His passion was in the cards
Brian Dwyer, owner and president of Robert Edward Auctions, has parlayed his lifelong interest in baseball card collecting into a career.
Dwyer started collecting baseball cards as a 6-year-old and said he really caught the bug when he was 12 and his best friend’s father decided to sell his collection of cards from the 1950s and '60s. That “treasure chest” was a combination of sports and history that “opened up a door into the past that I had never walked through before,” he said. “I just became enamored with it.
“Collecting always was an integral part of my identity.”
In high school, Dwyer said, he was known as “the eBay guy,” as he ran a small consignment business on that platform. “I loved that I could sit in my house in upstate New York and help somebody in Texas finish their set,” he said.
After college and a stint at a sports card authenticator, Dwyer decided to leverage his passion and “blaze a new path.” Drawing on his eBay experience, he created an auction platform for sports cards that he ultimately sold. Dwyer assumed ownership of the company in 2016 when the founder retired and has presided over a number of big transactions, including the 2021 sale of a rare Honus Wagner card for a record $6.6 million.
“It brings me great joy,” Dwyer said. “There’s great responsibility, but it comes down to my hobby and my passion, so it never truly feels like work to me.”
Dwyer said he values the connections that collecting brings. “I’m able to interact with people in all walks of life because we have this common thread,” he said.
Dwyer said he’s introducing his own children, now 2 and 3, to collecting by buying them inexpensive packs of cards. The kids are “very much into the idea of opening” them and maybe recognizing one of the players on TV, he said. “It’s something we can have fun doing together. I look back at what my dad did with me.”
When people ask him for advice about collecting, Dwyer asks: What makes them want to collect?
“Ultimately, I advocate that people collect what they love,” he said. “I collect items that, when I look at them, have a story. They’re interesting, and when I look at them, they bring me joy.”
From Matchbox to Ferrari
Ken Ahn has also turned his love of collecting into his career. He’s president of marketplace and radius at Hagerty, a company that serves automotive enthusiasts.
Toy cars helped Ahn, who was born in South Korea and lived there until he was in eighth grade, learn the English alphabet. “In the ‘70s and ‘80s, when I was growing up, there were only a handful of models in Korea," he said. "But my father would bring back Matchbox cars from his business trips; and I would say, ‘What’s this car, what’s that car?’ And I would try to memorize the cars by their shapes."
Ahn said his current collection of “young-timers” — classics built relatively recently — contains many of those same cars.
“I spend most if not all of my free time immersing myself in all things car-related,” he said. “As a result, I tend to be laser-focused on knowing what the next car that might join the collection is."
Prices for collector cars have softened recently after pandemic-era “exuberance,” Ahn said. Few people buy classic cars solely for investment, as “returns can be unpredictable,” he said. Still, “it’s fair to say that most collector cars, by definition, are past the bottom of the depreciation curve.”
The dynamics of the industry are changing, with millennials and Gen Zers taking an interest, Ahn said. “What this means is that the industry dynamic is evolving,” he said, “from how people buy and sell cars increasingly online to an influx in collectors who would rather have fewer cars but drive them more.
“Lately, the cars I’m looking at — and the ones that our clients are shopping for — are more drivable. You can do a lot more — and travel further and in more comfort — in a 2003 Ferrari 575M than a 1983 512BB.”
Ahn’s advice to would-be collectors is to do lots of research and seek out “expert voices” — and to “always remember to buy what you love, and you can’t go wrong.”
Collecting runs in the family
Mathew Wolf grew up surrounded by works of art. His parents, Erving and Joyce Wolf, assembled what’s been called one of the most important collections of American art and furniture. Mathew Wolf recently oversaw the sale of the collection at Sotheby’s. The “Wolf Family collection: The Spirit of America” consisted of almost 1,000 lots that included paintings and objects dating from Colonial times to the early 20th century.
“Obviously, living amid this magnificent collection, I naturally developed an eye and an ear for what’s hot and what’s not,” said Wolf, who now runs the family business and Pacific Strategic Collectors. “But most of all, it showed me that collecting is in my family’s genes.
“I knew my father was building a family enterprise with investments in energy, equities, land and American art. I prepared for years to oversee it.”
Wolf collects Andy Warhol drawings from the 1950s — an era he calls the artist’s “affordable period.”
The internet “completely changed” collecting, for good and bad, Wolf said. “Before the internet, my parents would walk up and down Madison Avenue and speak to all the dealers, go to all the auction houses, see everything for sale and hang out with their fellow collectors, who had become their best friends,” he said. “I will never forget the mounds of open Sotheby’s auction catalogs in their library all the time.
“These days, I see everything for sale on earth without leaving my desk, looking at an auction catalog or speaking to anyone. Things change!”
Though he’s “obsessed” with Warhol’s works himself, Wolf said passion isn’t necessary for all collectors. “There is no law that says you must love everything you collect,” he said. “It is totally cool to invest in art that you don’t love but believe is currently undervalued and could generate lots of profit when sold in the future.
“Whatever you decide to collect, buy the very best you can afford, and it will take care of itself if you ever want to sell it. If possible, collect something that is appreciated worldwide, like a piece of jewelry by Cartier or a Rothko. It might cost more to buy due to its global appeal, but there will be a lot more buyers in the marketplace if you later decide to sell it.”
Car collector sees market as increasingly ‘legitimate investment’
Car collector Philip Richter says his interest in “motorized things” started at age 6 when he got a Honda 50 dirt bike. “I’ve always found the internal combustion engine a miracle device,” said Richter, co-founder of Hollow Brook Wealth Management. “It’s just an incredibly brilliant invention that is very technical but at the same time extremely simple.”
Legendary collector Malcolm Pray was an early mentor to Richter, who sits on the board of the Pray Family Foundation, sponsor of an educational program aimed at inspiring economically disadvantaged young people. Pray’s son, killed at 16 in a car accident, was a childhood friend of Richter’s. “I started going to car shows with Malcolm, and I started getting interested in the competition,” Richter said.
Car collecting is “a wonderful way to meet interesting people,” and interactive and experiential events are bringing new collectors into the fold and expanding the market, he said.
“Twenty years ago, it was an enthusiast’s market,” Richter said. “Cars weren’t considered a legitimate investment.” Now, with large organizations like Sotheby’s, Hearst Media and Hagerty buying up auction companies, “the auction market has become very vibrant," he said.
“The number of on-ramps to the collector car world has increased dramatically, and the global nature of the internet has exposed the world to these automobiles, so you have exploding demand."
Technology has also made collecting easier, Richter said. Potential buyers can see close-up photos and videos, and online commenters reward “power sellers” with good feedback and “call out” others who try to paper over flaws, he said.
The future of the internal combustion engine itself is helping drive up prices, with some fearing that the days of high-powered engines are numbered, Richter said. “There’s a little bit of worry of a melting-ice-cube situation,” he said.
Richter doesn’t believe in buying collector cars solely for financial reasons. “Part of the benefit of car ownership is enjoying” the car, he said. “It all begins with passion. You’re going to want to maintain it because you care about it.”
As with any investment, it’s important to work with an expert to help evaluate potential purchases, Richter said. ‘I’m fairly knowledgeable about cars, but I don’t buy on my own,” he said. “It’s no different from the wealth management business, where you have a trusted adviser who knows what they’re doing.”
“From Miata to Mercedes to Maybach, there are people who are experts. Having a trusted adviser in the collector car world will never hurt you. The money you pay them will be worth it.”