because they firmly believe that trading cards and collectibles are a legitimate alternative asset class.”

Scaramucci is someone who buys Pokémon cards for two reasons: his own enjoyment and investment potential.

“The compound annual growth rate of these cards is out of control,” he said. “And they should be looked at as investments, because they are. That’s obvious.”

Scaramucci added that the cards are a way to play the “adult trade,” in which investors fearful that countries will devalue their currencies shift money into hard assets.

Seeing collectibles as an alternative asset is not new, if unorthodox.

Paul Karger, co-founder and managing partner of wealth advisory firm TwinFocus, said he works with clients who collect art, wine, watches and even guitars. But while some may view these items as investments, Karger doesn’t advise customers to get into that mindset.

“Think of it as a passion first and a kind of investment second,” he said. “You would hope they would increase over time, but they are certainly not a replacement for financial assets, just maybe a complement at the margin.”

Karger warned that the illiquid nature of collections and their dependence on others determining their value, often through auctions, are additional risks.

Kaycee LeCong, managing director of the family office at Brighton Jones Wealth Management, also noted that the risk of capital gains from collections being taxed at 28% is higher than capital gains taxes on stocks, which are around 15% and 20%.

Despite the risks, Goldin predicts more people will view collectibles, especially trading cards, as alternative assets. As more headlines detail big sales like Paul’s and price discovery becomes easier to do with more data, it will only attract more participants, he said.

Scaramucci will begin his treasure hunt through a new company called Treasure Trove. However, he did not disclose any details about what the company will be or how it will operate, beyond which it will receive funding from Solari Capital. Scaramucci also did not say whether he plans to sell the Illustrator card or any of his collections if its value increases.

Although Scaramucci said he wanted to capture the Declaration of Independence as part of his quest after earning his Illustrator card, he acknowledged to CNBC that it was a goal that would require a lot of work to accomplish, without addressing a plan on how to do it.

But the main issue right now is the lack of clarity on future plans.

“For now, if you think I’m a crazy person buying up scarce assets in the real world, that’s all you need to know.”