Cassius Marsh appears over Zoom dressed in a Steelers sweatshirt and tiger-stripe shorts. The 6' 4", 254-pound outside linebacker is a splattered canvas of tattoos that stretch out to his knuckles. His stringy blond hair hangs over a black headband and settles alongside a golden earring dangling from his left ear.
He is sitting inside the space that will soon become his very own trading card store, Cash Cards Unlimited, in Westlake Village, California. They open Feb. 26 and specialize in Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, along with various sports trading cards. Just inside the door, in front of a custom mural featuring Pokémon like Rayquaza, Charizard and Mewtwo, and Goku from the Japanese anime cartoon Dragon Ball-Z, is a glass display case of some of his “big hitters,” like a first-edition Yu-Gi-Oh! Box, the likes of which has sold on eBay for upward of $6,000, and single Pokémon base set blister packs, which could sell for more than $1,500 apiece for 10 cards (these are the cardboard-backed packages of cards you saw at the register of every toy store and pharmacy from 1996 to 2000 and cost $3 apiece at the time).
His goal is to make the rapidly ballooning trading card collectible shopping experience feel like you’re at a Louis Vuitton store. Indeed, you must check in on a sleek, encased iPad that also acts as a contact tracer before you’re escorted into the “show room,” which is just beyond the “vibe area,” lit with a contrast of neon bulbs. The main gathering space evokes a high-end boutique, or perhaps an expensive marijuana dispensary, with a few small tables featuring premium product. A black curtain cordons off the customers from a few industrial shelves full of sealed product that will either be shipped out, sold in person or opened on camera.
“I’ve always recognized the value in Magic Cards,” says Marsh, who, on social media, also calls himself the “Foil King,” named after the shiny, foil-like texture that special Pokémon and Magic cards have. “It was kind of this unseen market. To see what Magic has done, Pokémon cards have done in the last six months, sports cards, to see the explosion of collectables and trading cards, it’s pretty unreal.
“All of this stuff, it’s art. For the new generation, these cards are similar to buying a Picasso. They’re high-end collectibles. High-end art. A lot of these pieces are extremely rare. Some of these sports cards are one of one. It’s like getting a personal piece from a famous artist. It’s just in its infancy right now.”
If all of this seems out of the ordinary, that’s the point. Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon, specifically, have given a lot to Marsh, providing him with comfort as a young child being raised by a working single mother. Now, he can properly elevate the hobby’s aesthetic beyond its roots inside dimly lit, unfriendly card dungeons, tucked away in dated strip malls. (In case you were wondering, there a hype video of Marsh online flicking Pokémon cards out of his hands like singles at a gentlemen’s club.) On a deeper level, his presence here as a person who looks nothing like the dated and damaging stereotype of a trading-card game obsessive (taped glasses, matted hair, inhaler affixed in hand) is also intentional. Parents have written Marsh and thanked him in the past for making Magic and Pokémon seem more broadly acceptable. He has since tried to take up that mantle.
In the past, it was a hobby Marsh felt an inclination to hide. His dad, former NFL receiver Curtis Marsh, and half-brother, former NFL cornerback Curtis Marsh Jr., knew little, if anything, about his affinity for fantasy card games. Now, he’s played Magic with the likes of former Seahawks wideout Doug Baldwin and Taven Bryan, the Jaguars’ 2018 first-round pick (who Marsh “crushed,” because Bryan was playing some “janky, not-tiered-up, not foiled-out decks”). Marsh attended some of The Gathering’s biggest professional tournaments and showcases, and appears on some of the genre’s most popular web series. In the NFL, he is a pied piper of fantasy card playing games.
By diving back into his childhood, Marsh has secured a rare slice of post-career purpose in conjunction with a market that is absolutely exploding in popularity. A first-edition Pokémon base set box (36 packs featuring 10 cards apiece, still in its original packaging) sold for $408,000 at a recent Heritage Auction. Marsh’s store has an empty base set booster box sitting in a display case out front, which could fetch upward of $350 on eBay. A Black Lotus card, the holy grail of Magic collecting, recently topped out at over $500,000 at auction. The former rapper Logic purchased a single Pokémon card—a base set Charizard—for more than $220,000 (or roughly the entirety of his final album’s opening-week sales) back in October.
But Marsh’s connection to his own past, and the past of his new followers and friends, ensures that this endeavor has a deeper meaning beyond the bubble.
“People anticipate you’re going to get picked on and made fun of,” Marsh says. “It’s made out to be a kids-only thing, which I just don’t agree with, man. If you’re a creative and you’re into the fantasy world, anime, all that stuff, it goes hand in hand …who cares?”
