It’s common knowledge that StockX launched on February 8, 2016. For broader historical context, the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers, 24-10 in Super Bowl L the day before, on February 7th. Von Miller was the MVP. On February 9th, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won their respective New Hampshire presidential primaries. And on February 10, 2016, Lenny Dykstra celebrated his 53rd birthday. However, the canonical history of StockX does not begin on February 8, 2016, it actually begins much earlier, with another company called Campless.
Campless published their first blog post in August of 2013, declaring itself a “sneakerhead data” company. They collected and published data about the secondary sneaker market to help audiences understand the true value of their sneaker collections through data points like average price, volume, and price volatility. Campless would ask and answer with data, the existential sneakerhead questions like, “Do restocks drive down resell price?” and “Are Jordan retail prices outpacing inflation?”.
To pull directly from our own press release linked above, “StockX is the natural evolution of the sneaker data website Campless.com, which operated similarly to the Kelly Blue Book, but for the sneaker market.” In other words, Campless became StockX. Just like there is no Caitlin Clark without Dawn Staley and there is no Nike without Blue Ribbon Sports, there is no StockX without Campless.
There is also a third company that is inextricably linked to StockX and Campless. And that company is ghostwrite. Josh Luber, who was the founder of Campless as well as the original CEO and a co-founder of StockX, launched ghostwrite in 2024 with their first Blind Dutch Auction for their collectible toys, called ghosts. Through the designs of their ghosts, ghostwrite tells the stories of the brands, artists, and creators that they partner with like, the WNBA, HIDDEN, Eastside Golf, Rocky’s Matcha, and Astro Boy.
Which in a roundabout way brings us to the, as of yet, unofficial oral history of StockX and the purpose of this blog post…
StockX is excited to announce our partnership with ghostwrite on a very special 400% ghost. The official name is: ghostwrite x StockX “Campless” 400% ghost.
The design of the ghost features the original Campless logo and tagline. The release of this ghost celebrates the 10th anniversary of the first meeting between the eventual founders of StockX at a Cleveland Cavaliers game on Easter Sunday in 2015. The Cavs beat the Bulls 99-94 that day and LeBron had a triple double.
