A Sports Memorabilia Startup Let Fans Own a Piece of History. Then the Business Vanished

Collectable offered fractional shares of iconic memorabilia. When a new owner took the reins, users say their investments disappeared—along with the assets.

Photo illustration: Inc. Art; Wikimedia Commons/Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Growing up in northern Ohio in the 1970s and ‘80s, Matt Arnold became a passionate fan of the Cleveland Indians. But what he loved almost as much, starting at about age 5, was baseball cards. It was a family passion; his father, John, had emerged from his own childhood with a collection that dated to the early 1950s featuring a couple of Sandy Koufax cards and a Roberto Clemente rookie card. Both generations of Arnolds hunkered over the kitchen table together, studying the cards and thumbing through Beckett price guides to check their value.  

When adolescence arrived, Arnold’s interests pivoted to girls and sports, and the collection was tucked away. But when Covid-19 struck, he caught a radio show one day about the booming value of sports card collections.“I thought, wow, I have some of those.” Arnold recalls. “We could take a look at this again.”  

Two things happened next. One was........

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