In many instances, you’d be wise to take the piece of cardboard. Why? The collectable cards industry, comprised of both sports cards and trading cards, has experienced unprecedented growth since the beginning of the pandemic.

A baseball card of Mike Trout recently sold for a record-breaking $3.93 million dollars. This is the highest publicly sold price a sports card has ever fetched. Believe it or not, you had a chance to snag this uber-valuable card in your own lifetime; it was printed in 2009.

It’s not just ultra rare sports cards that have exploded in value. A 1999 Pokémon 1st Edition Base Set booster box sold last month for nearly $200,000. The same box sold for roughly $66,000 just last year. That’s a more than 300% growth in price.

“Apparently there’s a lot of money to be made in sports cards. I don’t know anything about sports cards, but I did collect Pokémon cards when I was younger … Pokémon is the highest grossing media franchise ever,” says YouTube celebrity Logan Paul, who recently jumped headfirst into the Pokémon market.

Experts disagree on the reason for the recent price boom. Some speculated that it was the extra spending money many Americans received from their stimulus checks. This theory seems unlikely considering the sustained growth in the market. Is it the extra time people had during the pandemic? Could it simply be hype from online influencers? In any case, it’s a great time to invest in or sell collectible assets.

That being said, consider digging out your childhood card collection from under your bed. Even “average” sports and trading cards (an umbrella term that also encompasses popular TCGs like Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic: The Gathering) have increased in value. The best way to see how much your cards are worth now is checking recent sales on popular selling website eBay. To learn the basics of selling on eBay, check out the video below:

https://youtu.be/59d9jt-uo60

What are you waiting for? The upwards trend in prices can’t continue forever! Or can it …