Stream It Or Skip It: ‘King Of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch’ On Netflix, Where Ken Goldin And His Crew Auction Memorabilia For Millions Of Dollars

Shows like Pawn Stars or Antiques Roadshow, where people take things they find in their homes and try to find out if they have any value, are way different from shows like King Of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch. In this new Netflix reality series, people who collect rare memorabilia employ Ken Goldin’s company to auction their items off for thousands — and sometimes millions — of dollars.

KING OF COLLECTIBLES: THE GOLDIN TOUCH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of black SUVs pull up to a nondescript office building in Runnemede, NJ.

The Gist: The employees of Goldin, the collectible auction house, watch the spectacle as big guards protect someone carrying a hard case as if it was the nuclear football. They go into the office of the company’s founder and chairman, Ken Goldin, who opens it and looks: It’s the contract that the Red Sox signed to sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920.

Goldin and his company auctions collectibles, mostly having to do with sports, but they also auction collectibles in other categories. We meet his team, including Dave Amerman, the head of auctions. Goldin is preparing for a massive auction of Jackie Robinson memorabilia, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Ken shows Dave a game-used bat from one of Robinson’s All-Star Game appearances, a letter Robinson wrote shortly before his death, and other items. In the mail, Dave receives a yearbook from Robinson’s junior college, which he signed three times.

The biggest item that they want to consign, though, is a game-used Robinson jersey from 1951, a rare find. The owner of the jersey, though, communicates through one of the dealers Amerman deals with that he wants a reserve of $10 million; in other words, if the highest bid is any less than that, there’s no sale. Both Goldin and Amerman think that’s an unrealistic ask, given no baseball jersey has ever gone for more than $5 million. But to keep the jersey from one of their competitors, Amerman reluctantly agrees to the exorbitant reserve.

Meanwhile, Goldin flies to Toronto to to a live card pack break with none other than Drake. Goldin is looking for the LeBron James “Triple Logoman” card, which contains the NBA logos from the jerseys he wore on each team he’s won titles with. Only one exists, and Drake has gotten into the search for the card, which could be worth millions.

Also, father-son item scouts Robbie Davis Sr. and Robbie Davis Jr. go to the house of one of their best customers, who has items like signed baseballs from everyone in the 500 home run club. Robbie Sr. salivates over the baseballs, especially the Babe Ruth one, but the customer has something else he wants to sell: His collection of Beanie Babies. When the pair bring the stuffies back to Goldin HQ, they bring a PhD to appraise them. Alex Gaimo, the company’s online content director and host of the videos they produce, brings in her bins of Beanie Babies, just in case the appraiser has time.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? King Of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch reminds us of Pawn Stars, but with a lot higher stakes.

Our Take: King Of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: A semi-scripted, overly-dramatic, testosterone-filled show about wish fulfillment. Because the show is so unapologetically douchey, it’s actually quite entertaining.

How can we call a show where the extraordinarily wealthy Ken Goldin gets on a private jet to fly to Toronto to open packs of cards with Drake anything but douchey? The two of them act like giddy rich kids as they open these packs; they don’t find the Triple Logoman card, but they find other valuable cards that basically mean that both Drake and Goldin will rake in even more cash.

In most episodes, Goldin or one of his staff will rub elbows with a celebrity, whether it’s Mike Tyson, Rick Flair, Logan Paul, Joe Montana or Peyton Manning, who is one of the show’s executive producers.

In almost every case where someone from the staff is scouting a collection, the person looking to sell is living in a huge house in a wealthy neighborhood. It makes sense, right? How would a guy who not only has one of the few working Apple I computers in existence, plus every other Apple computer made from the company’s start to the mid ’00s, be able to acquire all that stuff? It’s great to see collections like that, of course, but we hope to see more of what we saw in the second episode, where a young dude comes in with his mom, hoping to get life-changing money for his Steph Curry rookie card.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: With the auction for the Jackie Robinson jersey stalling at a still-record-setting $7.5 million with only a couple of hours left, Goldin and Amerman get on the phone with the jersey’s owner to try to get him to reduce the reserve.

Sleeper Star: We’re lobbying for the Davises to have their own show. They are funny as hell and have that father-son chemistry you can’t replicate.

Most Pilot-y Line: We don’t like the trend of Netflix reality shows doing cliffhangers to get someone to click to the next episode. The cliffhangers are particularly egregious in this show.

Our Call: STREAM IT. King Of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch isn’t exactly working-class TV, but it’s fun to watch just for the sheer audacity of some of the collections that Goldin and his crew auction off.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.