Luck stops here: Sports card investors rocked by retirement of Colts' QB

Two days after Andrew Luck's shocking retirement, card shop owner Andy Albert stared glumly into a glass case that houses his cache of the quarterback's top rookie cards. His nest egg flashed before his eyes.

Albert had purchased Indy Card Exchange in Indianapolis in 2012, Luck’s rookie season, from a long-time owner who was ready to call it quits. The deal was planned for August 1, but after the Colts selected the Stanford star with the first pick in the NFL Draft in April, Albert paid an extra $10,000 to expedite the process, taking possession of the shop May 1.

Seven-and-a-half years later -– on the eve of a season that some believed might have culminated in a Super Bowl title for the Colts -– Albert surveyed the ruins.

“I put a lot of money into investing in Luck, and all of us are wondering, 'What the heck?' ” Albert said. “If [his retirement] is [for] mental health, go for it, retire and get yourself better. We've all kind of had the same sentiment. But from a hobby perspective, it's like a Fortune 500 company coming out and missing earnings by 50 percent. I probably lost 10 grand on Saturday night.”

For others, it was worse.

On the Blowout Card Forum message boards, Luck has become He Who Shall Not Be Named. Luck? Talk about a reversal of fortune.

Some of Luck’s premier rookie cards have crashed in value, from pre-retirement sales of more than $1,500 each in early August to under $500 over the past few days. Those sitting on scores of Luck autographed cards are in pure fire-sale mode.

Some, like Michael Pruser of Higganum, Conn., were lucky to have gotten out before Luck’s stunning proclamation. At one point, Pruser held a nearly six-figure liability on Luck’s 2012 Panini Contenders autographed rookie cards, arguably the most desirable of Luck’s cards. 

Pruser owned the Championship Ticket autographed parallel, limited to just one copy, and he hoarded Luck’s parallel and base autographed versions as well. At the highest point, Pruser said he had 118 Luck Contenders cards, nearly 20 percent of the entire print run. In the summer of 2015, when graded gem mint versions of the base card soared from $1,100 in May to $1,900 in August, Pruser liquidated his investment. He was out of the Luck game.

But he empathizes with Luck investors who are now sitting on what they thought would be a college tuition payment, only to have it now worth maybe a semester or two and some books.

“You see the big red line come across the [TV] screen, and all of a sudden you start thinking, ‘Wow, I really dodged a bullet this time,’ ” Pruser said. “I was sitting on a mountain of these things a few years ago. There was probably $10 or $15 million on the line with Luck, and in the blink of an eye, it’s gone.”

Pruser is empathetic. He invested heavily in cards for would-be baseball superstars Jose Fernandez of the Marlins and Oscar Taveras of the Cardinals, who both tragically died in accidents.  In both cases, Pruser said, he lost a substantial amount of money.

As for Luck investors, Pruser advises getting out now. “You do what you have to do,” he said. “People will say don’t cash in – this isn’t cashing in. This is about doing what you have to do to recoup as much as your investment as you can."

For Albert, who was used to regularly selling Luck common cards for $1 and game- or player-worn jersey cards for $10 –- “dozens a month,” he said -– getting out now doesn’t make much sense.

“I'm not selling off,” Albert said. “I have a nice little display area of his jerseys and autos, and I just put a 50-percent off sign [out]. Cards are already selling for 30 to 50 cents on the dollar. I'm willing to take a major hit. But I'm going to keep out the good ones. If he never comes back, I figure I lose money today or five years from now.”

Albert, who had been a collector for decades before fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a card store owner, can’t recall a fall as stark as this.

“We were trying to think who you compare it to in the history of the hobby,” Albert said. “Is there a comparison? Right now, I haven’t figured it out. It’s the topic of conversation with everyone who has walked in the door today. Today is the first day we’ve experienced the hangover.

“I'm tight with a lot of customers who are hurting in every way.”