Stepping into your local corner shop, you may have seen shiny plastic covering packs of cards gleaming out from the shelves. Whether it’s football or Pokémon cards, often it’s young children picking them out to collect and trade with each other.
But one former pharmacist has made this childhood hobby into a successful business, operating under the name The Yorkshire Collector.
“It started for me when I was in secondary school,” Adam Whittaker tells C+D. “When school finished, I’d go and get some football cards. I’d save up and if my mum gave me a few quid for dinner, I’d skip it and just spend it on cards.”
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It remained a hobby as he completed his MPharm at the University of Huddersfield and worked as a relief pharmacist in Manchester before moving to Sheffield to become a pharmacy manager at a Well Pharmacy.
But over the COVID-19 lockdowns, Whittaker and his wife started ordering more football and Disney cards.
“The collecting world boomed at that moment, and we were sort of a part of that. What we’d do is when we got back from work, we’d open whatever we’ve got. That transitioned into seeing what people were doing online, what livestreams were happening.
“After getting involved in some of those, I thought I can do this and started doing them myself. Then it exploded.
“Some days I’d be up at 6am posting and packing until 8am, then I’d do the shift from 8:30am to 6pm, then I’d be livestreaming at night.”
He says maintaining this routine with the long hours went on for around six months and was hard to keep up with, but by then it felt worth it going full-time with card collecting.
“If there was a risk to be taken for something I would prefer, certainly in an emerging market like that, then I’d take it. That’s what I did, and I have not looked back since.”
The new crypto
While some of those close to Whittaker were sceptical of his career change after four years of university and working into a managerial position to “open cards online”, his life for the past two years has been a world away from working behind the counter at a pharmacy.
He now does ‘breaks’ where he opens packs or boxes of cards online, proudly presenting his finds to his audience which can rapidly change into unbridled enthusiasm when a rare card reveals itself into his hands.
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“You’ve got entry level Match Attax, Shoot Out, Adrenalyn that you can get from Sainsbury’s, but these cards I’m dealing with you cannot buy in a corner shop.”
He works with the trading card and collectibles company Topps, and buys from the US as well, dealing mostly with sports cards.
Whittaker showcases a tin box over a video call with C+D which seems fairly unimpressive, but he reveals the tins are worth £950. He often does ‘case breaks’ of these which opens six boxes at a time, big cards can be worth thousands of pounds.
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Recently, he had a Lionel Messi card that went on to sell for just under £14,000 which has been his biggest single card sale to date. Clearly, there’s lots of money to be made from collecting but it makes it a competitive market to be in.
“Any trend that becomes popular, you get a wave of people and they all want to do it themselves,” he says. “It is a hyper competitive environment which lends itself to the hours I’m putting in at the minute.”
“People are sinking their savings and everything into these cards in a similar way to crypto.”
This creates an “around the clock” operation in contrast to when he worked in pharmacy and there being a separation once the pharmacy closes. But he believes the community aspect of his pharmacy career has helped him as a card collector.
“When people join these livestreams, they’re there to be entertained and engage with you. Working with a lot of people from different backgrounds [in pharmacy] and speaking to a lot of different people every day, having conversations with strangers that can be quite personal and difficult, that set me up really well to be confident on a livestream.”
$50,000 boxes
Whittaker’s interpersonal skills clearly extend beyond face-to-face or screen-to-camera interactions, and it is no better illustrated by the information laid out on the live auction platform Whatnot.
This is where Whittaker sells his cards and also livestreams, and he has a five-star rating from over 6,000 reviews and nearly 75,000 products sold.
“Over the years, I’ve built up a brand that people can trust. When we’ve hit cards that are worth £10,000, they know that I will get it to them and not just disappear of the face of the earth.”
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He says high-end card collecting can lead to some boxes be worth up to $50,000 each alone. Whittaker has seen other Disney boxes start out at £220 before reaching as much as £17,000.
“It’s like if somebody brings out a limited-edition sneaker – you see the potential. You hold onto it, it rises. After a little while in the sector, you know what’s going to do well and what might be worth putting away for a rainy day.”
The financial gains have certainly vindicated his decision to move from pharmacy into card collecting, but the unpredictable joy of opening a pack has not been lost on Whittaker at all.
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One of his most mind-blowing moments was opening two rare cards during a livestream of Disney cards, with one of the cards exhibiting Walt Disney’s signature on it.
“It’s next to impossible and we did both of them on the same day, so that was crazy. What’s great is you don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
From Yorkshire to around the world
Whittaker’s business extends out of his own trading as he established The Yorkshire Card Show in response to the lack of card shows in the UK.
“The last show we had over 1000 people and over 160 vendors, so it’s growing really quickly.”
It’s a place to trade cards not just in football but also across Pokémon, the NFL and Yu-Gi-Oh as well. But aside from establishing a base in Yorkshire, Whittaker has travelled all the world attending exhibitions in the USA, Germany and Holland. And he believes the perception of card collecting is changing too.
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“That’s the best thing about it, you get to travel. It’s not just sat in a room livestreaming. I opened a pack at a card show and it was a Jude Bellingham card. He watched the video and reacted to it. It can be seen as a little nerdy I guess, but it’s becoming a lot cooler.”
Whittaker says he’s doing more hours than ever before but he’s happy building this new life and business for himself.
“For me, it was a bit of a release – that’s how it started. But if you have any passions, then why not give them a go? Pharmacy is always going to be there, but you might just change your life.”
