There’s a Run on Silicon Valley Bank Swag

“Own a piece of bank history!” a seller wrote on an eBay Inc. listing for an SVB tumbler.

Sellers have cashed in on SVB’s infamy to make money on all sorts of company merch they may have once neglected. On Wednesday, there were eBay listings for an SVB-branded blanket ($26), a purse hook ($12.50) and a cheese board ($200). Also for sale: SVB laptop bags, a branded apron and a cardboard box with the bank’s logo.

SVB’s collapse brought a niche industry, financial-disaster swag, back into the spotlight. Oftentimes when a well-known company falls apart, some people list their official merch online. Entrepreneurial designers join the craze by making unofficial T-shirts and apparel to poke fun at a corporate giant’s implosion. 

People collecting this gear could sport items from SVB as well as FTX, the crypto company that imploded in November, and Melvin Capital, the hedge fund that closed last year after betting against meme stocks. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in the 2008 financial crisis spawned its own trade of real and fake merch that is still thriving today.

SVB, Etsy and eBay didn’t return requests for comment.

David Coley, a 40-year-old options trader in Raleigh, N.C., bought a parody SVB T-shirt from Etsy Inc. on Tuesday. It says, “Silicon Valley Bank Risk Management Department.”

“Not that there’s humor in economic collapse, but it is somewhat funny,” he said, “especially the risk-management department. Like, where were they in all of this?”

Much of the parody SVB gear has mocked the company’s risk-management practices. The bank disclosed last week that it didn’t have a risk officer for the majority of last year. 

Other parody SVB shirts have advertised a fake race called “Bank Run 2023,” joking about how customers created a run on the bank last week by asking to withdraw billions of dollars.

Mr. Coley likes that these parody shirts can be a conversation starter in public. He said an older man once stopped him at a baseball game to talk about his T-shirt. It said, “Lehman Brothers Risk Management Department 2008.” The investment bank helped spark the global financial crisis when it filed for bankruptcy.

Ted Aronson, a long-time value investor, estimated he has spent $25,000 on financial memorabilia over decades. He displays the items for laughs at his company’s office in Philadelphia. 

Mr. Aronson, 71, has a framed picture of

Bernie Madoff,

the Ponzi-scheme mastermind; a stock certificate from a 19th-century business, Keely Motor Company, which was built around a fake technology; and an Enron code of ethics booklet.

He said older people crack up when they see the Enron Corp. booklet, recalling the energy company that imploded two decades ago after one of the worst accounting scandals in history.  “It’s hysterical,” he said of the booklet, which his office displays in its reception area.

Mr. Aronson said he isn’t sure if he wants to add SVB gear to his collection. “I didn’t rush out and buy the SVB crap,” he said. “Maybe I will in the future.”

Apparel referencing another fallen company, FTX, has made appearances in New York society. Anna Sorokin, a convicted con artist, was known for wearing couture while she posed as a German heiress. At a party she held at her apartment in December, she traded the luxury clothes for an ugly Christmas sweater that read, “FTX Risk Management Dept. 2022.” 

She said she put it on later in the evening when the cold New York air came in through the open windows. Her friends immediately got the joke.

“People loved it,” she said. “People who know me know I’m sarcastic and I don’t take myself too seriously. No one thinks I’m a fan of FTX.”

She said she had bought the sweater on Etsy earlier that month while she was looking for something to stylize her ankle monitor. (She has been on house arrest while fighting a deportation order to Germany.) She didn’t find any adornments but found the sweater instead.

“I wore it ironically and the irony is definitely not lost on me,” said Ms. Sorokin, 32 years old.

Around the time FTX collapsed, Drew Kasemeyer, who runs an Etsy shop called CryptoDesignsCo, said the FTX Risk Management hoodie was his most popular item. He said 30% of his shop’s sales were for FTX swag.

“You laugh because if you don’t, you’re gonna cry,” he said. “I think the best way to kind of cope and move on is to make it into a lesson but joke about it.” 

Ms. Sorokin said her FTX sweater isn’t the only tongue-in-cheek piece of clothing she owns. A friend bought her a Melvin Capital sweater. The hedge fund had been among the top-performing in the world until it bet against

GameStop Corp.

, ending up pulverized after individual investors rallied to buy its shares. 

She wore the sweater recently to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hearing, she said. Ms. Sorokin said she ordered a Silicon Valley Bank hoodie this week, adding to her growing collection of financial-disaster swag.

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com and Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com

“Own a piece of bank history!” a seller wrote on an eBay Inc. listing for an SVB tumbler.

Sellers have cashed in on SVB’s infamy to make money on all sorts of company merch they may have once neglected. On Wednesday, there were eBay listings for an SVB-branded blanket ($26), a purse hook ($12.50) and a cheese board ($200). Also for sale: SVB laptop bags, a branded apron and a cardboard box with the bank’s logo.

SVB’s collapse brought a niche industry, financial-disaster swag, back into the spotlight. Oftentimes when a well-known company falls apart, some people list their official merch online. Entrepreneurial designers join the craze by making unofficial T-shirts and apparel to poke fun at a corporate giant’s implosion. 

People collecting this gear could sport items from SVB as well as FTX, the crypto company that imploded in November, and Melvin Capital, the hedge fund that closed last year after betting against meme stocks. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in the 2008 financial crisis spawned its own trade of real and fake merch that is still thriving today.

SVB, Etsy and eBay didn’t return requests for comment.

David Coley, a 40-year-old options trader in Raleigh, N.C., bought a parody SVB T-shirt from Etsy Inc. on Tuesday. It says, “Silicon Valley Bank Risk Management Department.”

“Not that there’s humor in economic collapse, but it is somewhat funny,” he said, “especially the risk-management department. Like, where were they in all of this?”

Much of the parody SVB gear has mocked the company’s risk-management practices. The bank disclosed last week that it didn’t have a risk officer for the majority of last year. 

Other parody SVB shirts have advertised a fake race called “Bank Run 2023,” joking about how customers created a run on the bank last week by asking to withdraw billions of dollars.

Mr. Coley likes that these parody shirts can be a conversation starter in public. He said an older man once stopped him at a baseball game to talk about his T-shirt. It said, “Lehman Brothers Risk Management Department 2008.” The investment bank helped spark the global financial crisis when it filed for bankruptcy.

Ted Aronson, a long-time value investor, estimated he has spent $25,000 on financial memorabilia over decades. He displays the items for laughs at his company’s office in Philadelphia. 

Mr. Aronson, 71, has a framed picture of

Bernie Madoff,

the Ponzi-scheme mastermind; a stock certificate from a 19th-century business, Keely Motor Company, which was built around a fake technology; and an Enron code of ethics booklet.

He said older people crack up when they see the Enron Corp. booklet, recalling the energy company that imploded two decades ago after one of the worst accounting scandals in history.  “It’s hysterical,” he said of the booklet, which his office displays in its reception area.

Mr. Aronson said he isn’t sure if he wants to add SVB gear to his collection. “I didn’t rush out and buy the SVB crap,” he said. “Maybe I will in the future.”

Apparel referencing another fallen company, FTX, has made appearances in New York society. Anna Sorokin, a convicted con artist, was known for wearing couture while she posed as a German heiress. At a party she held at her apartment in December, she traded the luxury clothes for an ugly Christmas sweater that read, “FTX Risk Management Dept. 2022.” 

She said she put it on later in the evening when the cold New York air came in through the open windows. Her friends immediately got the joke.

“People loved it,” she said. “People who know me know I’m sarcastic and I don’t take myself too seriously. No one thinks I’m a fan of FTX.”

She said she had bought the sweater on Etsy earlier that month while she was looking for something to stylize her ankle monitor. (She has been on house arrest while fighting a deportation order to Germany.) She didn’t find any adornments but found the sweater instead.

“I wore it ironically and the irony is definitely not lost on me,” said Ms. Sorokin, 32 years old.

Around the time FTX collapsed, Drew Kasemeyer, who runs an Etsy shop called CryptoDesignsCo, said the FTX Risk Management hoodie was his most popular item. He said 30% of his shop’s sales were for FTX swag.

“You laugh because if you don’t, you’re gonna cry,” he said. “I think the best way to kind of cope and move on is to make it into a lesson but joke about it.” 

Ms. Sorokin said her FTX sweater isn’t the only tongue-in-cheek piece of clothing she owns. A friend bought her a Melvin Capital sweater. The hedge fund had been among the top-performing in the world until it bet against

GameStop Corp.

, ending up pulverized after individual investors rallied to buy its shares. 

She wore the sweater recently to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hearing, she said. Ms. Sorokin said she ordered a Silicon Valley Bank hoodie this week, adding to her growing collection of financial-disaster swag.

Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com and Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com