Inside ghostwrite: Josh Luber’s Next Big Move in Collectibles
Collecting has always been more than a hobby for Josh Luber. It’s been a driving force behind his career from co-founding StockX to working at Fanatics Collectibles.
Luber has built a legacy at the intersection of culture, commerce and collectibles.
His latest venture, ghostwrite, represents the culmination of years of experience and experimentation in building a product that resonates with collectors.
Ghostwrite uses a “blank canvas collectible,” a base collectible that can be transformed or adapted.
“The ghost itself is not a character,” Luber said in an interview with Collectibles on SI. “There’s no face, no gender. It’s a kid with a crown. It’s a blank canvas to tell other people’s stories.”
The stories have been told with the NBA, WNBA, Rocky’s Matcha and Eastside Golf with more partnerships to come, including MLB. The WNBA release, for instance, features rookie ghosts of stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, complete with an “R” designation on their shoulders, a nod to rookie cards.
“A ghostwriter puts himself in the place of that person or whoever he is writing the book for and channels that person's story,” Luber said. “That's exactly what we do.”
A Journey Through Collectibles
Ghostwrite is a natural progression of Luber’s journey, which began with StockX, the resale platform he co-founded in 2016. While StockX became synonymous with sneakers, it became known for integrating a stock market-style pricing mechanism for any collectible.
“When we started StockX, people knew it for sneakers, but it was really about connecting buyers and sellers through a pricing mechanism,” Luber said. “As we expanded, we added collectibles like Bearbrick and Astroboy. Overnight, we became the largest reseller of Bearbrick. That’s when I realized this industry was big enough to matter and big enough to work with all the most important brands and artists. But it wasn't so big that you didn't have companies like Fanatics or the NBA or Footlocker.”
The idea of a blank canvas collectible took root during Luber's time at Fanatics. He took everything he learned from all of his stops to deliver ghostwrite.
“At StockX, we grew the marketplace. At Fanatics, we created trading cards. Now I get to start a brand on my own that takes everything that we learned from sneakers and trading cards and apply it all,” Luber said. “Everything we sell on StockX, they're all the same. They're just different forms of the same thing, which is the intersection of culture and commerce, the intersection of supply and demand.”
Lessons from the Hype Economy
Central to ghostwrite’s business model is what Luber calls the "hype economy," a term he coined to describe this space where value is determined by supply and demand rather than retail pricing.
“We came up with that term at some point along the way to sort of talk about all of these industries, all of these categories, “Luber said. “It includes luxury, it includes all these products where fundamentally the value of the product is a function of supply and demand."
Ghostwrite’s flagship product, a 400 percent collectible ghost, embodies this philosophy. Released in limited quantities through a blend of Blind Dutch auctions and direct sales, the ghosts are designed to sell out quickly while maintaining long-term value on the secondary market.
The Art of Creation
The journey to perfect the ghostwrite took some time. Luber and his team spent eight months collaborating with 14 toy designers to create a figure that could function as a blank canvas without losing its identity.
Luber tried to make it feel closer to home, but he had to step back and consider the bigger picture.
“We wanted to create a blank canvas collectible, but it was a really hard thing to get. There were a couple of full designs that were completely designed and ripped up,” Luber said. “One was based on my daughter wearing a hoodie, but no matter what we did, it still looked like a girl in a hoodie.”
Ghostwrite is more than just a product; it’s a brand built with collectors in mind. From clear packaging that allows for display without unboxing to embedded chips for authenticity, every detail reflects Luber’s understanding of what collectors value.
“As a collector, I’ve spent years thinking, ‘Why don’t they just do this?’” Luber said.
What’s Next for ghostwrite?
Looking ahead, ghostwrite plans to expand with upcoming releases with the NBA and MLB. The company is also exploring new formats, such as blind box releases and smaller scale collectibles.
The excitement of building ghostwrite lies in its potential to create something collectors truly want.
“We just make things that we want to buy or things that we wanted to buy as kids,” Luber said.
Susan is an award-winning journalist who spent over a decade working in the sports card industry. You can follow her at twitter.com/yanxchick