Auctions of Cars, Watches and Furniture Heat Up

One of Mr. Petrozzo’s “investors” is Nicholas Abouzeid, the 24-year-old head of marketing at MainStreet, a 50-person firm that helps start-ups find and claim tax credits and incentives from the government.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Abouzeid was talking over Zoom from the bedroom of his home in Woodbury, Conn. In his long-sleeved white T-shirt and wood framed glasses, he looked like any number of young white men who might work for Mark Zuckerberg or Josh Kushner. Behind him were shelves of memorabilia — super plastic toys, sealed Nintendo games from the ’90s and collectible Nike Sacai Waffle sneakers.

In the actual stock market, Mr. Abouzeid made last year what he described as “more than what somebody should make in a year,” buying and selling positions in high-growth technology companies such as Slack, Stitch Fix, Shopify and Fastly. “I’m in and out all the time,” he said.

He extracted much of his profits and put them into Pokémon collectibles.

On one level, it’s born of his nostalgia for the game, which he began playing in sixth grade. On another, it’s “an alternative asset class and a way to diversify,” as he put it.

His holy grail item is a first-edition “Booster Box” of Pokémon cards.

Upon its 1999 release, the set cost $110. In January, Heritage Auctions in Dallas sold one for $408,000.

Mr. Abouzeid doesn’t have that kind of money, but in a June 2020 “I.P.O.” from Rally, he purchased 125 “shares” of one at a price of $25 each.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/style/spending-rich-people.html