[glchen]

My opinion:

(1) Record prices of sports cards and memorabilia published on highly trafficked sites such as ESPN
(2) Pandemic, stimulus, gov't policies, fed easy money putting a lot of cash in people's pockets that they wouldn't spend on travelling, restaurants
(3) Once card prices start rising significantly, FOMO
(4) Inflation / fear of stagflation leading folks to think cards may be a safer investment better than stocks or other traditional asset classes

BTW, this doesn't mean that I believe card prices will continue to go up, far from it. There are no fundamentals behind it, and it's just manufactured cardboard. You'll never get dividends from it or be able to fashion it into jewelry.