Mapping Ohtani’s Career Through Cards

Every now and again, Collectors, I see a content idea out there I wish we had thought up. This week’s example: ESPN traced Shohei Ohtani’s career through his trading card market, and they did it in a pretty visually compelling way to boot!

Ohtani’s card market has transformed alongside his historic career, with his rookie cards rising nearly 300% over the past year and flagship examples increasing from about $20 in 2018 to over $7,000 today.

Seeing those numbers in a list is one thing, but following along from his rookie year to today with responsive charts really frames up how much his market has exploded.

Bravo to ESPN for the idea and the execution.

Topps will replace the PREM1ERE Patch with the Debut Patch beginning with the 2026 NFL rookie class, aligning football with its MLB, NBA, and MLS strategy. The move follows the underwhelming performance of PREM1ERE Patch Autos (thrilling all grammarians), whose top public sale reached just $12,000, compared to seven-figure MLB Debut Patch sales and a strong early NBA market. Topps is betting that the stronger Debut Patch brand will create a more compelling chase for collectors, and we think they’ll quickly find this was a good decision. Solid logo, too!

Using Yahoo Sports fantasy football rankings, PSA population data, and rookie card prices, the 2nd year of Mantel’s Fantasy Football Top 100 is out. Low-population cards from players like Kyren Williams, Trey McBride, and Omarion Hampton stand out, while recent price declines have created possible value on stars such as Jayden Daniels and Marvin Harrison Jr. Mantel scribe Mike Metzler will tell you that if you followed his rankings last year you’d be in the money, so don’t miss out this season.

eBay expects trading cards to be a major driver of holiday collectibles sales, with 43% of collectibles shoppers planning to buy cards as gifts. The company is urging sellers to list inventory early, prioritize high-quality photos and detailed descriptions, use keyword-rich titles, and consider volume discounts and eBay Live to capitalize on early holiday shopping demand. If eBay is bullish, we’re bullish, that this will be a big holiday year for cards.

Last week we told you that auction house, Joopiter, found Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals Game 3 jersey, and this week news broke that Joopiter also found Jordan’s long-lost 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello—famously driven after the Bulls’ 1997 NBA Finals victory and later inspiring the Air Jordan 14. Rediscovered after more than 20 years out of public view, the Ferrari is estimated to sell for $700,000-$1.3M when the auction wraps this September. We’re taking the Over.

Just over a week after Tom Brady opened CardVault’s new Palo Alto location, the store was burglarized after suspects smashed a window and display cases, stealing 60 trading cards valued at more than $12,000. If you read Above the Mantel regularly you know we write about break-ins far too often, and in fact, this isn’t the first time that we’ve covered a CardVault getting hit. As a reminder, last week we mentioned the Global Trading Card Registry, which is being built to help collectors track down stolen cards, and we’d recommend checking it out.

The current Cooper Flagg card market is driven more by hype than scarcity, so says Mantel’s J.R. Fickle. While his unique Debut Patch should remain a grail, the prolific prognosticator argues his thousands of rookie autographs are significantly overproduced compared to LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, making long-term price declines on standard autos likely as supply catches up with demand. If the math is right and Flagg has ~15,000 autos out there… how many will he have by the time he hangs it up?