The Hobby is Still Quaint

Collectors, we have a long way to go… and I think that’s encouraging. Over the past week I’ve read multiple articles about record sales in the fine art world. Like this one , about Christie’s selling more than $1B worth of art in just three hours on Monday (I repeat… $1 BILLION, 3 HOURS).

Or this one , tied to the same auction, that saw both Jackson Pollock and Constantin Brancusi join the $100 MILLION Club (i. e. each saw a piece sell for more than $100 at auction for the first time).

The reality is, when compared to more established collectible categories like art, our hobby is, shall we say, a bit quaint, what with us getting excited when an athlete joins the $1 MILLION Club for a card or a game-used item. But that ain’t a bad thing! It just shows how early in the game this hobby really is.

Image Credit: CNBC CNBC: Disruptor 50: Whatnot CNBC released their annual Disruptor 50 this week, and one company from the hobby made the list, Whatnot. But you could argue that Whatnot is starting to look less like a collectibles startup and more like a full-blown commerce infrastructure company these days. The live-shopping platform now claims roughly 60% of the global live commerce market, with users reportedly spending up to 95 minutes per day watching streams — which is honestly closer to Twitch behavior than traditional shopping.