Collecting cards is absolute hell. It’s been that way since the pandemic. It was around this time thousands of people stopped looking at cards as collectibles, and instead took to them as legalized gambling — not only driving prices up to astronomical levels, but making it almost impossible for regular joes to get their hands on cards for a decent price.
This is a two-part story. One, the tale of a collector who has pulled the best baseball card of the year, and secondly the best comeuppance for scalpers and price gougers imaginable.
The card pulled was the grail of Topps Chrome Baseball 2025. An almost mythical double Dual-Auto MVP logoman of Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, both with on-card autographs, critically meaning they physically signed the card. It’s one of the coolest things you can imagine.
A collector in Ohio bought a hobby box from a local card store and pulled the Topps redemption ticket which will be exchanged for the above card. It’s unclear what the card is worth, though it’s widely accepted it would easily reach well above six-figures on the open market if sold, and potentially eclipse the $1.11M paid for Paul Skenes’ rookie patch auto card at auction in March.
Which brings us to the second part of this story which is equally feel-good: Price gougers getting their asses handed to them. See, in order to have a shot at pulling a card of this magnitude you need to sink serious money into the hobby. Before the Ohtani-Judge card was pulled hobby boxes of Topps Chrome Baseball 2025 were selling for $600 and up. This is more than three times the price they were released for by Topps, which was $200 at release.
Selling boxes for $600 was great business for price gougers, and terrible news for regular people who just wanted to collect cool cards. The product sold out without minutes, and immediately boxes were put on eBay for astronomical sums. People were looking for not just the above dual-auto, but individual Ohtani and Judge MVP cards, as well as a Chris Sale autographed logoman — all of which were 1-of-1, meaning just one card exists.
Now all four have been pulled.
There’s plenty of really cool cards left in the set, but nothing tantamount to the winning lottery ticket of these cards. Now scalpers who had been jacking the price up to the moon are in free-fall on eBay, desperately trying to unload boxes close to their original price — praying they aren’t left holding the bag. As of writing prices have plummeted from an average price of $609.95 per hobby box, to this:
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Make no mistake: They’re still trying to rip people off, but now the fear is setting in that the cash cow has disappeared. The amount of new listings are through the roof, and astute collectors are watching for the prices to crash even further.
Scalpers suck. I’m not going to sit here and blow smoke. If you’re buying anything at release price and immediately reselling at a jacked-up price, then you suck. You’re not talented. You’re not skilled. Waiting in line to scoop an entire rack of Pokemon cards into a Target cart to stop anyone else from buying them makes you a predatory loser. I hope with my heart of hearts that these boxes of Topps Chrome crash below $100 and bankrupt even a few resellers, just to weed a few more grifters out of the market.
Also, big time congrats to the guy who just got to buy a house because he pulled an amazing baseball card.