Chasing the Unprintable: Why Cardboard Beats Currencies

A Piece of Cardboard Worth $13 Million...

In the summer of 2025, Kevin O’Leary, the celebrity investor best known for Shark Tank, stunned markets with a purchase that seemed absurd on the surface: a single trading card, acquired for nearly $13 million.

The card itself isn’t made of gold, platinum, or diamonds. It’s cardboard. A one-of-one collectible bearing the dual signature legacy of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

To the casual observer, it’s a novelty - something to pin inside a boyhood scrapbook. But to O’Leary and the consortium of investors behind him, it’s more than memorabilia. It’s a fortress of value in a world where currencies melt like ice in the sun.

How does a fragile piece of printed cardboard outpace the U.S. dollar, the world’s reserve currency, by orders of magnitude? The answer lies in one word: scarcity.
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When the Unprintable Becomes Priceless

O’Leary’s $13 million buy wasn’t an outlier. It was the latest in a cascade of jaw-dropping sales that have redefined collectibles as hard assets.

The Mickey Mantle Topps Rookie Card (1952 #311): In 2022, one sold for $12.6 million, becoming one of the most expensive pieces of sports memorabilia in history.

The T206 Honus Wagner Card: Known as the “Holy Grail” of baseball cards, a near-mint example fetched $7.25 million in 2022. Its scarcity comes from a limited print run, rumored to have been pulled after Wagner objected to tobacco advertising.

The Black Lotus (Magic: The Gathering): A pristine copy of this fantasy card sold for over $3 million in 2024, making it the most expensive non-sports trading card ever sold.

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Not Just the Holy Grails: Even Mid-90s Jordan Cards Are Climbing

It isn’t only the million-dollar Mantles or Wagner grails that tell the story of scarcity. Even the more modest mid-90s Michael Jordan commemoratives - once considered “common” by collectors - have quietly multiplied in value. A 1996-97 Topps Commemorative #72 “70 Wins” Jordan card, marking the Bulls’ record-setting season, has surfaced in listings around $73.75. That’s a respectable figure for a card many fans likely tucked away in shoeboxes without a second thought.

The appreciation becomes even clearer with rarer variants. The 1996-97 Topps NBA 50th #72 Commemorative 70 Wins edition, a special parallel, now lists for as high as $501.25. The steady climb of these mid-tier cards since the mid-90s underscores the same principle driving Mantles into seven figures: scarcity, cultural significance, and the steady devaluation of fiat. These aren’t anomalies - they’re proof that even the “accessible” corners of the hobby reflect the power of what cannot be multiplied.

Each example tells the same story: when the supply of something is fixed - or dwindling - demand does the heavy lifting. Prices compound upward not because of utility, but because of irreplaceability.

It’s the same logic that fuels markets for classic cars, fine art, and rare coins. A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO isn’t valuable because it’s fast; modern sedans outperform it mechanically. It’s valuable because only 36 exist - and no factory in Maranello will ever conjure the 37th.

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The Obstacles – Fiat Money’s Fatal Flaw

Now place this principle against the U.S. dollar.

Since 1971, when President Nixon severed the final tie between the dollar and gold, the currency has drifted on a sea of printing presses. Trillions of dollars are created with keystrokes. Debt ceilings are raised as casually as dinner checks.

The result? A relentless erosion of purchasing power. A dollar today buys only about 15 cents worth of goods compared to 1971 - some argue much less. The decline is visible in everything from grocery store receipts to housing prices.

Unlike a Mantle rookie card, fiat currencies can be multiplied infinitely. Every stimulus package, every bailout, every deficit-funded spending spree is another reprint of the same “card” - and each new issue devalues the existing pile.

Scarcity creates value. Multiplication destroys it.

The Revelation of Scarcity has Arrived

The revelation is clear: it’s not the cardboard, the ink, or the celebrity faces on these collectibles that generate wealth. It’s the one thing they share with gold bars, silver coins, rare stamps, or even Bitcoin - they cannot be multiplied at will.

That’s the moat. That’s the fortress.

History shows that during times of inflation and currency debasement, capital flees into the scarce:

In Weimar Germany, it was gold, jewels, and foreign currencies.

In modern Argentina and Turkey it’s U.S. dollars and hard assets.

In 2020s America, it might just be baseball cards, vintage Ferraris, or a Black Lotus encased in plexiglass. Even US equities which continue to push up to new all-time highs, signals investors are constantly dumping dollars, to buy assets.

The lesson for investors is as old as money itself: wealth preservation doesn’t depend on what’s fashionable - it depends on what’s finite.

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The Lesson: Respect the Power of the Finite

So what do we make of Kevin O’Leary’s $13 million card? It’s not about basketball. It’s not about cardboard. It’s about scarcity.

Investors laughed at art auctions when Picasso paintings first broke the million-dollar mark. They scoffed at Bitcoin when it climbed past $100. Today, both are understood as scarce assets that attract capital fleeing dilution.

Cards, cars, coins, bullion - it’s all part of the same pattern. In a world where governments can print unlimited currency, investors will always chase the unprintable.

That chase creates its own momentum, pulling in more capital, creating more headlines, and driving more scarcity premiums.

In a world of infinite money, only the finite holds value.

And that is why the next decade won’t be defined by what central banks create - but by what they cannot. Is it any wonder central banks have bought record amounts of gold over the past few years.

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