CLEVELAND — Many of the corporate booths at the 2024 National Sports Collectors Convention had their own flair — whether resulting from the significance of items on display, live entertainment or other displays of hobby bravado.
But Alt’s booth stood out in its clear and direct message: We have cash, and we want to give it to you.
That’s not an exaggeration. The vault and auction company explicitly advertised its cash advance program with a landing page headlined, “Guaranteed cash now, unlimited upside later.”
While we’ve seen other companies run into trouble dealing in cash-for-card style loans, Alt’s initiative — first piloted at last year’s National — was an unmitigated success, according to the company, which sought to use the cash incentive to jumpstart consignments to its auction platform as it moved from bi-weekly to weekly.
The company previously engaged in investing through a fund. However, those functions were separate arms of the business, and Alt has since made a concerted effort to move in a new direction, according to Alt head of marketing Chris Callahan. Alt continues to run a lending program, separate from the cash-advance initiative.
Over the course of the weekend, nearly 2,000 cards were consigned to the platform, valued at a total of $4.5 million, according to Callahan. That is up from $1.2 million consigned in 2023, and nearly 6.5 times greater than the $700,000 consigned in 2022. All cards will be sent to auction in the first half of August.
In return, Alt handed out $2 million in cash.
Among the highlights were a 1999 Pokemon Base Set 1st Edition Holo Charizard PSA 10 with an MBA Gold Sticker, 2020 National Treasures Rookie Patch Autograph Gold Anthony Edwards SGC 9.5/10 and a 2023-2024 Donruss Fifa Lamine Yamal Optic-Gold Power 1/1.
The platform, which launched in March 2021 as a market and vault for cards and later auctions, sees the program as a method for injecting liquidity into the show.
“We introduced our cash advance service at the 2023 National so collectors could realize the full market value of their cards at auction while still receiving cash to spend on the show floor,” Callahan said. “The response from the hobby was so positive, we invested heavily to improve our Alt value pricing model, allowing us to advance up to 70% of a card's value at the 2024 National.”
The process for determining the cash advance is variable, depending on the volatility of the cards. For example, more difficult to price cards, such as one-of-one of cards or cards that have never sold publicly receive lower advances while more commonly sold cards are given a higher percentage.
Typically, more stable cards receive between 50 and 70 percent of the assigned Alt Value, while less liquid cards fall between 30 and 50 percent.
“Our model allows us to advance up to 70% of a card's value,” Callahan said. “We're working on moving that number higher and higher.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.