As the founder of secondary shoe marketplace StockX, you would think Josh Luber would have been most blown away by a particular shoe brand.
But when Luber thinks back on his time at StockX, he thinks most about Bearbrick, the collectible Japanese toy whose identity was a blank canvas for collaborations. When certain Bearbrick gathered steam, they'd inevitably end up on StockX for sale.
"I became fascinated with how we, seemingly overnight, became their largest reseller," said Luber, who left StockX in 2020 to join Fanatics Collectibles.
As a longtime collector of pop culture, Luber studied the idea of Bearbrick, which organically fell into being collectible. After unsuccessfully making a run to buy them, Luber came up with an idea.
How about taking the idea of a characterless conduit, not driven by intellectual property in and of itself, and pull all the strings that make things collectible?
That was the brainchild of Luber's new company, Ghostwrite.
Ghostwrite makes "ghosts" of three sizes: the 100 percent version (2½ inches), 400 percent version (11 inches) and the 1000 percent version (28 inches). Each ghost is limited edition. The company gifted early ghosts to collectors that are 1 of 1, but the main version — the 400 percent — has defaulted to 50 total made, with 20 being auctioned.
The company then also serves as the primary market by holding a blind dutch auction for each version of ghosts. In those auctions, collectors submit their blind bids. The top 20, in this case, will get the ghosts at the price of the lowest winner, which is also known as the clearing price.
Ghostwrite's first release available to the public, for example, happens to be a gray ghost with "Ghostwrite" written on it. So far, there are 151 bids for the 20 that are available, with the auction closing Thursday.
"We're basically taking everything we learned from sneakers and trading cards to create a brand that has scarcity, that is truly collectible and that can be easily graded," Luber said.
Ghosts can be authenticated by tapping a phone on the crown of the ghost, but Luber said the company has already done a deal with toy grader AFA, which will allow for turnkey grading and encapsulation.
"There's even a way for you to win a ghost and get it graded before you receive it," Luber said.
Although Luber's idea is to somewhat control what makes something hot, he knows the measure of success for Ghostwrite will depend on a secondary market.
A "No. 2" pencil ghost, which sold to friends and family with a clearing price of $412, sold on StockX for $1,200 on Wednesday.
"You need to have true demand before you add the scarcity element," Luber said.
Luber also will need scale, something he says he can't worry about from the start. He has raised an undisclosed amount from big investors including Michael Rubin, Mark Wahlberg, Scooter Braun, Ted Leonsis and Steve Case.
The first big collaboration will be with Rocky's Matcha, a traveling tea house that has taken over the hot scene in Los Angeles. Founder Rocky Xu is also an investor.
But the main scale business will rely on partnerships with the sports leagues.
Like the card industry with breaking, the collectible toy industry has gravitated to "blind boxes," the idea of buying a toy brand, but not knowing what is inside. Luber says Ghostwrite will have packages filled with the 100 percent ghosts for more of a mass product, though the ingredients of scarcity will still be key.
"Making 50 has the same cost as making 2,000, but I don't want 2,000 of the same thing out there," Luber said. "It's going to be just like cards. We're going to have a gold crown player ghost, and some that are numbered that are extremely valuable. I completely expect breakers to get into these as well. We think people will want to hunt down the Caitlin Clark 1 of 1 rookie ghost."
It is not known yet whether blind box price will be based on MSRP or if dutch auctions will also be the method for determining who pays what. Ghostwrite also isn't releasing any sort of schedule as to what will be rolled out and when.
What is known is that the boxes will be completely clear.
Said Luber: "I don't like the idea that if you get something graded, you can't see or enjoy what's inside. We wanted to make sure that's not the case with us."
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.