Tracking the Hobby’s Monthly Trends
Welcome to the latest column from RIPPED news editor/senior writer Greg Bates. Each month, he examines The Hobby’s current and emerging trends and offers expert opinions on all things collecting.
As I scroll through X — it will always be Twitter to me — my feed is filled with hits from newly-released 2023/24 Topps Chrome Basketball.
Everyone is chasing after Victor Wembanyama’s Topps rookie card. The French big man showed his incredible upside this past season, averaging a double-double for the San Antonio Spurs in being named NBA Rookie of the Year. Cards for the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft are in extremely high demand.
Seeing the excitement for a basketball sensation brings me back three decades when I first really got the desire to collect hoops cards. I would pick up packs of 1992-93 Topps Basketball, searching for the rookie card of another generational talent at the center position: Shaquille O’Neal. The top pick in the 1992 NBA Draft dominated the post like no player I’d ever seen.
As I dig through my present-day collection, I have two Shaq Topps ’92 Draft Pick cards. They still look as pack fresh as they did 32 years ago.
Along with the O’Neal rookie, the 1992-93 Topps Basketball product featured gold foil cards of every player in the set. So, while going after a Shaq base card, you could pull a Shaq gold card. There are also four Michael Jordan cards (base, All-Star, 50-Point Club, and Highlight) in the set. It was a hot product at the time.
The 2023/24 Topps Chrome Basketball release gives collectors plenty of chances to pull a Wemby. He has close to 30 refractors in the set, including the coveted autographed Superfractor. And, if you haven’t heard, there is a sizable bounty out on that 1-of-1 masterpiece.
The similarities between the 1992-93 Topps Basketball set and the 2023/24 Topps Chrome Basketball set don’t end at just the chase for two league-changing big men. Both products also celebrate the return of Topps Basketball to the market. The 1992-93 set was Topps’ first hoops release in 10 years after the company halted production after the 1981-82 set. The 2023/24 is Topps’ first hoops set since the 2009-10 product, which features Steph Curry’s baby-faced rookie.
What’s the Next Record-Breaker?
The biggest auction sports memorabilia news for August — well, for the entire year to date — was the sale of Babe Ruth’s jersey that has been photo-matched to his “Called Shot” home run in the 1932 World Series.
It just blows my mind that this iconic piece of memorabilia is still around. Shockingly, collecting athletes’ jerseys wasn’t a big thing in the 1930s. It’s also remarkable the jersey is in such pristine shape after all those years.
The jersey shattered the record for the highest selling sports collectible of all time as it went for $24.12 million through hobby giant Heritage Auctions. The previous record price was a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card graded 9.5 by SGC that went for $12.6 million in August 2022.
That Mantle card — trumped by only three PSA 10s in existence — was also sold by Heritage Auctions. During The National in Atlantic City in 2022, just weeks before the record sale, I got to see the magnificent Mantle up close. It was pretty wild holding an eight-figure piece of cardboard.
While chatting at that year’s National with my friend Derek Grady, Vice President of Sports at Heritage Auctions, he admitted to me consigning a $10-million-plus item was going to be tough for Heritage Auctions to top in the future. Well, it only took the auction house two years to produce an item that almost doubled the record-breaking price.
That begs the question, what could be the next sports collectibles item to go up for public sale that could set a new all-time record?
Thinking about just baseball and basketball, there are a number of options.
For America’s pastime, there are a few pieces that quickly come to mind. With just three PSA 10 examples of the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, these are No. 1 on my list. All three are in private collections: one owned by super collector Marshall Fogel, one by Arizona Diamondbacks managing general partner Ken Kendrick, and the third is owned by a collector on the East Coast. From what I’ve heard, none have any plans on parting with their Mona Lisa. Fogel — who has become a friend of mine — has told me he believes his Mantle is so pristine “it’s like God made that card.” Another piece that could break the record is the highest graded 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner in a PSA 8. Known as the “Gretzky Wagner” since it was once owned by the NHL legend, it was the first card ever graded by PSA. It has been in Kendrick’s collection for over 15 years.
As for basketball, I think the jersey Wilt Chamberlain wore when he became the first and only player to ever score 100 points in a game would garner some astronomical bids. That piece of NBA lore resides inside the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. There are a number of items from Michael Jordan’s career that could elicit some monster bids, including the jersey and shoes from his NBA debut.
It will be interesting to see what masterpiece comes out of the woodwork next to steal The Hobby’s attention.
Drop me a line at gbates@collectfanatics.com and let me know what it was like to open Topps Chrome Basketball again or your thoughts on which sports collectibles item could be the all-time best seller. I’ll share some collectors’ thoughts in my column next month.
RIPPED news editor/senior writer Greg Bates writes a monthly column exploring the trends of The Hobby. Prior to joining Fanatics, Bates was a freelance writer for 10 years for Sports Collectors Digest.
