Collectable Review 2026: What Fractional Sports Memorabilia Investing Actually Costs You

Collectable launched in September 2020 as a Regulation A+ securitization platform that turned high-value sports cards and memorabilia into tradeable LLC interests. The pitch: buy shares of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8 for roughly what you'd spend on a decent restaurant dinner. By late 2024, secondary trading had been halted for months, the company had been sold twice, at least one investor had sued in Delaware Chancery Court, and the platform emailed its 90,000 registered users to close out positions by December 13, 2024, because it was "sunsetting" its marketplace. The full paper trail is in the company's SEC EDGAR filings under Collectable Sports Assets, LLC (CIK 1804446), and it is worth reading before you consider any fractional memorabilia platform that claims to have learned from this history.

How the Business Model Actually Worked

Collectable Sports Assets, LLC is a Delaware series limited liability company. Each sports card or piece of memorabilia it acquired was placed inside its own discrete "Series," and each Series sold LLC interests (equity shares in that Series alone) through a Regulation A+ offering. Reg A+ is a SEC exemption that allows companies to raise up to $75 million per year from both accredited and non-accredited investors, with streamlined disclosure requirements compared to a full IPO but more oversight than a basic crowdfunding raise.

The legal entity that managed everything was CS Asset Manager, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Collectable Technologies, Inc. That distinction matters for governance. The operating agreement explicitly stated the Manager "will not have any duty (including any fiduciary duty) to the Company, or any Series or any of the interest holders." The manager could, under contract, make decisions that benefited itself at the expense of shareholders. That clause was not buried — it mirrored similar language at competitor Rally — and most retail investors do not read 40-page operating agreements.

Collectable made money in two primary ways. First, it earned a sourcing fee: the spread between what it paid for an asset and the IPO valuation assigned to the corresponding Series. If the platform acquired a jersey for $100,000 and priced the IPO at $120,000, that $20,000 gap was platform revenue before a single investor bought a share. Second, the Manager retained a free equity stake in each Series, typically 3% to 5%, that it would cash out alongside retail investors when an asset sold. On offerings that closed escrow after May 15, 2022, the Manager also charged a monthly management fee of up to 2% annually of the Series' carrying value, calculated using the prior month's volume-weighted average price (VWAP). At disposition, a fee of up to 5% of gross sale proceeds applied as well.

The minimum investment per Series was as low as $2 per share in some offerings, with no stated overall account minimum. Whether the millennial retail investor the platform's own filings cited as its target demographic was well-served is a different question.

Secondary Trading: Thin from Day One, Gone by 2024

Secondary trading launched in February 2021 through a partnership with Templum Markets (an alternative trading system, or ATS) and DriveWealth, LLC. An ATS is a SEC-registered venue for trading securities outside the major exchanges. On paper, this gave fractional holders a path to exit without waiting for the underlying asset to sell outright. In practice, it was thin from the start.

A Sportico analysis from February 2022 described how fractional trading in memorabilia shares was attracting meme-stock energy but generating real losses, with many Series trading at discounts to IPO price. Collectable's own CEO, Ezra Levine, acknowledged in a January 2023 Sportico interview that secondary fractional assets "tend to trade at a 20% discount" to asset value. That was the company's own admission.

In its first full two operational years, Collectable offered 236 items and sold outright (underlying physical asset sold, investors paid out) on just 27. That is an 11.4% exit rate. The other 88.6% of investor positions were either trading on a thin ATS or waiting indefinitely.

By 2024, even that thin ATS market was gone. The company's most recent annual report (Form 1-K for fiscal year 2025, filed with the SEC) states directly: "In 2024, the Company halted operating the secondary trading function of the platform due to cost considerations. It did not issue any new offerings." The 2025 entry reads the same way. Trading remained halted. No new offerings. The platform was dormant on both the primary and secondary sides.

For investors still holding shares at the time of the sunset announcement in November 2024, the exit option was whatever the platform offered before December 13, 2024, or nothing. The underlying assets, which include a 1964 Sandy Koufax jersey valued at $358,408 on the books, a Wilt Chamberlain high school uniform at $268,044, and a 1952 Mickey Mantle PSA 8 at $242,434, remained physically held by the new manager. Investors retained their legal fractional interest but had no mechanism to trade it.

Valuation Methodology and Conflict-of-Interest Concerns

How did Collectable value the assets for impairment testing after trading halted? The 1-K filing describes the method: "The Manager annually evaluates each asset's carrying value compared to the current market value of the asset." The metric used was VWAP from secondary trading on the ATS. When secondary trading halted in 2024, there was no VWAP to reference. The 2025 filing acknowledges this directly: "Despite no trading data in 2025 for VWAP analysis, the Company's position based on outside market research is that remaining asset values have at a minimum remained steady."

That is not a rigorous valuation methodology. "Outside market research" conducted by the same manager who earns fees based on carrying value, with no independent third-party appraisal requirement specified in the operating agreement, creates a clear conflict of interest. The Manager assesses a fee of up to 2% annually of carrying value. Higher carrying values mean higher fees. The Manager also controls when and whether to sell an asset, and collects a disposition fee of up to 5% of gross proceeds on sale. There is no independent valuation committee and no requirement to hire an outside appraiser on any set schedule.

The operating agreement gives the Manager full discretion to decide whether an offer to sell an underlying asset is "in the best interest of the investors." When new owner Phil Neuman purchased the platform in August 2023 for $1.35 million, investors learned that their interests could be bought and sold without their consent or notification. Reporting by Darren Rovell at cllct.com in August 2024 documented investors who offered to buy out assets they partially owned, including a $250,000 offer for a Luka Doncic rookie jersey (the offeror held 10%) and a $130,000 offer for a Babe Ruth Goudey card. Both went unanswered or were rejected without explanation.

The structural issue is not unique to Collectable. A November 2024 cllct investigation noted that the same manager-friendly operating agreement language appeared at Rally. The operating agreements of these platforms "closely followed precedent set by other Reg A+ fractional ownership models," as Collectable's original CEO put it. That precedent gives platform managers broad discretion and limited fiduciary obligation to retail shareholders. The SEC's Regulation Best Interest standard applies to broker-dealers, but Collectable itself was not a registered broker-dealer. It partnered with broker-dealers to distribute offerings, which created a gap in coverage.

The SEC Filing History and What the Impairment Data Shows

Collectable Sports Assets, LLC's EDGAR record tells most of the story. The company filed offering circulars (Form 1-A) for individual Series beginning in 2020, with annual reports (Form 1-K) and semiannual reports (Form 1-SA) as required. In late April 2024, secondary trading halted after the company failed to file required financial paperwork on schedule. The 2025 1-K confirms no new offerings, no new sales of underlying assets, and continued dormancy of the secondary market.

In 2024, the platform recorded $915,976 in impairment charges across 35 Series. Notable write-downs included a $94,080 charge on the Muhammad Ali WBC Championship Belt Series (original cost basis $388,080), a $119,975 charge on a Johnny Unitas 1965 jersey (original cost basis $165,900, a 72% decline), and a $95,940 charge on a Charles Barkley Suns jersey. These were among the platform's headline offerings from its COVID-era growth phase, not obscure items.

No SEC enforcement action has been taken against the company as of this writing. The Delaware Court of Chancery suit filed by investor Justin Cornett in November 2024 sought to compel the company to open its books. The combination of halted trading, missed filings, asset relocation without investor notice, and a manager soliciting new investors into assets already owned by existing investors is the pattern that has drawn SEC scrutiny at other Reg A+ platforms in adjacent markets.

Authentication Risk: The Variable Nobody Prices In

Every Collectable offering required items to meet its BASE criteria: Benchmarks, Authenticity, Significance, Earnings Potential. Authentication through professional grading by PSA, BGS (Beckett), or SGC was a stated prerequisite. The platform held a 1952 Mickey Mantle PSA 8, a 1955 Sandy Koufax PSA 9, and other high-grade vintage cards where the grade accounts for a large portion of the item's value.

What the disclosures do not address: what happens if a grading company revises its standards, or if a card is removed from its holder and resubmitted at a lower grade. PSA grading standards have shifted over time, and cards graded during the COVID boom have sometimes been re-evaluated at lower grades on resubmission. Fractional investors have no ability to control whether a physical asset is removed from its case or subjected to any maintenance decision. That authority belongs to the Manager.

There is also provenance risk specific to game-worn memorabilia. The platform held a Wilt Chamberlain high school uniform (cost basis $268,044) and Kevin Durant's high school jersey (impaired to $21,281 by end of 2024 from an original $56,750). Such items authenticate through chain-of-custody documentation rather than a standardized grading system, making independent appraisal more important. Collectable's disclosures did not specify one.

Who This Platform Is Actually For, and Who It Was Marketed To

Collectable marketed itself to the 83.1 million U.S. millennials who follow sports, track cards, and have $20 to invest. The pitch provides access to assets otherwise locked behind six-figure price tags, and there is nothing misleading about that pitch at the marketing level.

The execution problem is that fractional sports memorabilia structured as Reg A+ LLC interests is a fundamentally illiquid asset category, sold to retail investors on the basis of "you could sell your shares anytime trading is open," when trading is thin from day one, carries a built-in 20% discount to asset value per the company's own CEO, and can be halted unilaterally at any point. The manager controls the physical asset, earns fees based on its stated value, and has no legal fiduciary obligation to shareholders in most of these structures.

The investor who benefits from this model needs a very specific profile: deep independent knowledge of the specific asset's value, a holding-period tolerance measured in years or longer, and the financial resilience to write off the position entirely if the platform fails. That is not the millennial with $20 who sees a Super Bowl ring on social media. That is a sophisticated collector who already understands auction pricing, grading history, and provenance risk. As Sports Illustrated Collectibles noted in November 2024, for most retail participants, fractional sports card investing "has been a total failure," with the Collectable situation as the clearest example of what platform-level risk looks like in practice.

As of mid-2026, Collectable's marketplace is sunset. Its assets remain in the hands of a manager whose communication with investors has been minimal. The platform's failure does not indict fractional alternative asset investing entirely. It does confirm that securitizing illiquid physical assets under Reg A+ requires a manager with genuine governance, a secondary market with real liquidity backed by data, independent valuation procedures, and actual fiduciary commitments rather than contractual language that waives them.

What to Do Before Investing in Any Fractional Memorabilia Platform

• Read the full operating agreement before investing. Look specifically for the fiduciary duty clause and understand whether the manager owes you anything legally beyond keeping the asset insured.
• Check the EDGAR filing history of the specific issuer entity. Missed or late filings are a yellow flag; halted trading follows missed filings more often than most marketing decks acknowledge.
• Ask what secondary market liquidity actually looks like: how many trades per week, what is the average bid-ask spread, and what discount to asset value have shares historically traded at. If the platform cannot answer with data, that is your answer.
• Verify how the platform values assets: who does it, how often, using what reference data, and whether the valuer is independent of the manager who charges fees based on that value.
• Size any fractional memorabilia position as a pure speculation with a realistic probability of a zero outcome, not as a portfolio diversifier. If you cannot lose the entire position without affecting your financial plan, the position is too large.
• If you want exposure to sports collectibles as an asset class, the most direct and liquid route remains owning the physical card or item outright through a transparent auction house (Heritage, Goldin, PWCC/Fanatics Collect) and controlling your own exit timing.

Sources: SEC EDGAR, Collectable Sports Assets 1-K (FY2025) | cllct / Darren Rovell, "Investors in Collectable concerned: 'They are holding our items hostage'" (Aug. 2024) | cllct / Darren Rovell, "Collectable investor sues company, seeks clarity on memorabilia assets" (Nov. 2024) | Sportico, "Collectable Flips Institutional Trading Idea Into Card Auction Service" (Jan. 2023) | Sportico, "Fractional Card Market Meme Excitement Brings Losses Too" (Feb. 2022) | Sports Illustrated Collectibles, "Fractional Investing in Sports Cards Has Been a Failure" (Nov. 2024)

Author Disclosure: Jeff Barnes, MBA has no personal position in any company, fund, or platform named in this article. Angel Investors Network has no current commercial relationship with any party mentioned. AIN provides marketing and education services, not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal.