Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions and star of Netflix’s King of Collectibles, declared collectibles an “accepted alternative asset” in a recent interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Goldin took to CNBC to discuss the state of the world of collectibles on December 22, 2025. According to him, trading cards, sports cards, and other collectibles have actually become accepted as an alternative asset by investors and asset managers. It would be a big step for trading and sports cards to become known as an asset class (in any capacity), primarily because it brings them one step closer to being a legitimate investment option for firms that offer financial products. There is no doubt that wealth managers have had their eyes on the collectibles category for a while now as Morgan Stanley estimates this category to have a $100 billion value (globally) with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of over 6% for 2024 thru 2027.
Also, while discussing recent notable auction sales in the collectibles category, Goldin specifically gave a nod to the performance of Pokemon TCG singles cards (see “Prices Rebalance“) over the last several years.
“The numbers people are getting (for collectibles), whether it’s a trading card that sells for $12.3 million, whether it’s Ruby Red Slippers that sell for $32 million, whether it’s a Shohei Otani baseball that sells for $4.2 million, have just been going up astronomically,” said Goldin. “And then you’ve got Pokemon, which is like literally up 3000% in the last 20 years.”
In the interview, he also touched on the idea of a generational shift in preferred collectibles. Goldin explained that collectors who are approaching their 40s and 50s grew up in generation that wasn’t into time-honored collectible assets, such as Dutch Masters and contemporary art like Andy Warhol paintings. They, instead, were more into sports stars and pop culture, and those collectors are looking to capture pieces of that history for themselves by buying high-end collectibles from those genres.
Additionally, Goldin offered a few notes on what is happening now in the collectibles category as opposed to what had happened during the pandemic.
“The difference between 2025, as we approach 2026, and the COVID era in 2020-2021 is that I think, back then, (there) was indiscriminate buying. Stuff that was not that rare to me, that should not be very valuable, was going up 200%, 300% and 400%, weekly,” said Goldin. “Now, what’s happening is that there are a lot more people seriously involved. There are less people that are looking to get in to make a quick buck, and the best-of-the-best (collectibles) are constantly going up.”
Source: ICv2
