Hobby Hustle

Collecting as a hobby can take many forms. For some it’s music, for others it’s coins. Or comic books. Or stamps. Or books. Or figurines...the list goes on and on. The point is, collections and collectors come in many forms, but one particular corner of that world might be the biggest money-spinner of them all, the buying, collecting, and selling of sports memorabilia and trading cards.

 

Hobby Hustle from filmmaker Michael Dault is about just that, a multi-billion-dollar industry full of passionate people all in it for a plethora of different reasons. The film predominantly guides us through it all via three core stories, with some smaller ones dotted throughout to give the whole idea deeper context for the less initiated. There is the story of Luke, a young teen with such passion and knowledge of the game that he is now on the verge of opening his own store and has become an industry icon.

 

There is then the more cautionary tale of Cliff, an aspiring baseball player who then became the mind behind one of the biggest memorabilia forgeries networks the industry has ever seen. And bringing back the positivity is the story of Karl Kissner, the man behind “The Black Swamp Find”, one of the biggest finds of rare and old baseball cards ever recorded when he discovered them buried away in his relative's attic, a moment that transformed his and his family’s life forever.

 

There really is no stone left unturned here, which one might expect from its more than two-and-a-half-hour runtime, but it is justified given just how much of this world is actually explored. We see how the hobby was started and then popularised, the rise and fall of the industry’s brick-and-mortar stores, the impact of the internet and selling sites like eBay, and the industry’s Covid boom. It also dives into the hobby’s darker side, the scam artists and forgers looking to pass off knock-offs and making ridiculous amounts of money in the process, again Cliff’s story is perhaps one of the biggest and most elaborate examples of this and arguably the most compelling.

 

With so much covered it means there is constantly something new and interesting for the viewer to learn about, with the film very rarely re-treading any past ground. But where Dault is most clever is in how they splice these stories apart, telling each in part before switching to another and returning at a later point, adding smaller contextual tales in-between so that viewers can very easily get the whole picture behind this crazy popular hobby without ever feeling overwhelmed. Its primary focus on the baseball card industry means that references and their true significance might not necessarily land with some who do not know their Micky Mantle’s and Jose Canseco’s, but Hobby Hustle is built cleverly enough that there is no doubt that those who give it a go will more than get the idea and be fascinated by it.

 

Whether it’s all completely unknown to you or indeed you are already in the game yourself, Hobby Hustle is a complete documentary that educates and highlights the passion for something beautiful and meaningful to so many.

Watch our Video Film Review of Hobby Hustle.