Is Topps Printing TOO MANY Cards?
The sports card market is shifting fast in 2026, from massive print runs and PSA delays to booming entertainment cards. We also break down the $686,250 Shohei Ohtani 1/1 sale and what drove the price. Use code: SCI at ARENACLUB.COM SHOP CARDS & SUPPLIES Shop CardsHQ MARKET MOVERS Track card prices & your collection JOIN US ON WHATNOT CardsHQ Breaks CardsHQ Shop CardsHQ Blitz CardsHQ Hoops CardsHQ Poke DOWNLOAD THE SCI APP Apple Google Play FOLLOW SPORTS CARD INVESTOR Instagram X / Twitter Facebook MORE FROM OUR NETWORK Geoff Wilson Instagram Geoff Wilson YouTube Card Crew YouTube Market Movers YouTube
Video Transcript
592 million cards.
That is the estimated print run for the brand-new Topps flagship football.
It's a lot of cards, but is the trade-off of all that printing worth it for boxes being more affordable and easily accessible?
We'll debate that now.
Hello, sports card investors, and welcome to another Cards on the Table from the Arena Club studio inside Cards HQ.
Teapot, Scott, great to see you guys.
Hey.
How are the new Freddie Freemans doing in your, in your collection there, Scott?
They're great.
I carry them in my pockets everywhere I go.
One for each side.
You carry the big display with you as well?
Yep.
Is that in your backpack?
That's under my pillow, actually.
If you, if you guys didn't see, Scott and I did a big trade.
That video came out What was that, this past weekend- Uh-huh I think that video came out.
Fun trade, we're both happy with it.
We're also both sad about it.
That's the best type of trade.
The best type of trade, but that's for another day.
We gotta talk today about what just happened with the brand-new Topps flagship football release because in some ways, guys, a lot of really great stuff happened here, and in some ways, some really maybe scary stuff.
Maybe some people would say some scary stuff happened here, and I wanna see where you guys fall on this.
So I think the great stuff that happened was that Topps got, first of all, 2026 Topps flagship football out before the season started.
We've got it a few weeks here before NFL kicks off.
That's great news.
That's not something we're used to in previous use with in previous years with some of Panini's releases.
And they made the product relatively affordable, a- a- available in a whole bunch of different formats, all the way from jumbo boxes on down to hobbies and megas, all kinds of different retail products, hangers, blasters, fat packs, all the things.
It's accessible, it's available in a whole lot of places, and you know, overall, I think a good collector product that a lot of people can get their hands on for not too much money.
But, but, and here's the big but, the, the big but.
Okay.
All right, people are already laughing in the comments.
Yep.
Yep.
Okay.
Tell me, Jeff.
All right.
All right.
Tell me.
I'll tell you what the big but is, Teapot.
Just don't show me.
Just tell me.
The big but.
The big but is that Wax Metrics on X, really good account.
Yep.
This, this gentleman- Great goes through and analyzes the print runs of various sets.
It's This is, by the way, hard work to do because Topps None of the manufacturers disclose the print runs.
He has to back into the print runs by taking the checklists- Yep and the odds sheets and reverse engineering.
He estimates that the total print run for Topps flagship football this year was 592 million cards.
And here's the scary words, I hate to say this, it is the most heavily printed product since the junk wax era.
We gotta go all the way back to the late '80s and the early '90s to see print runs like this.
This is the most heavily printed product.
592 million cards.
Now, this comes on the heels of 2026 Topps series one baseball earlier this year.
That had an estimated print run of 558 million cards, and last year, 2025, '26 Topps flagship NBA was an estimated print run of 430 million cards.
So we got the biggest print run ever, so much so that if you took every single card from this Topps flagship football 2026 that was produced and stacked them all together, the pile of cards would go 188 miles- into the air.
It's a lot of cards.
And what that means is a lot of boxes, and in fact, Wax Metric estimates that Topps made about 69,000 jumbo boxes, about 197,000 hobby boxes.
926,000 hanger boxes, almost 2 million fat packs, 1.3 million value boxes, and 800,000 mega boxes.
If you're including Walmart, there's some other smaller box formats as well.
So a lot of cards, but products available.
Hobby boxes are around $200.
We got plenty of them here at Cards HQ.
You can go find them in a lot of places.
You got retail versions of these products available for, in some cases, less than $20.
It's available, it's accessible.
Is that trade-off worth it for these high print runs?
Your thoughts, Teapot.
Wondering if Mike Mayhan has ever seen Ferngully from the '90s.
Did you catch that one when you were younger?
No.
Oh, well then.
What are we talking about?
That propaganda was about, you know, not cutting down the trees and Somebody out there will get the reference, but, uh- That one person- That one person that one person's real happy right now.
Chris of the Pixies, coming for you, Mike.
They're like, "Yes, I saw Ferngully in the '90s."
This is why I love Teapot.
It's a cult- So smart cult movie.
Maybe, maybe the director of Ferngully is out there.
Yeah, a col- fellow collector now.
This reminds me of the video I did on, on, the total number of graded cards.
Yes.
And we did all the motion graphics showing how it would shoot you up to the moon if you stacked them all up.
This is, this is These are some staggering numbers.
I have said this for, like, at least three or four years now.
We talk about print runs, and we talk about box prices, and we talk about box availability, and we talk about pack odds, and those four things, they all get discussed, and no matter what, it's met with disgust, spelled differently.
And people are angry, no matter what.
"Oh, there's too many printed.
Oh, I can't find it on the shelf.
Oh, I found it, but it's too expensive.
Oh, I, I bought it because it was cheap, but I didn't hit anything."
Like, there's, there's those are the levers.
And like you said, it's available.
I think that's a good thing.
I think it's good that it's available.
I think it's good that it's not insanely expensive.
Topps Flagship is not meant to be $200 is still not cheap.
This was a product, you know, for Flagship Topps baseball that used to be 100 bucks a box- Right just a few years ago, so we're talking about For a hobby box.
Yep.
Football, you know, this is the debut set.
It's coming out right before the season.
The timing is right.
The rookie class is strong.
All these different things, so it, it doesn't surprise me, seeing all these cards stacked 188 miles high is a pretty compelling visual.
Seeing people get stuff, you know?
It's, it's just like any product.
You're, it's a bit boom or bust.
If you manage to be one of the lucky ones to hit a g- a, a golden mirror of a notable player, an All Kings or something like that, you're doing really well.
If you hit a good auto, you are.
Otherwise, no matter what else, you're probably not, but maybe you at least had fun opening the box yourself, with your children, whatever it might be.
I think this is kinda what they have to do.
I think this needs to be the new normal, all the different box formats, ways to find it online, in retail stores, in hobby shops, i- you know, in breaker forums, in different, different formats.
I, I think especially for a product like this, it's kinda the way it has to be.
Does it need to be like this for higher-end products?
No, I don't think it does.
But that's gonna drive the prices up on those, but this, it doesn't surprise me.
Okay, so Teapot is on board.
Scott, your opinion.
This product should be designed to be over-printed.
It should be readily available for anybody who wants it, and I think what they're doing is great.
I can see the flip side if they would've printed this a very low print run how much anger people would have simply because they couldn't get product at an affordable price.
They made this product essentially non-scalpable, which is good.
That's what this Flagship set is really designed to do.
It's essentially a print-to-demand product.
It's not like Topps now where it's literally print to demand, but basically Topps is going to say, "Okay, our demand is here.
We're gonna print 20% more."
And every year, and that's totally fine.
But it is one of those things.
We kinda mentioned, like, this is the most product we've had produced in since the junk wax era.
We're in the junk wax era.
The difference between now and the junk wax era, those, we call it different things; junk slab, junk parallel, junk set, junk autograph, whatever you wanna call it.
But just like the junk wax era, there's still gonna be a lot of valuable cards from this era.
And at the same time, inside of this product, Ty hit on it, the difference between now and the junk wax era is if you open up a box of 1990 Fleer, yes, you can get some cards, you can grade a PSA 10 and they have value, but it's just base cards and maybe a few slightly rarer inser- inserts, but not really.
This set has a lot more potential, so you just have the fun of opening cards with the upside of an All Kings.
I don't, I don't know if that's in this set.
I think it is.
It is, yeah.
It is.
Yeah.
And so All Kings, you can get the golden mirrors.
You can get some really great cards.
They'll never be, like, true junk wax, but at the end of the day, let's not kid ourselves, most of this'll be worthless anyway.
Like, 99% of the cards will be worthless, so I'm glad they made it available.
And if the pulls are a little bit harder, I think that's fine as long as you go into it with that attitude.
My thing is if we're talking about a little bit more, exclusive or valuable set in the future and we're having the same conversation, then that's a bigger issue, but this set should be this way to me.
I, I agree.
I- So Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry.
I was gonna say, I think, I, honestly I think Topps has done a commendable job.
I mean, this is a supply and demand equation, and it's an, it's something that Topps has to balance with every single product.
Yeah.
And here they've decided to hit the market with a lot of supply, really more supply than demand, which then allows the product to continue to hang out around the manufacturer's suggested retail price- Totally not be scalped, not be flipped, and be available in card shops.
This is the product to do it with.
Flagship paper is the product to do it with.
But what Topps has done, to go on your point, Scott, which I really like, is even though it is a widely printed Flagship paper product where most of the cards out of most of the boxes are not gonna be worth that much, they have very intelligently done a great job of inserting some real valuable chase elements, too.
So you still have the fun.
You can still open one of these boxes and pull a Patrick Mahomes All Kings, which c- is easily a $5,000 card.
Mm-hmm.
Raw condition could end up a lot more graded.
You can still get those pulls and the satisfaction of the golden mirror Mendoza, which is a big card, et cetera.
Yet for the everyday collector, it's affordable.
And if you're ever gonna try to build a set, if you're ever gonna try I know set building is different in 2026 than it used to be in 1986 when everybody pursued it.
But if you're ever gonna try to do it, if you wanna build out that complete set of all the football cards, this is the product you do it with.
And it actually, you could do it with this product.
Buy a few jumbo boxes and you probably have your complete set.
Put it all in a binder, and that set building art can actually come to fru- fruition again with this one.
So- Yeah I'm personally not concerned about the print runs.
I'm sure there's probably a lot of people in the comments that are, and junk wax this and junk wax that.
But also demand is way greater.
It's all a ratio to demand, and so even when you look back over it, it, and say, well, three years ago, you know, they were only printing this many cards for Topps Series One Baseball, and now they're printing this many cards.
Well, yeah.
But what was, what were sales and demand three years ago versus today?
Totally.
And so as long as they do a proper job of balancing that, and as long as they stratify the products so that other products are, that are more coveted are more short printed, you know, I think it's all going to turn out okay.
I agree.
So Corey from Wax Metrics, Slab Swatch on X, does a great job with this.
Striker Breaks also always does this, like, value breakdown kind of grid on, on a spreadsheet.
And one thing I didn't realize, I hadn't actually combed through all the pack odds, is that All Kings are significantly easier to hit in the retail formats than they are in hobby and jumbo.
I didn't know that.
But it, it's interesting, 'cause he'll tell you what the cost is based on cost per card or p- or cost per pack of these different products and then what the pack odds are.
In order to hit a, the cheapest you can hit an All Kings card- Is effectively $93,256 Woo.
And that's out of the Fanatics boxes.
And then Fat Packs are 90, almost 98,000.
Hanger, 105,000.
And you start getting into, hobby boxes, it's $690,000- Of packs- Wow, those are- Worth of packs those are t- tough chases then.
And then it's- Tough chases $933,000 out of Jumbo.
So- Wow.
A million dollar card.
So you're trading, it, just to know, like, if you want the autos, you gotta go hobby and jumbo to get the best odds for those.
And if you want the inserts and the golden mirror parallels, you're actually better off in the retail front.
Interesting.
It's interesting data on that, but, but it just goes to show you your odds of hitting that stuff are p- pretty long, pretty long.
They are long.
Yeah.
They are long, but there's also several different- Yeah chase cards, right?
So that's, like, the odds of hitting one particular one, but then you combine it with all the other types of chase cards and the odds get a lot shorter.
Yeah.
But sure, it's, it's definitely, you t- you rip a box, you know, most the time you're not getting the value back, and then every once in a while you get lucky and hit that huge chase card that get you get real excited about.
And they had quite a few different things in there where there's a lot of chase cards.
Yeah.
Which is good.
Yeah.
There's, there's variety.
So I do wanna point out, though, it's kinda fun to look at how many of each player exists.
We're probably into the millions for, well, at least one million, let's say, for Fernando Mendoza.
It's, like, a million base cards for him.
If you look at Mike Trout from 2011 Topps Update, do you wanna guess how many base cards he had roughly based off of pack odds?
Like, 100,000?
About 60,000.
I was gonna say 70.
60,000.
Yeah.
60,000.
Yeah.
So that's why, like, those cards still matter.
Like, we talk about- Yeah base cards not being important.
Different eras, base cards matter for various reasons.
The Griffey from '89 matters because there's no parallels, so we go to, we go to the gold label, the Mike Baker authentication.
12 grand for a PSA 10 recently, Jeff.
But it's one of those things, like, imagine if that Griffey had an All Kings or a golden mirror, or, and it's, like, just pumping that product to make it better, make more hits.
So I think it's great what they're doing.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, people are gonna, I'm sure they're right now in the comments going, "60,000 Mike Trouts in 2011.
A million Fernando Mendozas in 2026."
And I would argue, yeah, and demand is probably 20x- Yeah, or higher from, from what it was in 2011.
Yeah.
So that ratio is proper.
That ratio is proper to where demand is right now.
Okay.
Let's, we got, guys, God, we got some big stories to talk about.
We got a crazy things going on with the pop culture market.
We've got PSA extending times.
We got crazy Topps Now card sets, all this stuff.
But let's bring it back to earth a second.
Let's rip a slap pack before we get into those next stories.
You guys ready to do that?
Yep, sure am.
What did you do today, Scott?
And, and tell me what is in, in these slap packs.
Yeah.
So I did baseball.
Okay.
I didn't do Pokemon, that's a thing.
That's a trader's thing to do, right?
No one would do Pokemon on this show.
Nobody likes Pokemon on our show.
No one would possibly do Pokemon on this show.
Definitely not.
It's on Sports Card Investor, after all.
This isn't Pokemon Card Investor.
Plus, we always bash Pokemon for ruining PSA wait times.
That's right.
Why would we, why would we support PSA?
Oh, who knows?
I agree.
I did baseball.
So- Good man here, here's what I did Good old American right here.
Yeah.
I, I go baseball.
Pokemon boo.
Love the ethnocentricity.
Let's do it.
But I do want this card.
This one's, like, one of the tougher pulls.
This is a Pedro Martinez.
This is the, Essentials Credentials from 1999.
Oh.
And it's numbered at 98.
Yeah.
So it's, like, one of the lower checklist cards, so it's a little bit more common, but still a massive card.
There also is the Acuna SSP, which would be really great.
Acuna's not too hot, but I could probably sell it to Cards HQ because we're nowhere in Braves country, probably get top dollar.
But there's a ton of Ohtani and a ton of vintage, like Mantles.
So basically in this pack, you're gonna get a Grail, an Ohtani, or a Mantle.
Okay.
So.
Well, let's rip it and let's see what you get.
This is the Emerald Baseball Arena Club slab pack.
Here we go, here we go, here we go.
Burt Blyleven.
I'd be okay with it.
Let's see what Scott gets.
Okay.
And Ohtani.
And Ohtani.
You got an Ohtani.
You called your shot.
I did.
Okay.
I wish it was a rookie, but that's, yeah.
I think he actually just looked at what was in there.
You know, finish your wave.
All right, let's see what this one is worth.
All right.
$400 estimated value.
Not bad.
Okay, that's pretty good.
That's pretty good, actually, because y- for our, our viewers out there, if you buy one of these $500 Emerald packs and you use promo code SCI, if it's your first time buying at Arena Club, you get 20% off on checkout, which guess what?
Makes the Emerald pack $400.
So there you go.
Promo code SCI.
Scott's in a break even scenario.
What sport did you do, T-Pot?
I actually asked Scott to surprise me, so let's see what we got here.
Let's see.
T-Pot did Pokemon, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, man.
Pokemon, T-Pot did.
Yeah, you know why?
Can you believe this guy?
I like, Ohtani's Japanese, he's not American.
Can you believe that's- Whoa that's actually true.
That's, hey.
That's actually true.
Wow, that's a big card, I think.
Sun and Moon- It's a PSA 9 Rep- that might be my card.
That's a cool card.
Let's see.
That's still a sweet card though.
Okay, what's this one worth?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
$250.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's not so good.
Yeah.
Not so good.
All right.
I also like Pokemon, I just knew what Ty picked.
I, I- I did basketball wanna apologize.
He, he surprised me.
I did basketball.
I'm, I'm shooting for one of these basketball Grails.
What did I get, ladies and gentlemen?
Here we go.
Let's see my basketball Emerald slab pack.
Here we go.
All right, Jeff.
That's funny.
That's the same, that's the- Didn't you, didn't you get this card?
That's the similar card that I got last week.
I got another card from the same set.
There you go.
I did basketball.
That's what I, doing the same sport twice in a row.
Yeah.
I guess that's what you get.
I got a different card from the same set, though, another LeBron.
$285, which was the same value as the one I got last week.
So unfortunately, T-Pot and I didn't do very well.
But actually, for the last couple of weeks we haven't done very good.
Scott, you did the best.
Not bad at all.
Yeah.
$400 Ohtani card.
Pretty good there.
Well, I have some news there- What is that?
On this subject.
So we are in week 12.
Yeah.
Did you tally it up?
I did tally it up.
Oh, man.
I know the results, especially with me winning right here.
You're gonna share.
Uh-oh.
So Jeff, I hate to break it to you, you got last place.
You do not get a diamond pack.
So for those that don't know- Oh, is it over?
Today was the end?
It's over.
Oh, my God.
This was it.
I would've, I would've tried harder.
You would've, yeah.
Yeah.
You would've rooted harder.
But yeah, Jeff's out.
So it's between Ty and I, and Ty is the winner.
Wow.
Regardless of what happened today, Ty's the winner.
Shine bright like a diamond.
So I didn't wanna say that before.
Ty pulls all the heats.
Shine bright like a diamond.
Ty pulls all the heats.
Ty won five weeks, I won four weeks, and I think you won three weeks.
Okay, so this means next week he gets to open up a diamond pack on the show?
On top of his other pack, too.
Oh, yeah.
Oh my gosh.
Bonus.
Okay.
All right.
Let's go.
There you go.
Congratulations.
All right, guys.
Thank you very much.
If you wanna get your own Arena Club slab pack- I hope you have Pokemon go to arenaclub.com.
Two Pokemon packs.
And it is promo code SCI.
Enter that at checkout.
That's 20% off your first purchase on Arena Club.
All right, let's jump into this next story.
Should we be worried about PSA, ladies and gentlemen?
Because remember that whole thing about, "Hey, we're shutting down all of our value tiers so that we can get through our backlog really quickly and, and make sure that our customers submitting for the higher service levels continue to get good, you know, quick turnarounds and quick service"?
Well, the hobby responded a little bit differently to that than maybe PSA was planning.
Instead of the hobby just saying, "Oh, sure, PSA, that sounds good, you know.
Take your time.
We'll, we'll, we'll let you take your time and, and then we'll start submitting at the value service when that eventually gets back on," the hobby instead said, "Okay, PSA, we're just gonna submit a whole bunch of cards under the regular service then.
If you're shutting down all the value levels, we'll pay the $80 a card and we'll submit it here under the regular levels."
So PSA has gotten an overwhelming number of regular level submissions now, and therefore recently had to announce that they are changing their turnaround time for regular service submissions from 30 to 40 business days, which it was before, to now 70 to 80 business days.
We have doubled our turnaround times on regular submissions.
Meanwhile, value submissions continue to remain down.
The backlog, as of the latest update, which in fact was two days ago, is now at 10.9 million cards.
But the last time they updated two weeks prior to that, it was at 11.85 million cards.
So the backlog did drop by 950,000 cards over the last two weeks, so I guess that is good news.
But seemingly the value tiers are not gonna be open any time soon with that big of a backlog.
The, regular service has gotten a lot slower.
Where are we, T Pot?
What are your thoughts at the moment right now with the conundrum that PSA is in?
I mean, they're still grading cards, so this is different than when they just more or less completely shut down operations, you know, a few years ago.
And they are semi-open.
I, I am a little surprised by this, just because it seemed like all signs point to them, pointed to them, like, really hitting their operational stride as they were clearing the backlog.
So I hadn't heard many rumblings leading up to this that, like, things were sort of backing up even at that level.
Obviously that's, that's not true.
Maybe this has something to do with 592 million new Topps football cards .
Yeah Maybe it's a preemptive strike against some really big releases that have been happening or will be happening.
Well, you got Pokemon 30th anniversary.
That's a huge- Which, which is- There's so many things really, that's more the problem, I think- Yeah than You got Pokemon 30th anniversary- Yeah starts coming out next month.
That's the scary one.
I think less so than Topps flagship football.
Yeah.
I, I mean, I really think they have to I really wanna see them split that.
Like, I wanna see them split TCG and, and po- TCG and Pokemon apart from sports.
And just, I don't know what that would take operationally to do that, but I wanna see them do that.
Maybe that's selfish as I know I just ripped Pokemon, but, yeah, like we, I, I like sports.
That's my primary love.
That's The- those are the people who have, like, supported, you know, grading for a long time, and then, and the TCG space is pretty much newer to that over the last, you know, five years or so with the volume that we've seen from that.
So I don't know.
I don't know what else to expect at this point.
And it, again, it's not just PSA.
The others we've talked about in recent weeks are also experiencing it.
They're shutting down.
They're changing service levels.
They're increasing prices.
The whole thing is maybe concerned.
And now, you know, we'll talk about it in a minute, but the whole pop culture space and the non-sports space is also- It's getting hot introducing a new, new thing in it.
Gotta grade those, Bart Simpsons cards, T Pot.
Yeah, you do.
Someone's gotta grade them somewhere.
There's SpongeBobs.
There's SpongeBobs.
Yep.
How do you feel about T Pot, uh- There's Elsas saying that Pokemon, you know, needs to move to the side and let all our sports cards in, and then he's ripping Pokemon slap backs during- It's already done today's episode?
It's already, it's already graded.
All I know is I would never say anything negative about Pokemon.
So I don't know what Ty's problem is.
America.
But- What are your thoughts, Scott?
Yeah.
So I have a couple different thoughts.
This is kinda like the man who wishes from a genie that he could turn things to gold by touching it, and at first it's, like, amazing 'cause he can turn anything to gold, and then he realizes he can, like, never touch another person or touch anything that'll turn to gold.
PSA's in that situation right now where it's great they can make so much money doing all this grading, but now they're in this conundrum where they bought all their competitors, and now they're a huge bottleneck in the hobby, and they could play a role in the hobby cooling off a little bit because now people can't grade cards, it's not liquid.
Like, it's just a weird situation where PSA, no matter what they do right now, they can just make money.
It's, it's a very strange situation.
So I don't feel bad for PSA, but there's obviously bigger issues out there that this could cause by cards not coming back soon, especially important sets that people care about.
So with that being said, PSA, I bet they love this opportunity because they can try things they never thought they could try.
Like, "Oh, let's just raise prices 80%, see what happens.
Oh, we got the same volume?
Let's just m- turn around, turn around times are now further out.
Oh, look, we got more m- submissions."
They're just in a really fun situation for them.
Do, does this apply only to the United States and, like, North America, or is this also impacting Japan and whatever else they have?
I don't know.
It's a good question.
Are those places- Like, like if I had- hold up?
If I had, like- They, they have their own submission process, so I, I- If I had, like, $50,000 worth of stuff to grade, should I be, like, buying a ticket to Japan- Wow and spending a week there?
And I don't, but I'm just saying, like, I wonder if anybody- Is T Pot figuring out a hack here?
You know?
I'm going to Japan soon.
See?
Give me your cards.
Yeah.
Send me your cards.
Give me your Pokem- your Pokemon.
Wow.
Let's pull this up.
Yeah.
We're gonna clog up that PSA Japan backlog- Box submitter so quick they won't even know what to do.
Yep.
This guy's gonna show up over there- Yep and the next day they're gonna be emailing saying, "White flag, mercy, please."
Fake submitter here.
"Don't submit- Yeah anything else in Japan."
Visa denied.
You don't let him into the, into the island.
He's gonna be kicked out of the country- Yep.
Yep in a matter of minutes.
Yep.
Oh, man.
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
Are you guys worried that, like, this could cause the hobby to slow down, though?
Like, legitimately?
Well, with, with what PSA's doing.
Like, is that a possibility?
It hasn't slowed down.
Everything else- I mean, just like- around us is just swirling like, the liquidity of cards is vastly helped by being graded by a grading company.
And if PSA is, like, the number one grading company, could that lack of liquidity on new cards slow everything down?
They still move These 592 million cards from one set, the, the, you know, whatever, 15 million unique different cards and all the copies that have been printed in the last five years, they still move.
They just, people prefer the, the extra liquidity and the price premium- Yeah of PSA.
But raw cards are selling.
Tons of raw cards are selling.
It's a fair question, though.
Like, the, a, a lot of people, a lot of people do You buy a hobby box, you know, you buy a $200 hobby box.
Y- you know, you maybe hit one card out of it that's 60 bucks.
Yeah.
And then you're like, "Well, wait a minute.
If I grade, grade that card, and then that card gets a PSA 10, then I kinda close to broke even-" Yeah on this hobby box."
Right, yeah.
And then it starts to feel a little bit better, and maybe you buy another hobby box.
Yes.
But if you can't grade the card at a value service level- It's true then you might be like, "Well, shoot."
Yeah.
You know?
So then it, then maybe you don't buy the other hobby box.
So maybe.
I mean, the other part of it is, like, repackers.
Even Arena Club, they only do graded cards.
Yeah.
And so there's no new cards in these new products, and there's no pricing for it because a large part of all the sold listings, like at card shows and things, we always hear complaints about repackers coming in and buying all of the inventory before average people get in.
Like, maybe it helps 'cause average people won't get cards, but those cards won't go for as much because the number one buyer's not paying 100% comps.
So I think there are some repercussions of them- Interesting being slow.
All right, we got two more stories to jump into.
I gotta get into this one around the pop culture market surging.
And guys, I This thing, this, this is going nuts, like, to the point where I'm kinda looking at this going, "What is going on?"
We've got a 1966 Marvel Heroes Spider-Man PSA 9 card that sold for $175,100 on eBay last week.
That is the public record for any Spider-Man card sale.
We also have seen a surge in Disney cards, SpongeBob cards, other Marvel cards, and even some key Star Wars cards.
By the way, speaking of Star Wars, back in May, that's when a Luke Skywalker PSA 10 sold for $687,000 at Heritage Auctions.
But recently, we've been seeing the surge in other niche IPs, such as The Sim- Simpsons.
We've got the 1990 Topps Bart Simpson Bartman card now going for $2,000 plus, and we've got signed cards from Simpsons going for $2,000 plus.
It, it really doesn't matter where you look.
It seems like with any of these non-sports markets, we're seeing record-high prices right now.
Scott, what do you make of it?
Is this sustainable, or should people in these markets be more scared than people, in sports and Pokmon about the wheels falling off this thing?
So I remember a wise man once made a prediction- Yeah that Pokmon would go down and that Disney Lorcana would go up.
That was true.
I did say that.
And that wise man could be right right now, 'cause we're seeing all this pop off right here.
Not actually what he said.
It's not.
Well, not quite what I said.
It's not.
I, I'm gonna give you a hard time.
I thought he was talking about another man.
'Cause he said a wise man.
But- So I figured he wasn't talking about me.
More like a wise guy.
Figured he was talking about- Wise guy you.
A wise guy.
But regardless, I don't know, because it's one of those things.
In the last boom, we saw towards the, the top, like, the true top of that bubble was when all of these types of cards started to pop off.
And then after this happened, people would, you know, we kinda Everything softened.
But the way it works for a lot of people, and there are true collectors out there that collect these cards and have collected these cards for years, but people get priced out of basketball, so they go to baseball.
And they get priced out of baseball, so they go to hockey.
They get priced out of hockey, so they go to Marvel.
And they get priced out of Marvel, so they go for SpongeBob.
Like, it's kinda how it's flowed, and so this might be a sign that we might be in a little bit of trouble right now.
But at the same time, maybe we're in a different place with the hobby where Pokmon's blown up, and so we have more interest and intrigue on this type of card.
For me, I've actually bought some really random, pop culture cards myself.
I grew up on the TV show Supernatural.
I got, like, the dual Sam and Dean Winchester autograph.
I got their individual autographs from the first season, costume cards.
People know Ferngully.
Nobody knows what he's talking about right now.
That's okay.
You don't have to, but my point is I'm buying that stuff, right?
And so there's a lot of stuff out there that's pretty cool.
So I think it could be legitimate, and it's rare, and at least in high grade.
So I know Gary Vee's been talking about all the firsts.
I That's part of this, right?
Gary Vee's been really on the train of, like, get all these IPs of all these first cards and everything like that.
Teapot, are, are you a little worried?
Is I mean, it's an interesting comparison.
I do remember very distinctly, you go back to, like, 2021, 2022.
That's when all of those- Mm-hmm precious metal gems Marvel cards were popping off.
You know, we, we had a, did a show where a guy was showing a, his Spider-Man card.
Yeah.
And said, "This could be a million dollar card.
It could be a two million dollar card," is I believe what I said on the show, because that's what, you know, that's what at that time he's like, "I'm getting offers for, you know, all this money and all this stuff."
That market cooled off a ton.
Yeah.
Of course, now it's probably heating right back up again.
Yeah, it's, it's bouncing back.
It's bouncing back again.
Not to where it was, but yeah.
So is it, is, is that wa- I agree with Scott that that was kind of a danger sign before for the market.
Yeah.
Is it, is it a danger sign again now?
There's always And no matter what category we're talking about, whether it's sports, TCG, or non-sports, there's always the collector side and the financial side that are driving it.
And on the financial side, there's the hot potato crowd, that they, they surge in when they see movement, and they start doing the hot potato game, and the pump happens and all these things, and people are just, poof, poof, poof.
Cards are moving and setting all-time highs.
They're looking for that quick profit.
There's an investment crowd that's looking usually.
Usually, they're first movers.
They're the ones going in and going, "Holy cow."
They do research.
They're like, "Something's undervalued here."
Like this crazy Bart Simpson card that's serial number to 400 that only has, you know, a PSA 9 and pop one.
Like, "I gotta go find that.
I gotta buy it.
I don't care what the price is, 'cause it's gonna be worth more when people wake up and realize this."
That's what happened with me when I was looking at those Marvel PMGs.
I had that mindset, and I also had the mindset that these are amazing, and I just wanna collect them.
So you jump to that side and you go, "Okay, there's a nostalgic component here that can drive the collecting side."
There's also, like, a priced out of other stuff aspect to it where people are like, "Now I had to sell my favorite player GOAT collection."
Because it just got so valuable, I couldn't afford to keep it anymore, and now I can take that money and put it over here into this category that I feel is undervalued or more, more economical to buy into, and that's how you see m- money move.
So those four areas, I think, are what happened.
And then you take non-sports, pop culture, television shows.
Music is a huge one.
Look how many albums, if we can say that now with everything's digitized, but like how many albums, how many copies of their albums these musicians sell, like millions and millions and millions of copies.
Those people coming in and going like, "Oh, there's another way for me to tie my fandom of this artist, of this actor, of this whatever, this show that I just have such good memories from when I was younger or even last week," and like express that fandom, it's literally no different than sports.
And so it's all in that news.
So how much of this is being driven by those four buckets is the piece I don't think we know the answer to.
But I think a good amount of it is probably organic, and a good amount of it will exit once it gets pumped up enough, and then you'll see another like little correction, I think.
Yeah.
Well- Derek it's fun to watch.
I'm watching most of this from the sidelines.
I haven't gotten very into the non-sports stuff.
It's not really, not really my area.
I did appreciate, Scott, that when you were kinda going through the food chain of non-sports, you put, you put SpongeBob at the bottom.
Because that's exactly where- Sorry, Carter I would put that one.
I would put that one down there at the bottom as well.
I'm glad you did, too.
I haven't gotten into this super much, but there's obviously tons of passionate collectors, people I'm sure in Cards HQ right now shopping for these cards.
We got a whole showcase over there of SpongeBob cards, and we probably sold a card or two out of it today, as well as a lot of these other IPs.
I will say, like, right, Shohei Ohtani, he's a big deal to me, big deal to Ty, big deal to you.
We know who he is.
I talk to people here in the States that have no idea who he is.
Nope.
No clue.
But they all know Spider-Man.
But every know Spider-Man.
Yeah.
Everybody knows, you know, uh- Mickey Mouse Toy Story.
They know all those characters.
Woody.
And Topps is doing a lot of really great things in that space right now.
They are.
Making it modern with the chrome Sapphire and autographs of Tom Hanks and on Woody and all these different things.
So.
The products are cool.
I ripped, I- There's a lot of- I broke couple weeks ago.
Yeah.
Him and I broke a Topps Chrome Sapphire Disney.
It's a really nice product, nicely put together.
It was fun.
It was fun.
We were talking about the movies and the characters and everything as we were opening it.
It's universal.
It's something that even our daughter, who's not into sports cards at all and kind of a little into Pokemon, but not very much, but then Disney, she's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah."
You know, she gets excited when we pull a Moana card.
So.
There you go.
Someday she'll get excited when we pull a Maui card, but hopefully that's many, many years away.
Right now she can be excited about Moana.
All right.
All right, one more story, guys.
Let's talk about this Topps Now sale.
There was an Ohtani 50/50 Topps Now one of one that went back to auction recently and sold for, get this, $686,250, a Topps Now card, $686,250.
The same card, by the way, sold a year and a half ago for $225,000, so it's about two and a half x'd over the course of that.
Of course, the card does include an NBA iAppeal sticker, but that's a conversation for a different day.
Is this surprising, T-Pot, that we have a Topps Now card at that level?
Nothing, I've said this before, surprises me now with Shohei Ohtani.
Nothing.
I think this is probably a better buy than the, Paul Skenes rookie debut patch auto at this point.
That went for $1.1 million.
1.1, 1.3?
Yeah, 1.1, I think.
1.1.
There's a lot of big money being moved.
I, I, I'll be honest, like, I see 225, I see 686, and they almost mean nothing different to me.
Like, both of them are just big sums of money that are not as big to somebody else to pay, and so they're paying up to get this card.
It- that's the power of an inscription.
That may also be the power of the, new NBA sticker phenomenon.
I don't have much else to say about this.
No big but, just pass it to Scott.
Okay.
Scott?
The only reason this sold for so much is that gold NBA sticker.
Even though it was a one of one, doesn't matter.
I mean, just, just- 'Cause what if the iAppeal was only a silver sticker?
Glittering on it.
Beautiful.
No one would want it.
I mean, no, of course not.
Yeah, I wanna know how it's in the top 15 percentile of a one of one.
Of one of ones of that card that has that inscription.
Yeah.
I don't think the sale makes sense to me.
I think there's so many other cards, not even just of Ohtani, but other players, that are just better than this card.
Inside of that same set, you have, like, the game-used patch, from the pants that has, like, dirt on it from when he slid and got his 50th stole base and hit a home run.
Like, any of those are cooler than this card to me.
I have a hard time with paying a ton for just a inscription because that can be replicated.
I know they probably won't, but they, they might.
I don't know.
It, it's not a special enough card to where I think it was worth that price at all.
But I think people, especially those that aren't as mature in the hobby, they just see it as, like, "Oh, this is an image from this game that was super important, and so because of that, that means it's a good buy."
And so this is the type of card that they actually could lose money on.
Like, we talked about Ohtani being a great place to put your money.
Not all Ohtanis are a great place to put your money.
Maybe this one is, and I'm, I'm stupid, and that could be I mean, I probably am stupid.
But regardless of that p- of that fact, it's one of those things where some of them are gonna drop, and this could be one of them.
Yeah.
Well, I, I will comment on the question about Topps Now.
I, I, I, I don't have an issue with the Topps Now aspect of this being as expensive because let's not forget what would now be one of the more valuable sports cards of all time, certainly of the ultra-modern era, if it were ever found- Yeah would be the USA Basketball triple auto, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, which still remains missing to this day, never redeemed, sitting in a vault at Topps.
That was a Topps Now card.
So the idea of like, "Oh, my gosh, a Topps Now card is selling for $686,000," that card right now would probably be worth a couple million dollars if it were found, and that was a Topps Now card.
So I think it, it comes down to the card and how iconic it is.
And in this case, it's celebrating Ohtani's 50/50, so I, I get it.
It's a big deal.
I have a video coming out next Monday on the Market Movers channel talking about, like, basically is the rookie card irrelevant these days?
That's a good question.
And it's, it's a really good presentation.
I, I'm, I, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
And, I have a question that this will be, this will be in the pres- the video next week.
But according to Beckett and their database, how many superfractors do you think Shohei Ohtani has in existence so far?
This is lo- Over all the years this is a loaded question, 'cause they're gonna include insert superfractors.
Yes.
They're gonna include- Yeah, yeah, yeah like- Anything with the superfractor parallel.
So- Just, just that would be described as superfractor.
5,000.
No, no, no, no, no.
That's too many.
Yeah.
It, as I said- Yeah it was wrong.
Told you I was stupid.
Yeah.
It was more than seven, if there's where you're at now.
No, I'm kinda, I'm kinda doing how many years.
I'm doing, I'm doing a thing in my head.
Jeff can't count much higher.
Eight.
I'm gonna go, I think, I think around 2,000.
That's, that's a good guess, 2,000.
660- Okay superfractors.
So actually, it's actually less than I thought.
That's not bad.
That's actually not so bad.
They have, he has- Invest he has roughly 3,500 one-of-one cards in existence.
Yeah.
That's not bad.
In the last year, Market Movers has tracked almost 160 superfractor sales of Ohtani.
Okay.
I guess I was count- On the public sales I guess I was kinda counting one-of-ones.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So yes, it was just superfractors.
But not every one-of-one's a superfractor.
Right.
Some are foil fractors.
And now there's a- Like this Ohtani was a foil fractor okay.
Okay.
So, so this starts to beg the question, I go through some of the data on how many rookie cards and rookie year cards players have, and whether they're still relevant.
And then also, like, just looking at print runs overall, how many cards per year players have.
And the fact that the last three, like, record-breaking Ohtani sales, none of which were rookie cards.
So you're, this is where you get into- Yeah some of the Topps now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You had the 50/50 logo man auto.
Yep.
The first rook- Yep the First Award Winners patch, and now the dual.
It's a weird, it is an interesting space.
There's a lot of big money.
And as Scott, I think, was pointing out, like, there can always be more.
There's always a next new biggest card that seems to be coming out.
Yeah.
And Topps is, incentivized to look for those great cards and manufacture them.
Sure.
Ohtani's gonna have more gold logo man cards than non-gold logo man cards at this point, 'cause every logo man he's had the last three years, maybe the next four, is gonna be gold 'cause he wins MVPs.
But I actually have a, a counterargument maybe you can take into consideration for your video.
The third time.
I think superfract, okay, future, for the future Ty, but- To be on your channel.
Yeah, for my channel.
You can like, subscribe, and leave a comment.
I'm gonna leave a negative review of that video and critique you in my own video.
Please do.
Help me out with it.
But I think superfractors still matter depending on the set.
Like, there's the Bowman Chrome, the Topps Chrome, like those are still massive.
I actually shouted you out in the video.
Okay, cool.
Of course I did.
Thanks.
And I said Scott just figured it out.
But my point is, like, there's still, like, a hierarchy there, and so I think they, that matters.
It does.
And so anyways.
You have to know the difference.
There you go.
All right.
Good, good conversation, gentlemen.
Scott's becoming a master of the superfractor.
I love them.
I, I, I know.
He got two of mine.
I know.
I got two of his.
Big butt, golden touch.
Pokemon.
I don't even know- What a video I would call you the word that, Fergully over here.
Ferngully.
All right, we're gonna wrap it up here, ladies and gentlemen.
I hope you enjoyed more than we did.
By the way, don't forget to get an Arena Club slab pack.
Promo code SCI at checkout for 20% off your first Arena Club purchase.
Thanks for watching.
We'll see you soon with our next one.
Take care.
