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Pikachu Illustrator collage: the PSA 10 in its diamond pendant and two PSA Mint 9 copies sold at Heritage in 2026

Pikachu Illustrator: The Record Isn’t the Market

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The Pikachu Illustrator’s $16,492,000 record is not the price of a Pikachu Illustrator. That number belongs to one card: the only PSA 10, which Goldin sold on February 16, 2026 ($13.3 million hammer plus buyer’s premium, 97 bids). The copies that actually come up for sale are PSA 9s and lower, and in 2026 the PSA 9 alone printed $1,406,250 in March, $5,000,000 in September, and about $3.2 million in October. A buyer who prices from the headline misses two things. One PSA 10 cannot comp anything else, and the same grade has spread by more than 3.5x within about six months. Like our Base Set Charizard and Black Lotus lessons, the record is a trophy print, not a market.

This card joins our iconic-card liquidity series. For more frameworks, see Collector Guides and Market News.

What the Pikachu Illustrator is, and why so few exist

The Pikachu Illustrator was never sold in packs. It was a prize card for winners of illustration contests run through Japan’s CoroCoro Comic in 1997 and 1998. Heritage puts the distributed count at 39 copies across the first three contests (Collectibles News). The card reads “Illustrator” where a normal card reads “Trainer,” carries a pen symbol in place of a rarity mark, and features art by Atsuko Nishida. Nishida, a character designer on Pokémon Red and Green, in The Pokémon Company’s own creator profile, describes building Pikachu pixel by pixel and coming up with its name.

Graded population runs larger than the awarded count, and that matters for anyone reading a pop report. Folio’s November 9, 2026 read of the PSA census lists 15 PSA 9, 6 PSA 8.5, 13 PSA 8, 1 PSA 7.5, 7 PSA 7, 2 PSA 6, 2 PSA 5, 2 PSA 4 and 10 Authentic, plus the single PSA 10. That is 59 PSA entries against 39 awarded cards. Regrades, crossovers between graders, and copies that were never awarded all inflate the rows. Treat the PSA Population Report as an upper bound on supply here, not a count of cards.

The only PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator, set in a diamond pendant on a gold chain inside a display case
The only PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator in its custom pendant, sold with the card for $16,492,000 at Goldin in February 2026. Image source: Cards n Packs

The $16.49 million PSA 10 has no comp

Goldin’s listing describes the card as the lone GEM MT 10 among the PSA census examples, and Guinness World Records certified the $16,492,000 result as the most expensive Pokémon card sold at auction. The same card had changed hands privately for $5,275,000 in 2021. Two things make that lot a poor yardstick for any other copy. It is a population of one, so no other card shares its grade. And the lot was not just a card: it included a custom diamond necklace appraised at $75,000 and hand delivery by the seller, per Goldin.

A pop-1 sale tells you what one buyer paid for one object on one night. It does not tell you what a PSA 9 is worth, how fast one sells, or what a seller nets.

Same PSA 9 label, 2026 prices 3.5x apart

The PSA 9 tier, with 15 copies on the census, is where the real Illustrator market lives. Here is what the public auction record shows for 2026, prices including buyer’s premium unless noted:

Date (2026)Grade / notesVenuePriceSource
Feb 16PSA 10 (pop 1), with necklaceGoldin$16,492,000Goldin
MarchPSA 9Heritage$1,406,250Star City Games
June 26–27PSA 8.5, MBA Silver Diamond (lot 37028)Heritage$843,750Rare Book Hub
Sept 18–19PSA 9, MBA Gold DiamondHeritage$5,000,000Collectibles News
Sept 19CGC 9Goldin$2,806,271Pallet.Club
Oct 22PSA 9Not named in reportsabout $3.2 millionGempireCards; Folio
Folio lists the October PSA 9 at $3,237,954 as shown by the selling platform and notes that platform does not say whether a buyer’s premium applies. GempireCards notes results are subject to payment confirmation.
1998 Japanese promo Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA Mint 9 in slab, cert 83324823
A PSA Mint 9 Pikachu Illustrator pictured in Star City Games’ report on the $1,406,250 Heritage sale in March 2026. Image source: Star City Games / Heritage Auctions, HA.com

The September card was not a “better 9” on the PSA label. It carried a Mike Baker Authenticated Gold Diamond sticker, and Heritage said it was the only PSA 9 Illustrator with that designation. Heritage’s Jesus Garcia told Collectibles News the sticker effectively signals a card MBA views as worthy of roughly a 9.5. That is the same split we saw with the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, where an MBA Silver PSA 8 brought about double the plain PSA 8s. Stickered copies are real sales, but they are a separate lane from plain copies with the same grade.

Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA Mint 9 with an MBA sticker on the slab, cert 83914162
The PSA Mint 9 pictured in Collectibles News’ report on the $5,000,000 MBA Gold Diamond sale at Heritage, September 2026. Image source: Collectibles News / Heritage Auctions, HA.com

The label gap: a PSA 9 and a CGC 9, one day apart

One day after the $5 million Heritage result, Goldin sold a CGC 9 Illustrator for $2,806,271, a $2,300,222 winning bid plus a 22% buyer’s premium (Pallet.Club). The Pack Report put the gap at 78% and argued that at seven figures the bidder pool is small and prices off PSA’s census. Pokeforecast made the opposite caution: with the MBA sticker on the PSA copy and so few sales, there is not enough liquidity to read a clean PSA-vs-CGC premium from two lots. Both points lead to the same practical rule. If you own a non-PSA Illustrator, do not price it off PSA results.

How liquid is a Pikachu Illustrator?

By trophy-card standards, 2026 was busy. Folio counts 12 copies sold at public auctions it could confirm this year, about $34.0 million in total, from $344,040 for a PSA 5 in May to the PSA 10 record. Spread that across every grade and every grader, though, and any one lane sees only a few public sales a year. Outside the Gold Diamond copy, the PSA 9 had two public auction results in 2026, March and October, roughly $1.8 million apart.

Older prints show how fast the reference points move. Folio’s ledger has PSA 9s at $54,970 in November 2016, $840,000 in June 2022, and $625,000 in August 2025 before 2026’s run. Folio also notes that PSA’s own price guide, read November 9, 2026, still showed $840,000 for a PSA 9, well below every 2026 PSA 9 sale. Guides lag on a card that trades this rarely.

A practical framework for a Pikachu Illustrator

  1. Ignore the PSA 10 for pricing. It is a population of one sold with a necklace. It is a ceiling, not a comp.
  2. Separate stickered and plain copies. The $5,000,000 MBA Gold Diamond PSA 9 and the $1,406,250 plain PSA 9 are different lanes. Average them and you mislead yourself either way.
  3. Compare within the same grader. A CGC 9 sold for $2,806,271 the day after a PSA 9 sold for $5,000,000. Use same-label, dated, lot-linked sales.
  4. Read the pop report as an upper bound. 59 PSA entries against 39 awarded cards means duplicates and crossovers. Supply is thinner than the rows suggest, and so is the buyer pool.
  5. Work net of fees and time. Reported prices include buyer’s premium: 24% on the Goldin PSA 10 and 22% on the CGC 9. A consignor’s proceeds start from the hammer, less any seller fee. With a few public sales per grade each year, plan your exit in auction cycles, not days. Our card grading break-even example walks through the same net-of-fees math at everyday prices.

The bottom line

The Pikachu Illustrator is the most expensive Pokémon card ever auctioned, but its record describes one pop-1 slab, not the card. The tradable market is the 15 PSA 9s and the grades below them, and in 2026 even that tier ran from $1,406,250 to $5,000,000 depending on stickers, label and timing. Price any copy from same-grade, same-grader, plain-versus-stickered sales, and expect to wait for the next comp.

Card grading break-even collage: PSA Gem Mint 10 slabs beside a vintage T206-style card

Card Grading Break-Even: A Worked Example

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Card grading break-even is the graded sale price you need, after fees, shipping, insurance, and marketplace cut, to match what you could net by selling the same card raw today. PSA’s Value tier reopened October 29, 2026 at $39.99 with a 90–100 business-day estimate, while Standard and Priority got 20-day shorter turnaround quotes — so the fee stack, and the time your capital sits in a queue, both changed. This guide runs the formula from our 2026 grading primer end to end with those live November 2026 PSA numbers. Every dollar example that is not a dated official fee is labeled illustrative.

If you cannot name the exit venue and the net after fees before you ship, do not submit.

The formula (from the primer)

Our Grading in 2026 guide states it cleanly:

Net graded value = expected graded sale − grading fee − shipping/insurance − platform fees − taxes (if any).

Compare that net to what you could sell the card for raw now. This post does not repeat that primer’s “when grading makes sense” lists. It builds one fee table, then a break-even sale number, then a decision rule.

Live PSA fees and turnarounds (fetched Nov 4, 2026)

Per PSA‘s submission updates and its Oct 28, 2026 Value reopen article, new U.S. card submissions as of October 29, 2026 use:

  • Value: $39.99 per card; $500 maximum insured value; estimated 90–100 business days. New Value orders process after units PSA already has.
  • Standard: $59.99 per card; estimated 70–80 business days (cut 20 days vs the prior quote).
  • Priority: $79.99 per card; estimated 50–60 business days (also cut 20 days).

PSA’s backlog tracker update dated November 3, 2026 puts the active grading backlog at 6.8 million units, down from 7.2 million on October 20. PSA says Value Bulk remains closed and that holding momentum toward roughly 5 million units would position it to evaluate a Value Bulk reopen. Opening Value does not move existing orders ahead of the new Value queue — the opposite: existing orders stay first.

PSA Value service reopen hero image showing graded trading cards in PSA holders
PSA’s Value reopen hero. Image source: PSA, Oct 28, 2026

Worked example: one card, three PSA tiers

Illustrative assumptions only (written November 4, 2026). These are arithmetic placeholders, not comps for a named card:

  • You could sell the card raw for $100 today (illustrative).
  • Round-trip shipping and insurance to the grader and home costs $25 (illustrative; your carrier and declared value will differ).
  • Exit venue takes 13.25% of the graded sale price (illustrative marketplace rate — confirm your venue before you submit).
  • Taxes and tips/promoted listings are ignored here so the fee math stays readable.

Break-even graded sale price G solves:

G × (1 − 0.1325) = raw + grading fee + ship/ins
so G = (raw + fee + ship) ÷ 0.8675

Plug in the live PSA fees:

ServiceFee (official)Est. TAT (official)Illustrative break-even G vs $100 raw
PSA Value$39.9990–100 business days≈ $190
PSA Standard$59.9970–80 business days≈ $213
PSA Priority$79.9950–60 business days≈ $236
Official fees and TAT from PSA submission updates (Oct 29, 2026). Break-even column is illustrative arithmetic only.
Card grading break-even table for PSA Value Standard and Priority fees as of October 29 2026
Same math as a single graphic. Image source: Card Core (fees cited from PSA submission updates)

Read the Value row carefully. At $39.99, Value is the cheapest PSA lane in this reopen — but the illustrative break-even sale is still about $190 against a $100 raw. You are not “saving” relative to raw until the graded sale clears that bar and you actually get the grade you modeled. PSA’s own grading standards put a PSA 10 at roughly 55/45 front centering (with judgment calls on eye appeal). A 9 or 8 changes the exit price; the fee does not.

Time is part of the cost

Ninety to one hundred business days is roughly eighteen to twenty calendar weeks if the estimate holds. Priority’s 50–60 business days is still months. Capital locked in a queue cannot be sold raw if the market softens while you wait. That is the same liquidity problem we mapped when Standard launched in our PSA Standard tier and backlog math post — only now Value sits behind the existing 6.8M-unit backlog.

PSA backlog tracker Nov 3 2026: 6.8 million units down from 7.2 million
Backlog figures from PSA’s Nov 3, 2026 tracker update. Image source: Card Core graphic, data from PSA backlog tracker

SGC and BGS: check live, do not copy old fees

Service menus at SGC and Beckett / BGS move often. At write time on November 4, 2026, both official pricing pages returned Cloudflare bot challenges from our fetch tools, so this post quotes no SGC or BGS dollar fees. Open each grader’s current pricing page yourself before you model a submission. Choose the grader for the buyers who will pay for that label — not habit — then rerun the same break-even formula with that day’s fee and turnaround.

The decision rule most guides skip

Before you print a label:

  1. Name the exit. eBay? A dealer buy? A private sale? Auction house? Each has a different fee and a different buyer pool.
  2. Write the all-in stack. Grading fee + ship/ins both ways + platform fee + any tax. Use today’s published numbers.
  3. Solve for break-even G. If you cannot show a realistic graded sale above G for the grade you actually expect, sell raw or hold.
  4. Price the wait. Value’s 90–100 business days (behind the existing backlog) is not free optionality. It is locked capital.
  5. Skip hope grades. “Maybe it gems” is not a line item. Our Pokémon PSA 10 vs raw report is a reminder that the slab premium is uneven across grades and games — model the grade you can defend under light, not the grade you want.
PSA-graded T206 Honus Wagner baseball card in a protective holder
A slab is only as liquid as the buyers who trust the label and the grade. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

What this post is not

It is not a tip to “always use Value” or “always use Priority.” Value is cheaper per card and slower; Priority is more expensive and still measured in months. It is also not a price guide. We did not invent a named card’s raw or graded comps for this example. If you need a real sale table, pull dated sold listings for your card, then swap those numbers into the same formula.

For related reading in this cluster, see our Collector Guides hub, the PSA / SGC / BGS primer, Standard-tier backlog math, and the Pokémon PSA 10 vs raw split. Market-context posts also live under Market News.

Bottom line: card grading break-even is a net-after-fees number, not a vibe. PSA’s October 29, 2026 Value reopen gives collectors a $39.99 lane again — behind a still-large backlog. Run the table. Name the exit. If the math does not clear, keep the card raw.

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 collage: card front, PSA 8 MBA Silver slab, and card back

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle: Liquidity by Grade

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Grade alone is not the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle market. On August 21, 2026, The Heirloom Index records a PSA 8 with an MBA Silver sticker at Heritage Auctions lot 80013 for $3,721,000 (buyer’s premium included). Plain PSA 8s from the same summer printed much less: $1,555,500 at Heritage in July 2026 (lot 80382) and $1,830,000 at Goldin on June 20, 2026. Low grades carry the real trading frequency. Drawn to Cards logged far more Card Ladder sales in PSA 1–4 than in PSA 7–8 over a one-year window ending May 2026. The record is not the market; sticker, eye appeal, and grade band drive both price and how often cards actually trade — the same liquidity lesson as our Black Lotus and 1986 Fleer Jordan posts.

This card joins our liquidity series with the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey. For more frameworks, see Collector Guides and Market News.

Why the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is the postwar reference card

The card is #311, the first card of Topps’ 1952 high-number series — Mantle’s first Topps issue, not his rookie. That is the 1951 Bowman #253, as Topps RIPPED and Fanatics Collect’s Mantle guide both note. The 1952 set ran 407 cards across six series; Topps describes the larger format, team logos, facsimile signatures, and stats on the back as the blueprint for the modern baseball card. Series 6 (#311–#407) arrived late in the season, and surviving high numbers are scarce relative to earlier series. The image — Mantle with bat on shoulder against a blue sky — is the one collectors picture when they say “valuable baseball card.”

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 baseball card front scan
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 card front. Image source: The Heirloom Index

Population at the top is thin. Sports Collectors Digest, citing Goldin’s June 2026 preview, put the PSA 8 population at 35 copies. Above that, public sales are rare. The overall auction high remains the SGC 9.5 that Heritage sold for $12.6 million in August 2022 — a different grade band, and not a stand-in for what a typical PSA 8 or PSA 3 brings.

Three PSA 8s, three prices: sticker and eye appeal

Summer 2026 put three PSA 8s on the block within about nine weeks. They did not agree:

SaleGrade notesPrice (w/ BP)Source
June 20, 2026PSA 8 (plain)$1,830,000Auction Report / Goldin
July 2026PSA 8 (plain), Heritage lot 80382$1,555,500Heirloom Index
August 21, 2026PSA 8 + MBA Silver, Heritage lot 80013$3,721,000Heirloom Index; Collectibles News
Prices include buyer’s premium. Heirloom Index marks the August result with an asterisk because the MBA sticker means it is not a like-for-like plain PSA 8.
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 PSA NM-MT 8 with MBA Silver sticker in slab
A PSA NM-MT 8 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle with an MBA Silver sticker — the grade-plus-eye-appeal combo that realized $3,721,000 at Heritage on August 21, 2026. Image source: Collectibles News / Heritage Auctions, HA.com

The August card was not a different PSA number. It was the same NM-MT 8 label with a Mike Baker Authenticated Silver sticker that Collectibles News and Heritage described as placing the copy among the strongest PSA 8s by eye appeal. Heirloom Index is explicit: sales with MBA stickers are real results for this card, but they are not interchangeable with plain same-grade comps. That gap — roughly $1.9 million above the June Goldin PSA 8 — is the point. If you price from “PSA 8 average” alone, you misread both the high and the exit.

A PSA 7 from the same August Heritage event realized $716,750 (Heirloom Index / Pop Won). That is a large number and still less than half of either plain PSA 8 above. Grade still matters. It is not the only thing that matters.

Where the sales actually happen: low grades

Liquidity is how often you can sell, not only how high the last trophy printed. Drawn to Cards compared Card Ladder values and sale counts for the 1952 Topps Mantle against the 1962 Topps Mantle from May 24, 2025, to about May 25, 2026. On the ’52 alone, sale counts fell as grade rose:

1952 Topps Mantle (PSA)Sales in ~1 year (Card Ladder via Drawn to Cards)
PSA 114
PSA 28
PSA 38
PSA 46
PSA 56
PSA 62
PSA 72
PSA 83
Source: Drawn to Cards, May 25, 2026, citing Card Ladder. Low grades also posted the largest percentage value increases in that window.

Heirloom Index’s longer public-auction ledger (225 verified sales since 2005, checked November 3, 2026) shows the same pattern in volume: more verified sales in PSA 1–5 than at PSA 8. Recent low-grade prints are still six figures. Heritage in September 2026 sold a PSA 2 for $94,550 and two PSA 3s for $141,766 and $172,266 (Heirloom Index). Those are not “cheap Mantles.” They are the copies that change hands often enough to give sellers a real comps book.

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 baseball card reverse with stats
1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 reverse. Image source: PriceCharting / SportsCardsPro

Centering and stickers: why same-grade comps split

Pop Won’s October 2026 grade guide documents mid-grade outliers driven by centering and MBA stickers: a PSA 3.5 with MBA Silver at $390,400 (Heritage, August 2026) and well-centered PSA 3.5s at Goldin for $244,000 (April 2026) and $268,400 (October 10, 2026). A PSA 3 with MBA Silver Diamond brought $240,000 at Huggins & Scott in February 2026. Those results sit far above many clean same-number sales from 2025. Treat stickered and “high-end looking” lots as their own lane when you build a comps set.

A practical framework for buying or selling a 1952 Mantle

  1. Pick the grade band you can exit. PSA 1–4 have more public sales in a typical year than PSA 7–8. Trophy grades are thinner markets with longer waits between comps.
  2. Do not average stickered and plain copies. The August 2026 MBA Silver PSA 8 at $3,721,000 is not a plain PSA 8 print. Heirloom Index flags those sales for a reason.
  3. Price from dated same-grader sales, not headlines. Prefer lot-linked results from Heritage, Goldin, REA, and indexes that cite them. A $12.6 million SGC 9.5 from 2022 does not price a PSA 3 in 2026.
  4. Read centering and qualifiers. Off-center or qualifier labels (MC, OC) sell below clean peers. Pop Won notes large within-grade spreads when centering is the story.
  5. Work net of buyer’s premium and seller fees. Reported prices usually include the house premium. Your proceeds do not.

The bottom line

The 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle is liquid for a seven-figure vintage card — but liquidity lives in the low and mid grades that actually trade, and in eye-appeal distinctions that split same PSA numbers by millions. An MBA Silver PSA 8 at $3,721,000 and plain PSA 8s near $1.55–$1.83 million are the same grade on the label and different markets in practice. Buy the band and the look you can resell, and judge any deal by recent lot-linked comps in that lane, not by the record.

Pokémon Mega Evolution Delta Reign Elite Trainer Box beside the Delta Reign Mega Rayquaza ex 084/103 card and the 2015 Roaring Skies full-art M Rayquaza EX 105/108

Delta Reign Mega Rayquaza ex: The 2015 Lesson

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Short answer: Delta Reign Mega Rayquaza ex comes in three English versions when the set lands November 6: the regular double rare (084/103), a special illustration rare (138/103), and a gold Mega Hyper Rare (141/103). The Japanese version of this set, Storm Emeralda, has been on sale since July, and its sales already show the pattern. Graded copies of the top Rayquaza cards sell every day right now, and the gold card’s PSA 10 price has slid since September. The 2015 Roaring Skies M Rayquaza EX shows what happens ten years later. Its PSA 8 and PSA 9 copies still sell every week, while its PSA 10 sells about once a month at prices that can halve or double within a season.

Delta Reign is one of the two Friday releases we flagged in November TCG drops. More Pokémon coverage lives on the Pokémon hub, and the grading frameworks are collected in Collector Guides.

What Delta Reign actually prints

Pokémon’s August 20 media alert confirms Mega Evolution—Delta Reign for November 6, 2026, with prereleases starting October 24 and Pokémon TCG Live access on November 5. It’s Mega Rayquaza’s first appearance since XY—Ancient Origins. Pokémon lists 4 Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, 6 Pokémon ex, 14 illustration rares, 17 ultra rares, and 6 special illustration rares. The official set page says the set has more than 135 cards in total.

Mega Rayquaza ex 084/103 from Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution Delta Reign, 280 HP with the Ruler's Roar ability and Storm Emerald attack
Mega Rayquaza ex 084/103, the regular version from Delta Reign. Image source: Pokémon (pokemon.com)

The base card is a 280 HP Mega Rayquaza ex with the Ruler’s Roar ability and the Storm Emerald attack. Set lists from Bulbapedia and Coded Yellow put the higher-rarity versions at 138/103 (special illustration rare) and 141/103 (Mega Hyper Rare, the gold card). Pokémon hasn’t published pull rates, so we won’t guess at them. Here’s the sealed product, per Pokémon’s October 23 product showcase:

  • Booster Display Box: 36 packs, each with 10 cards and 1 Basic Energy.
  • Elite Trainer Box: 9 packs, a full-art foil Kyogre promo, 65 sleeves, 40 Energy cards, and dice.
  • Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box: 11 packs and two Kyogre promos, one with the Pokémon Center logo.
Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution Delta Reign Elite Trainer Box with Mega Rayquaza art next to the Delta Reign booster display box
The Delta Reign Elite Trainer Box and booster display. Image source: Pokémon (pokemon.com)

The current chase: what Japan’s Storm Emeralda already shows

Storm Emeralda released in Japan on July 31 and holds the same Rayquaza cards under Japanese numbers: SAR #110 and the gold MUR #113. Here’s what dated sales logged on PriceCharting show as of October 29:

  • Gold Mega Rayquaza ex #113, PSA 10: the 30 most recent sales run from September 5 to October 21. The 22 September sales ranged from $1,350 to $2,799. The eight October sales ranged from $1,100 to $1,390 (PriceCharting).
  • SAR Mega Rayquaza ex #110, PSA 10: the 30 most recent sales all came between October 20 and October 29, at $427.69 to $722.70. PriceCharting estimates about three sales a day (PriceCharting).
  • The rest of the set is cooling. DarkDex‘s October 19 snapshot of Japanese near-mint prices has the gold and SAR Rayquaza at €450.51 and €271.36, about 76% of the set’s chase value between them. The Kyogre and Kecleon illustration rares fell from roughly €32–€37 in August to under €8.

That’s what a new set’s market looks like. There are plenty of copies, people are grading them, and buyers are still settling on a price, so these cards are easy to sell. They’re also heading down from the opening weeks. English copies come from a separate print run and sell to a different set of buyers, so don’t treat the Japanese prices as the price of the English 138 or 141.

The historic lesson: 2015 Roaring Skies M Rayquaza EX

Mega Rayquaza first appeared as a card in XY—Roaring Skies on May 6, 2015. Pokémon’s official checklist shows the same split Delta Reign has now. There’s a regular holo M Rayquaza-EX at #76 and a full-art rare Ultra version at #105, and both carry the same attack and a “Δ Evolution” Ancient Trait. Here’s what eleven years did to those two cards:

2015 Pokémon XY Roaring Skies full-art M Rayquaza EX 105/108 with the Delta Evolution ability and Emerald Break attack
The full-art M Rayquaza EX 105/108 from 2015’s Roaring Skies. Image source: Pokémon TCG API (pokemontcg.io)
  • Full art #105, PSA 8: 25 sales between August 13 and October 21, 2026, from $676 to $999.99 (PriceCharting).
  • Full art #105, PSA 9: 19 sales between August 9 and October 29, from $1,575 to $3,000. The two most recent were $2,425 on October 26 and $2,176 on October 29.
  • Full art #105, PSA 10: the only PSA 10 sale logged in that same window is $24,095 at Goldin on August 10. PriceCharting’s price guide puts the card at $22,040 and estimates about one sale a month.
  • How much the PSA 10 has moved: PSA 10 sales ran $460 to $839 in mid-2023, then $18,750 in October 2025, $9,600 to $9,999.97 in December 2025, and $25,000 to $26,600 in June and July 2026.
  • Regular holo #76, PSA 10: two sales since August, $2,003.56 on August 19 and $4,000 on September 18. The same grade sold for about $112 in mid-2024. Its PSA 9 sold seven times in the same stretch for $213.50 to $400 (PriceCharting).
2015 Pokémon XY Roaring Skies M Rayquaza EX 76/108 regular holo card, the same Delta Evolution and Emerald Break text as the full art
The regular holo M Rayquaza EX 76/108, with the same attack text as the full art. Image source: Pokémon TCG API (pokemontcg.io)

Same Pokémon, same set, same text. The full art’s PSA 10 now prices about eleven times the regular holo’s PSA 10 ($22,040 vs. $2,004 on PriceCharting’s guide), and both PSA 10s trade about once a month. The grades that still sell every week are the PSA 8 and PSA 9 copies of the full art. A gem copy can be the best long-term hold and still be the hardest card to sell on the day you need to.

How to use the Rayquaza lesson on Delta Reign

  • Don’t pay launch-week prices for the gold or SIR. Japan’s gold PSA 10 fell from mostly $1,350 to $2,799 in September to $1,100 to $1,390 in October. Expect English prices to look shaky for a while too.
  • The double rare is the playable card, not the scarce one. 084/103 will be in decks and binders everywhere, which is why it sells easily and why it’s cheap.
  • If you’re holding for years, hold the version people collect. In 2015 the full art carried the long-run premium, and even then its PSA 10 lost nearly half its price between October and December 2025.
  • Mid-grade copies are your way out. On #105, the PSA 8 and 9 tiers made up most of the graded sales this fall. Grade with the copy you’ll sell in mind, not only the copy you’d love to own.
  • Read the slab label. Pokémon reprinted the #76 M Rayquaza-EX in the 2021 Celebrations Classic Collection, and listing logs sometimes mix those slabs in with 2015 copies. Check the year and set name before you trust a comp.

For more on how top grades and raw copies drift apart, see why Pokémon PSA 10 prices held up as modern raw prices softened. For another case of the same card trading very differently by edition and grade, read Base Set Charizard: liquidity by edition and grade. Set details come from Pokémon. Prices above are dated completed sales or price guides with dates attached, and asking prices aren’t treated as sales.

PSA stolen cards list collage: a PSA-graded slab with its cert number on the label, beside page one of PSA's stolen certificate list

PSA Stolen Cards List: Check Before You Buy

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PSA’s stolen cards list is a 93-page PDF that PSA published on October 23, 2026. It names all 6,451 items stolen from a FedEx truck on October 13, after the truck picked up customer orders at PSA’s Santa Ana, California, facility. Before you buy any PSA slab, search its cert number in that PDF, then run it through PSA Cert Verification. PSA says it has deactivated the cert of every stolen graded item. If the number is on the list, or won’t verify, don’t buy. A clean result lowers the risk, but it doesn’t prove the slab is safe.

Card Core counted every line of the PDF. The list is mostly not vintage grails. Pokémon makes up 2,978 of the 6,451 entries (46%) and One Piece another 898, and 2,997 entries carry a 2025 or 2026 set year. So the slabs most exposed are everyday modern TCG slabs: the kind that sell fast, in bulk, from sellers you don’t know.

What PSA published, and what it left out

PSA’s October 23 theft update says both the Santa Ana Police Department and the FBI are investigating. PSA says it shared the full list with “marketplace sellers, auction houses, and digital commerce platforms,” and that they are monitoring for the items. The only official dollar figure so far comes from police: about $963,000 for two stolen pallets, per the Los Angeles Times and AP. The LA Times reported that about 50 packages from a third pallet were also taken, and their value was still being calculated. Private estimates of the total vary a lot. We aren’t repeating them, because the list gives no grades.

The PDF has two columns: cert number and card description. It lists no grades and no values. That matters for anyone searching by card name. Matching a description proves nothing, because thousands of identical cards are legitimately for sale. Only the cert number ties a slab to the theft.

Top of page one of PSA's stolen cards list PDF, showing cert numbers beside card descriptions with no grades or values
The first rows of PSA’s stolen-item list: cert number and description only. Image source: PSA certificate list (PDF), Oct 23, 2026

What’s actually on the list

We downloaded PSA’s PDF on October 28, 2026, and counted entries by keyword in PSA’s own descriptions. Every one of the 6,451 cert numbers appears exactly once. Our totals match the tally Cardboard Police published on October 24.

  • By game: 2,978 Pokémon entries, 898 One Piece, 58 Yu-Gi-Oh!, 56 Dragon Ball, 27 Lorcana and 8 Magic. Pokémon and One Piece together are about 60% of the list.
  • Language: 1,831 descriptions include the word “Japanese.”
  • Age: 2,997 entries have a 2025 or 2026 set year, 1,672 are from 2020 to 2024, 1,566 are from 1980 to 2019, and only 202 predate 1980.
  • Sports: 185 entries name Michael Jordan and 202 name Victor Wembanyama.
  • Vouchers: 14 entries are grading vouchers with no card details.

Here’s what that means for buyers. Before the list came out, most attention went to the theft’s famous vintage cards. By count, though, the typical stolen item is a recent Pokémon or One Piece slab, often Japanese. That is the same modern graded market where, as our Pokémon PSA 10 vs raw report showed, the slab carries much of the card’s value. If you shop that market, check every cert, not just the expensive ones.

Card Core bar chart of PSA's stolen cards list: 2,978 Pokémon and 898 One Piece entries, and 2,997 cards with 2025 or 2026 set years, out of 6,451 cert numbers
Card Core graphic, counted from PSA’s list. Image source: Card Core, data from PSA’s certificate list

A five-step check before you buy a PSA slab

  1. Get the cert number from the slab itself. On a PSA slab it sits at the lower right of the label. Ask for a clear, current photo of the label if the listing doesn’t show it. A seller who won’t show the cert is your answer.
  2. Search PSA’s PDF. Open the list and use your browser’s find (Ctrl+F, or Command+F on a Mac) with the full number. Third-party search tools exist, but PSA’s file is the source.
  3. Run it through PSA Cert Verification. Enter the number on PSA’s cert page. If it doesn’t come up, stop. PSA’s own page says verification “does not eliminate risk,” which is why the next step matters.
  4. Match the record to the slab. A valid cert number isn’t proof on its own. PSA’s cert page warns that criminals sometimes make fake PSA labels using real cert numbers taken from public sources. The stolen list just made 6,451 more real numbers public. Check that the card, year, set and grade on PSA’s record match the slab in your hand.
  5. Buy where someone else checks too. PSA’s 2025 Fraud Report says eligible items of $250 or more sold through eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee are inspected by PSA before delivery. Keep the receipt and the listing screenshots either way.
PSA-graded 1909 T206 Honus Wagner slab; the PSA cert number sits at the lower right of the red label
Where to find the cert number: the lower right of the PSA label. This slab’s cert is not on the stolen list. Image source: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The harder problem: cracked slabs and raw cards

Cert checks only work while the card is still in its slab. If a thief cracks the slab, nothing on a raw card links it to the theft. PSA says the list includes serial numbers for serialized cards. In the copy we downloaded, though, most entries for numbered parallels show the set, card number and parallel name, not which copy it is. Only about 20 descriptions carry a number like 1/1. For example, the three 2025 Topps Finest Wembanyama #98 refractor entries don’t say which copy was taken.

So when you buy a raw copy of any card that appears on the list, slow down. Resell Calendar suggests checking an eBay listing’s revision history. A revision dated before October 13 shows the listing existed before the theft. If there’s no history, ask for dated photos or purchase records. A big discount plus a vague backstory is a reason to walk away. The same goes for a graded card that was “just cracked” with no explanation.

Check the cert, not the seller’s reputation

Don’t jump to conclusions either way. On October 27, collectors found slabs with deactivated certs listed by an eBay seller with more than 3,000 sales. Social media assumed the seller had a role in the heist. Resell Calendar reported that the seller was actually one of the victims. Their listings were created before the theft and set to zero quantity on October 16. That cuts both ways. A trusted seller can still have a dead cert in their store, and a dead cert doesn’t make someone a thief. The cert lookup is the evidence. If your own cards were on the truck and you listed them early, take those listings down.

Why a stolen slab has no real exit

Card Core usually judges a card by how easily you can sell it, and a slab on this list can’t be sold through any platform that checks certs. PSA’s update adds a second risk. Owners who accept compensation can still choose to get their card back if it’s recovered. A buyer who ends up holding a recovered card could lose both the card and the money they paid. A “discount” on a slab whose cert won’t verify isn’t a discount. Comp watchers should be careful too: a sale involving a cert on this list isn’t a clean comp, just as unpaid auction results weren’t in our Fanatics Collect comp checklist.

For people sending cards in, PSA says it compensates orders shipped on its return label at fair market value, up to each item’s declared Maximum Insured Value. It also says it has refunded grading fees on the affected orders. If you’re weighing a submission now, the costs and wait times in our PSA Standard tier and backlog math still apply. So does the declared value you write on the form.

If you’re a victim or you spot a card

PSA’s update gives the FBI’s instructions. Call the FBI Los Angeles field office at +1 310-477-6565, press 1 during business hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific), and ask for the duty agent handling the PSA theft. The same line takes tips. Victims should also contact PSA support, or their dealer if they submitted through one. The carrier was FedEx. As of October 27, no arrests or recoveries had been announced.

For more on how grading and sales venues shape what a card is worth, browse Card Core Market News and our Collector Guides.

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 rookie card in three PSA slabs side by side: NM-MT 8, Mint 9 and Gem Mint 10

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan: Liquidity by Grade

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The 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 is one of the easiest landmark cards to sell, but how easy depends on the grade. In the 90 days to October 27, 2026, Card Ladder logged 131 sales of the PSA 8, 57 of the PSA 9, and 7 of the PSA 10. Average prices were about $18,000, $48,500, and $396,000. Supply is a separate problem. PSA’s 2025 Fraud Report says 821 of the 3,285 copies of this card submitted to PSA in 2025 were counterfeit, or 25.0%. Liquidity is real, but only for a correctly identified card in a slab you can verify.

This card joins our liquidity series, which also covers the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey and Black Lotus. If you are deciding whether to grade a card yourself, our 2026 guide to PSA, SGC, and BGS covers the costs. You can find more frameworks like this in Collector Guides and Market News.

Why the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan is basketball’s reference card

Fleer signed a deal with the NBA for 1986-87 to print 132 cards and 11 stickers. The set came out in September 1986. Each 40-cent pack held 12 cards, one sticker, and a stick of gum, according to Fanatics Collect’s guide to the card. Jordan averaged 37.1 points per game that season, the first of seven straight scoring titles listed in his NBA.com legends profile. The Fleer brand now belongs to Upper Deck, which bought it in 2005 for $6.1 million (ICv2).

For a buyer, the important fact is how many copies exist in graded form. Fanatics Collect’s September 2026 lot description said PSA had assessed more than 31,200 copies of #57, and only about 1.1% had earned a PSA 10. Card Ladder’s PSA 10 page shows a population of 335. That is a deep, active market, but most of the supply sits below Gem Mint.

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 rookie card in a PSA Gem Mint 10 slab
A 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 in a PSA Gem Mint 10 slab. Card Ladder lists a PSA 10 population of 335. Image source: Card Ladder

The grade ladder: where the sales actually happen

Card Ladder tracks completed sales for each grade. These are the numbers for the 90-day window from July 27 to October 27, 2026, checked on October 27:

1986 Fleer #57 JordanPSA populationSales in 90 daysAverage saleLow to high
PSA 89,442131$17,960$14,640 to $23,400
PSA 93,07857$48,500$40,260 to $55,600
PSA 103357$395,920$381,560 to $414,800
Source: Card Ladder grade pages for PSA 8, PSA 9, and PSA 10, checked October 27, 2026. Averages are rounded to Card Ladder’s displayed values.

Three things stand out in that table.

  • Each step up in grade costs more than the last. Going from PSA 8 to PSA 9 multiplied the average by about 2.7 times. Going from PSA 9 to PSA 10 multiplied it by about 8.2 times (our arithmetic from Card Ladder’s averages).
  • How often a grade sells sets how fast you can exit. 131 PSA 8 sales in about 92 days is roughly one every 17 hours. Seven PSA 10 sales is about one every 13 days. A PSA 8 seller can check last week’s sales. A PSA 10 seller is often waiting for the next major auction.
  • Mid grades show price changes faster. Card Ladder compares the first and latest sale in the window. By that measure, the PSA 8 fell 20.6% and the PSA 9 fell 14.9%, while the PSA 10 rose 3.3%. Mid grades trade so often that their prices respond right away. The PSA 10 price changes in a few large, separate jumps.

The same PSA 10, twice: what a headline price hides

Fanatics Collect sold a PSA 10 #57 with cert 45855746 for $384,000, including buyer’s premium, on July 24, 2026 (18 bids). It sold the same cert again for $384,000 on September 25, 2026 (21 bids). The slab is now listed on Fanatics Collect’s Buy Now page with a $408,000 “guide price.” That figure is an asking reference, not a sale.

Two identical results look like a stable market. For the July buyer who sold in September, though, the two prices are not the same number. They paid $384,000 including buyer’s premium. When they sold, the $384,000 total included the next buyer’s premium, and seller fees came out of what was left. They ended up with less than they paid. Some of a PSA 10’s sales may be one card being resold. The count of sales and the count of different cards are not always the same.

Goldin’s October result shows the same buyer’s-premium gap. A different PSA 10 (Goldin lot) realized $396,500 in the 2026 Monthly Sports Elite #9 auction, which closed the night of October 17. What The Slab notes that this matched Goldin’s previous high for the grade, set June 29, 2026. Pop Won lists Goldin’s buyer’s premium at 22%, which means a hammer price of about $325,000 before the premium. The seller’s net depends on their consignment terms, which are private.

One in four submitted to PSA was fake

PSA’s 2025 Fraud Report (PDF) lists the 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 among its highest counterfeit rates: 3,285 submitted and 821 counterfeit, or 25.0%. The 1984 Star Jordan #101 was higher, at 96 of 360 (26.7%). These numbers only cover what reached PSA’s grading room. They do not tell you how many fakes are sold raw and never submitted.

Counterfeit 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 rookie (left) next to an authentic example (right), from CGC's counterfeit alert
A counterfeit #57 submitted to CGC (left) next to an authentic example (right). At this size, the main difference is color tone. Image source: CGC

CGC’s January 2026 counterfeit alert lists the giveaways it found on a recent submission. The Fleer Premier logo was pixelated instead of crisp. The name plate was soft. On the back, the ® and © marks were blurry, and the NBPA basketball was missing the lines on the ball. The color and card stock were also off, and CGC says infrared light sources confirmed the differences. BBC Emporium’s counterfeit guide adds other checks, including the gold-toned arrow in the logo, the period in the “27.2” scoring average on the back, and the shade of the lower border.

Close-up of the Fleer Premier logo on a 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie: crisp authentic print on top, blurrier counterfeit print below
The Fleer Premier logo on an authentic #57 (top) and the counterfeit (bottom). Image source: CGC

A slab only reduces the risk. BBC Emporium documents older PSA holders that were cracked open, given a different card, and resealed with a homemade label carrying a real cert number. In that case, a database lookup comes back clean. Its tells include frosting along the welded edges, “mushroomed” security nubs, and label fonts that don’t match the label generation. In its fraud report, PSA advises checking cert numbers in the PSA app and buying from reputable sellers or established marketplaces. It also says to compare against known authentic examples and to question deals far below market value. On eBay, PSA inspects eligible items over $250 through the Authenticity Guarantee before delivery.

The 1986 Fleer Jordan Sticker #8: cheaper, not the same

Every 1986-87 Fleer pack included a sticker, and Jordan is #8 in the 11-sticker set. It costs much less than the #57, but it is a separate market with fewer buyers:

1986 Fleer Sticker #8 JordanPSA populationSales in 90 daysAverage saleLow to high
PSA 92,19053$10,420$8,235 to $14,500
PSA 101284$103,090$88,450 to $114,000
Source: Card Ladder pages for the Sticker #8 PSA 9 and Sticker #8 PSA 10, July 27 to October 27, 2026.

A PSA 9 sticker averaged about a fifth of a PSA 9 #57 and sold almost as often (53 sales against 57). That makes it a reasonable way to own a 1986 Fleer Jordan for less. The PSA 10 sticker is different. With four sales averaging about $103,000, it carried a thin, volatile market, and its latest sale ($88,450 on October 23) was 22.4% below the first sale in the window ($114,000), per Card Ladder. Collectors generally prefer cardboard to stickers, Fanatics Collect notes, which is a big reason the #57 is the card the market treats as the rookie.

1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Sticker #8 in PSA Mint 9 (left) and PSA Gem Mint 10 (right) slabs
The 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan Sticker #8 in PSA 9 (left) and PSA 10 (right). Image source: Card Ladder

A practical framework for buying or selling a 1986 Fleer Jordan

  1. Pick your grade before you pick a copy. PSA 8 and PSA 9 are the liquid tiers, with dozens to more than a hundred public sales per quarter. PSA 10 is a trophy market with a handful. Sticker #8 is a separate market.
  2. Price from completed sales, not asking prices. Use same-grade, same-grader sales from the last 90 days. A guide price or a Buy Now listing is not a sale. Look for designation stickers or “high-end” notes in a listing, too. Card Ladder points out that some PSA 9 price spikes came from slabs carrying PWCC high-end designations.
  3. Verify the slab, then verify the card. Look up the cert, compare the label to the right PSA label generation, check the holder edges for frosting, and check the card against the known tells above. Be most careful with older holders.
  4. Buy where authentication is part of the process. That means established auction houses, dealers with a track record, or eBay listings covered by the Authenticity Guarantee. A raw Jordan priced well below graded sales is usually below market for a reason.
  5. Work out your net before you sell. Buyer’s premium on the way in, buyer’s premium and seller fees on the way out, plus insured shipping. As the July-to-September Fanatics example shows, selling at the price you paid can still leave you behind.

The bottom line

The 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan deserves its reputation for liquidity. More than 190 PSA 8, 9, and 10 copies sold publicly in one quarter, and few cards from any era can say that. Most of that liquidity is in PSA 8 and 9, though, and the PSA 10 tier is a handful of large sales that can include the same slab twice. Counterfeits are also common: PSA reports one in four submissions in 2025 was fake. Buy the grade you can resell, verify both the slab and the card, and judge any deal by what you’d net after fees, not by the headline price.

Topps Heritage Football 2026 hobby box beside a 1976 Topps Walter Payton #148 rookie in a PSA 10 slab and a Jadarian Price Heritage Rookie Autographs Gold card

Topps Heritage Football: A Payton Rookie Lesson

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Short answer: the most interesting chase in 2026 Topps Heritage Football isn’t a new card. Topps seeded 34 graded 1976 Topps Walter Payton #148 rookies into the product as redemptions, from one PSA 10 down to thirteen PSA 6s. That mix doubles as a liquidity lesson. In the past three months Payton’s PSA 7 and PSA 8 copies have sold several times a week, while his PSA 10 sold three times. When you rip Heritage, the versions with lots of copies are the ones you can sell quickly. The tiny numbered parallels and the PSA 10 are the slow ones.

Topps Heritage Football went on sale October 21, the brand’s first issue since the 2015 NFL season, per Checklist Insider. We flagged it as the licensed pick of release week in our late October sports card drops rundown. For more football coverage, start at the Football Cards hub, and find more frameworks like this one in Collector Guides.

What’s in 2026 Topps Heritage Football

The set is built on the 1976 Topps Football design, 50 years on. Topps’ hobby box page lists 20 packs of 8 cards with one autograph or relic per box, available from October 21, 2026, and it showed hobby boxes and cases sold out. Checklist Insider recorded a $129.99 hobby presale price that rose to $139.99 on release day. On the secondary market, HobbyMonitor showed a $213 median across 28 hobby box listings as of October 20 (HobbyMonitor). Those are asking prices, not sales.

2026 Topps Heritage Football hobby box with Walter Payton on the 1976-style cover, one autograph or relic card in every box
The 2026 Topps Heritage Football hobby box puts Payton’s 1976 rookie design on the cover. Image source: Checklist Insider (Topps product image).

The 400-card base set includes 100 rookies. Raiders rookie Fernando Mendoza is base #272, and he also appears on the Chrome, image variation, and autograph checklists. Here are the hobby odds Checklist Insider published for the chases most people will price first:

  • Base Chrome: 1:3 hobby packs, so about six or seven per box across the set.
  • Chrome Refractor (unnumbered): 1:11 hobby packs, or roughly two per box.
  • Chrome Black Refractor /76: 1:375 hobby packs, about one per 19 boxes for any player. That’s the parallel numbered to the design year.
  • Chrome SuperFractor 1/1: 1:27,490 hobby packs.
  • Heritage Rookie Autographs Black Border /76: 1:942 hobby packs, with Gold /50 at 1:1,351.
  • Walter Payton Rookie Redemption: 1:100,729 hobby packs, or about one per 5,036 hobby boxes. At 12 boxes a case, that’s roughly one per 420 cases.
2026 Topps Heritage Football Heritage Rookie Autographs Gold Border sample card of Jadarian Price, Seattle Seahawks
A Heritage Rookie Autographs Gold Border /50, shown on Jadarian Price’s card. Image source: Checklist Insider (Topps sample image).

The historic lesson: what 1976 Payton rookies actually trade like

Topps’ redemption list on Checklist Insider spells out the 34 cards: one PSA 10, three PSA 9s, five PSA 8s, twelve PSA 7s, and thirteen PSA 6s. So 25 of the 34 are PSA 6 or 7. Here’s how those grades have traded on the open market lately, from dated sales logged by SportsCardsPro and Card Ladder:

  • PSA 6: eBay sales between $587 and $785.55 from October 9 to October 22, 2026.
  • PSA 7: $878 (October 13), $950 (October 15), $900 (October 19), and $1,068 (October 20) on eBay. SportsCardsPro estimates about one sale a day at this grade.
  • PSA 8: $2,196 at Heritage on October 15, then $1,902, $2,075, and $2,295 on eBay October 19 and 20.
  • PSA 9: $8,999.99 on eBay October 8 and $8,235 at Heritage October 15. SportsCardsPro puts this grade near one sale a week.
  • PSA 10: three sales from July 22 to October 22, 2026 on Card Ladder, ranging from about $72,400 to about $98,300. The latest was $80,520 at Goldin in mid-October.
1976 Topps Walter Payton #148 rookie card in a PSA Gem Mint 10 slab, the top Payton redemption in 2026 Topps Heritage Football
The PSA 10 is the top prize on Topps’ 34-card Payton redemption list. Image source: Checklist Insider (Topps image).

Population explains the gap. SportsCardsPro’s combined PSA and CGC count shows 2,957 copies in grade 6, 3,095 in grade 7, 3,264 in grade 8, 751 in grade 9, and 56 in grade 10 (1976 Topps pop report). Card Ladder also lists 56 PSA 10s. Thousands of mid-grade copies means a deep pool of buyers and sellers. Fifty-six top-grade copies means a sale about once a month, and prices that jump around. The PSA 10’s sales history shows it: $8,365 at Heritage in November 2013, $79,900 on eBay in February 2021, $41,100 on eBay in May 2024, and $80,520 this month. PSA’s own auction price page logs more than 4,000 sales of the card across all grades.

How to use the Payton lesson on this box

A 1976 Payton PSA 10 is a trophy, and its sales are spread out. A modern /76 parallel has, at most, 76 copies of that card in the world, a pool about the size of Payton’s 56 PSA 10s. Expect its sales to be just as spread out, and more so for anyone who isn’t a top rookie. Here’s how we’d sort the pulls:

  • To keep an exit open: base and Chrome Refractor rookies of the names people already chase, such as Mendoza at #272. There are plenty of them, which is exactly why they trade.
  • To hold: the Black Refractor /76 and the Black Border /76 rookie autos. They have the cleanest tie to the 1976 theme. Price them as cards that may take weeks to sell, not days.
  • For upside only: SuperFractors, Red /5s, and the five Payton Cut Signature 1/1s (1:410,976 hobby packs). These are lottery tickets, and each one sells in a market of one.
  • Don’t buy boxes for the redemption: at roughly one per 420 cases, the Payton rookie is a story to know. It isn’t a reason to rip. If you want the card, the mid-grade copies above trade every week for far less than a case.
2026 Topps Heritage Football Walter Payton Cut Signature card numbered 1/1, Chicago Bears
One of five Walter Payton Cut Signature 1/1s in the set. Image source: Checklist Insider (Topps sample image).

A quick checklist before you buy a Heritage single

  • Confirm the version. Mendoza shows up as base #272, Chrome #272, an image variation, a black-and-white image variation, and several autograph sets, so a listing title alone isn’t enough.
  • Separate asks from sales. Release-week prices are mostly listings. Wait for at least three dated sold comps for your exact card.
  • Count the copies. An unnumbered Refractor at 1:11 packs and a Black Refractor at 1:375 packs are very different markets, even though they look alike.
  • Check how often it trades. Look at how many sales your version logged in the last 90 days, not just the last price.
  • Grade for the buyer you’ll sell to. On Payton, the PSA 7 and PSA 8 tiers log the most frequent graded sales. That’s a useful reminder that the top grade isn’t the only grade worth owning.

For the same idea on the baseball side, see how Konnor Griffin’s Topps Update Gold compares with Mike Trout’s 2011 Gold, and how the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey trades by grade. Product details come from Topps. Prices above are dated completed sales, and we left out anything we couldn’t tie to a sale.

Fanatics Collect unpaid bids collage: PSA 10 Art Academy Pikachu, Plasma Storm Lugia EX and Great Encounters Cresselia slabs

Fanatics Collect Unpaid Bids: A Comp Checklist

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Fanatics Collect unpaid bids are the biggest pricing trap in the graded Pokémon TCG market right now. Since October 14, 2026, Fanatics Collect requires every bidder to keep a credit card on file, but its own payment policy only auto-charges that card on invoices of $10,000 or less. Above $10,000, a winner who never pays gets a restricted account, not a charge. So for six- and seven-figure slabs, a hammer price is still just a bid until it settles. Before you price a card off a headline sale, confirm it was paid.

This guide walks through what changed, what the first auctions under the new rule showed, and a short checklist for telling a real comp from a print nobody paid for. For more market-structure coverage, see the Card Core Market News archive.

What Fanatics Collect changed on October 14

Fanatics Collect first asked collectors to confirm a default card starting October 5, then made it mandatory on October 14: without a card on file, you can’t bid, make offers, or check out on the site or app, according to its payment methods page. The card is described as a backup. Winners still get five days from the invoice to pay by any method, and the card is only touched if the invoice goes unpaid.

The important detail is the cap:

  • Orders of $10,000 or less: the default card is charged automatically if payment is late.
  • Orders over $10,000: the card is never auto-charged. If a Weekly Auction or Buy Now invoice over $10,000 isn’t paid within five days, the account is restricted.
  • A declined card puts the invoice into default and restricts the account.

Fanatics Collect’s FAQ adds that when a buyer doesn’t pay, it does not list the price in its Sales History tool and relists the card, a step it says “ensures that comps reflect actual sales.” The same FAQ says bidders who place bids they don’t intend to honor are permanently blocked.

Fanatics Collect Help Center text on the credit card on file requirement effective October 14, 2026, with auto-charge only on orders of $10,000 or less
Image source: Fanatics Collect Help Center

Why the rule arrived: weeks of unpaid six-figure closes

The rule followed a run of Pokémon closes that looked nothing like recent sales. TCGCharts’ October 16 Market Pulse reported that Fanatics Collect’s October 11 weekly auction closed with $30.6 million bid across 12,346 lots. By that Friday, buyers had paid for 7,665 lots, 62% of the lots but only $5.3 million, or 17% of the money. Of the 55 lots above $100,000, five had been paid. TCGCharts now holds any Fanatics Collect lot that clears at more than three times the card’s recent price out of its data until it is paid.

Chase Society, which reads the payment flag in Fanatics Collect’s public sales feed, has been tracking the same nights. Its running report said in an October 20 update that among October 4 lots above $100,000, 24 read paid, 9 unpaid and 17 had been deleted from the feed, with 53 deletions counted since October 8. The $960,000 Great Encounters Cresselia and the $840,000 Southern Islands Mew from that night were still listed as unpaid. The same report says other PSA 10 Cresselias sold on eBay between May and August for $2,550 to $4,800.

Two relisted lots give a rare look at what happens when a print fails. Chase Society reported that an Entei Gold Star deleted after a $40,800 close came back in the October 18 auction at $24,000, and a FireRed & LeafGreen Pikachu went from $48,000 to $19,800. The second number is the one that got paid.

The $8.4 million Pikachu: sold, paid, or cancelled?

The 2015 Japanese Art Academy “Raincoat” Pikachu by Y. Fujishima, PSA 10 cert 24753376, closed at $8.4 million on 64 bids in the September 27 weekly auction. Kotaku called the price “inexplicable” at the time, noting a PSA 10 had sold for $156,250 at Heritage in June and that PSA lists 57 copies in Gem Mint 10.

Three weeks later, the record still disagrees with itself. When we opened the public lot page on October 21, it still showed “Sold” and $8,400,000, alongside “This item is not available at the moment,” while the page’s embedded data carried a cancelled status. Chase Society reports the sales feed removed the lot on October 14 and restored it flagged paid on October 15. RippingPatrol has withdrawn the result from its completed-sale ledger. Nobody outside Fanatics Collect has shown whether money changed hands, and Chase Society reported that Fanatics had not responded to its questions about the lot.

Why it matters even if you’ll never bid $8 million: according to Chase Society, the print reached price trackers, collection apps and PSA‘s certificate lookup as a sale while it read unpaid. A separate PSA 10 of the same card sold at Goldin on October 11 for $1,037,000, per TCGCharts. That one is a real number, but it was bid while the $8.4 million headline was circulating, and no correction to the Fanatics row can reach it.

2015 Japanese Art Academy Y. Fujishima Pikachu PSA 10 slab, cert 24753376, from the Fanatics Collect lot at the center of the unpaid bids question
Image source: Fanatics Collect

Did the first auction under the rule look different?

Partly. Chase Society counted 39 lots above $100,000 in the October 18 weekly auction, the first under the card-on-file rule, against 50 and 55 in the two weeks before. That’s fewer extreme closes, but it isn’t proof the problem is gone, and the October 18 invoices were still inside their five-day payment window as of October 21.

The cap explains why caution still applies. A card on file closes the gap for a $500 slab. It does nothing automatic for a $660,000 one. Compare Goldin, whose FAQ says bidders start with a $10,000 limit and are pre-screened before bidding higher. Fanatics Collect’s new rule leans on account restrictions after the fact rather than a spending limit before the bid.

The Plasma Storm full art Lugia EX shows the risk. This PSA 10, one of 21 according to its lot page, closed at $660,000 in mid-October. Wargamer reported bids had passed $10 million at one point and that “it seems like there were many bogus bids,” while noting there is no evidence of deliberate manipulation. Whether or not that close settles, one print on a 21-copy population isn’t a market price.

2012 Pokémon Plasma Storm full art Lugia EX #134 PSA 10 slab, cert 40770865, from the Fanatics Collect lot that closed at $660,000
Image source: Fanatics Collect

How to check a comp before you pay off it

If you’re buying, selling, or insuring a graded card this fall, run any headline number through these checks first:

  1. Wait out the payment window. Fanatics Collect gives weekly-auction winners five days to pay and Premier winners ten, per its FAQ. A close younger than that is a bid, not a sale.
  2. Look for the paid version. Fanatics Collect says unpaid prices are removed from its Sales History tool. If a close disappears or the lot gets relisted, treat the original number as void.
  3. Compare to the last three paid sales. A Cresselia at $960,000 against $2,550–$4,800 eBay sales isn’t a new level. It’s a question.
  4. Check the population. When only a few dozen PSA 10s exist, one determined buyer can set a number the next copy never sees.
  5. Be wary of tools that carry every close. Price trackers and collection apps often take venue results at face value. If a value jumped on one print, find that print and check its status.
  6. Weight the venue’s checks. A pre-screened bid limit (Goldin) or an auto-charge (Fanatics Collect up to $10,000) means more than a hammer price with no financial check behind it.

The same discipline applies beyond Pokémon. Our Black Lotus liquidity breakdown makes the same point at the top of Magic: a record sale and the price you can actually get are different numbers. For the grading side of the equation, see how PSA 10 premiums held while raw prices softened in our Pokémon PSA 10 vs raw analysis, and how the grading business itself is changing in our grading consolidation report.

The takeaway

The credit card on file rule is a real fix for low-dollar non-payment and a step in the right direction. It doesn’t fix the part of the market making headlines, where a single unpaid close can lift the value of every copy of a card for weeks. Until a lot reads paid and stays that way, price your cards off settled sales, not hammer prices. More checklists like this live in the Card Core Collector Guides.

Sources: Fanatics Collect payment methods, Fanatics Collect FAQ, Fanatics Collect Sales History, Art Academy Pikachu lot, Lugia EX lot, Chase Society, TCGCharts, Kotaku, Wargamer, RippingPatrol, Goldin FAQ. Figures are as reported on the dates noted and may change as payment flags update.

Black Lotus collage showing an Alpha Black Lotus scan, a PSA Gem Mint 10 Alpha Black Lotus slab, and a white-bordered Unlimited Black Lotus scan

Black Lotus: Why the Record Isn’t the Market

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Black Lotus does not have one price. It has a ladder. The public auction record is $2.208 million, including buyer’s premium, for a PSA Gem Mint 10 Limited Edition Alpha copy that Goldin sold in its 2026 Summer Goldin 100 auction (ICv2, September 20, 2026). That card is one of only three Alpha Black Lotus copies at PSA 10. PSA’s CardFacts population table, checked October 20, 2026, lists 21 at PSA 9 and 41 at PSA 8. Edition (Alpha, Beta, or Unlimited) and grade decide which Black Lotus market you are actually in, and nearly every headline comes from the thinnest rung of that ladder.

Black Lotus joins the other landmarks in our liquidity series, including original MTG dual lands and the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey. If you want the print-run debate behind Lotus scarcity, our Reality Fracture scarcity piece walks through it. More frameworks like this live in Collector Guides and Market News.

Why Black Lotus is the reference card

Black Lotus, illustrated by Christopher Rush, was printed for regular play in three 1993 core-set runs: Limited Edition Alpha (August 5), Limited Edition Beta (October 4), and Unlimited Edition (December 1), per Scryfall’s printing records. Wizards of the Coast lists it on the Reserved List in its Official Reprint Policy, which says reserved cards “will never be printed again in a functionally identical form.”

What gets talked about less is how little the card is played. Wizards’ Banned and Restricted list restricts Black Lotus in Vintage, so a deck can run only one copy, and bans it in Legacy and Commander. The original dual lands still get Legacy and Commander play, which gives them buyers who just want to use them. Black Lotus has very little of that. Its demand leans heavily on collectors, so its liquidity depends on collector money and on the condition of each copy.

Limited Edition Alpha Black Lotus card scan with black border, rounded corners, and Christopher Rush art
Limited Edition Alpha Black Lotus (#232). Alpha’s rounded corners are the quickest way to tell it apart from Beta. Image source: Scryfall

Edition is the first liquidity split

The three playable printings share the same art and text. You tell them apart by their physical features. According to Misprint’s Alpha vs Beta vs Unlimited guide, Alpha has noticeably rounded corners and a black border. Beta keeps the black border but has squarer corners. Unlimited switched to a white border. The same guide gives commonly cited whole-set print runs of roughly 2.6 million Alpha cards, 7.3 million Beta cards, and 40 million Unlimited cards. Those are totals for every card in each set, not counts of Black Lotus. Estimates for Lotus alone vary by source, so we leave them out here.

For a buyer, that splits the card into three different markets:

  • Alpha: the trophy tier. It has the smallest supply, the most fragile corners, and the sales that make headlines.
  • Beta: the black-border look without the Alpha premium. Misprint calls Beta “the usual target” for players who want an authentic 1993 card without paying the Alpha premium.
  • Unlimited: the largest supply and the most realistic first Black Lotus for most collectors. The white border makes it easy to identify, and it has the deepest pool of copies to compare.
Black Lotus card scans side by side: black-bordered Limited Edition Beta on the left and white-bordered Unlimited Edition on the right
Black Lotus in Limited Edition Beta (left) and Unlimited Edition (right). Same card, different supply, different market. Image source: Scryfall (Beta) and Scryfall (Unlimited)

The grade cliff: what the population reports show

PSA’s CardFacts page for the Alpha Black Lotus shows how few copies reach the top. These are the counts we saw on October 20, 2026. Population reports change as cards are submitted, crossed over, or resubmitted, so check the live page before you rely on them.

PSA grade (Alpha Black Lotus)Population
GEM-MT 103
MINT 921
NM-MT 841
NM 716
EX-MT 67
Source: PSA CardFacts, checked October 20, 2026.

CGC’s numbers are just as steep. When Goldin sold a CGC 9 Alpha Black Lotus for $138,402 in August 2025, CGC reported 51 Alpha Lotus copies in its population report, with only 9 graded higher than that one (CGC). Here is how sourced public results line up by tier:

CopyVenue and dateReported price
Alpha, PSA 10Goldin, 2026 Summer Goldin 100 (reported Sept. 20, 2026)$2.208 million incl. buyer’s premium (ICv2)
Alpha, PSA 10 (different copy)PWCC on eBay, Jan. 2021$511,100 (ICv2)
Alpha, CGC 9Goldin, Aug. 2025$138,402 incl. buyer’s premium (CGC)
Beta artist proof, CGC 8.5, signed by Christopher RushHeritage, March 2023$615,000 (ICv2)
Alpha, CGC Pristine 10 (pop 1)Private sale, 2024$3 million, announced by CGC (ICv2)

The PSA 10 and the CGC 9 above sold a year apart and were graded by different companies, so you can’t read a clean ratio from them. Still, the 2026 PSA 10 brought more than fifteen times the 2025 CGC 9. At the top of the ladder, a one-grade difference isn’t a small adjustment. It puts the card in a different market with a different set of buyers.

PSA Gem Mint 10 Alpha Black Lotus slab, cert 30504247, the copy Goldin sold in its 2026 Summer Goldin 100 auction
The PSA Gem Mint 10 Alpha Black Lotus (cert 30504247) that set the public auction record at Goldin in 2026. Image source: ICv2, imaged by Goldin

Three reasons a headline price is not a market price

Bids are not clearing prices. In the January 2021 PWCC auction of an Alpha PSA 10, early bidding pushed the price past $700,000. Some of those bids were then disallowed because the bidders couldn’t be verified. The final winning bid was $511,100 (ICv2). A screenshot taken mid-auction would have overstated the price by a wide margin.

The same grade can still look different. ICv2 reported that observers noticed more white printer cut marks on the corners of the 2026 Goldin PSA 10 than on other PSA 10 copies, such as the one sold in 2021, and suggested this may have held bidding back a little. The same article notes that PSA Gem Mint cards tend to sell for more at auction than similar cards graded by other services. The label on the slab and the card inside both affect the price.

Private sales can’t be checked. The $3 million CGC Pristine 10 sale was private, and ICv2 pointed out the large gap it opened between private-sale and auction prices for Black Lotus. Outsiders can’t verify the terms. Treat it as a data point about one unique card, not a price for anyone else’s copy. Even public auction prices like the $2.208 million include the buyer’s premium, so the seller received less after fees. Check the auction house’s terms before you compare a headline with what a seller actually keeps.

Collectors’ Edition, 30th Anniversary, and the Reserved List fine print

Wizards’ reprint policy says its rules “apply only to tournament-legal Magic cards” and allows special-purpose versions “not meant for regular game play.” That is why Black Lotus exists in other forms. The December 1993 Collectors’ Edition reused Beta card faces with square-cut corners and gold-bordered backs. Wizards originally announced 10,000 sets for the U.S. and Canada and added about 5,000 International Edition sets, according to Peter Adkison’s newsgroup post as quoted by the MTG Wiki. Under Magic Tournament Rules section 3.3, cards with gold borders on the front or back are not Authorized Game Cards (Magic Judges rules resources).

In 2022, Wizards sold 30th Anniversary Edition for $999 per display. It was a non-tournament-legal product with its own card back, and its retro-frame rare slot could include Black Lotus. The Reserved List protects the supply of tournament-legal copies. It does not stop non-playable reprints of the card. A listing titled just “Black Lotus” could be any of these, so always confirm the edition, corners, border, and card back before comparing prices.

Collectors' Edition Black Lotus card front scan with square-cut corners, from the 1993 non-tournament-legal Collectors' Edition set
Collectors’ Edition Black Lotus (1993). The front copies Beta, but the corners are square and the gold-bordered back makes it non-tournament-legal. It is a separate market from Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited. Image source: Scryfall

A practical Black Lotus framework

  1. Pick your market first. High-grade Alpha is a trophy market. Beta is the black-border collector’s market. Unlimited in mid grades is the first-Lotus market. Collectors’ Edition, International Edition, and 30th Anniversary are non-playable collectibles. Each has its own buyers and its own sales history.
  2. Compare like with like. Match the edition, grading company, and grade, and use completed public sales such as auction-house archives and PSA’s Auction Prices Realized. Asking prices and estimated values are not sales.
  3. Look up the cert. Check every slab’s certification number on the grader’s own site. Misprint notes that Alpha and Beta cards are among the most faked in the hobby, so buy raw copies only from sellers who let you inspect the corners and borders closely.
  4. Run the grading math before you submit. Grading pays off only if the likely grade’s real completed-sale price, minus the raw card’s value, is more than the grader’s fee for that declared value plus insured shipping both ways. For Alpha, the population ladder shows that most copies land well below Gem Mint, so plan around a mid-grade result.
  5. Price the net, not the headline. Buyer’s premiums, seller fees, insurance, and time on market all come out of the result. A record price shows the most one buyer was willing to pay for one copy. It does not tell you what you’ll net when you sell yours.

The bottom line

Black Lotus clearly shows how one famous name can hide several separate markets. The $2.208 million record is real, but it came from one of three PSA 10 Alphas. For most collectors, the realistic choice is a mid-grade Unlimited or Beta copy, and each of those has its own buyer pool and its own completed sales. Pick your edition and grade first, then compare like with like. The headline price tells you what one copy brought, not what yours is worth.

Konnor Griffin Topps Update Gold lesson: 2026 Topps Update Series hobby box beside 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout #US175 base and Gold /2011 PSA 10 slabs

Konnor Griffin Topps Update Gold: A Trout Lesson

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Short answer: the Konnor Griffin Topps Update chase worth pricing carefully is his US1 rookie in Gold /2026, and the best guide to it is Mike Trout’s 2011 Topps Update Gold /2011. Both are Topps flagship Update rookies with a year-numbered Gold parallel. Fifteen years on, Card Ladder shows 121 sales of Trout’s base #US175 in PSA 10 between July 15 and October 15, 2026, and one sale of the Gold PSA 10 in the same window. The Gold carries a real premium. It does not carry a deep bid. Buy a Griffin Gold because you want that card, not because you expect a fast, clean exit.

2026 Topps Update Series went on sale October 14. If you’re mapping the rest of this month’s releases, start with our October 14 sports card drops rundown. For more frameworks like this one, browse Collector Guides, Market News, and the Baseball Cards archive.

The current chase: Konnor Griffin US1 in Gold /2026

Griffin, the Pirates shortstop who made his MLB debut on April 3, 2026 against Baltimore at PNC Park (Sports Illustrated), is card US1 on Topps’ official Update checklist. Update is the third and final flagship release of Topps’ 75th-anniversary year. Its 350-card base set picks up in-season call-ups, traded players, and late debuts. Hobby boxes hold 20 packs of 12 cards with one autograph or relic, per Topps’ product page, which lists the product as available from October 14, 2026 and showed hobby and jumbo boxes sold out. Checklist Insider recorded a $109.99 hobby presale price that rose to $119.99 on release day (Checklist Insider).

2026 Topps Update Series Baseball hobby box with Topps 75th anniversary logo, one autograph or relic card per box
2026 Topps Update Series hobby box: 20 packs, one autograph or relic per box. Image source: Checklist Insider (Topps product image).

Topps’ own odds sheet sets up three very different Griffin-adjacent chases:

  • Base Gold /2026: 1:21 hobby packs, 1:6 jumbo packs, 1:34 value-box packs. With 20 packs in a hobby box, that is close to one Gold per box on average, for some player. Each player’s Gold is numbered to 2,026, so there can be up to 2,026 Griffin US1 Golds.
  • Flagship Real One Golden Mirror Autograph: 1:3,555 hobby packs and 1:751 jumbo packs across the whole checklist, which includes Griffin at US1 (DraftKings Network ranks his as the set’s top chase). That works out to roughly one per 178 hobby boxes, for any signer.
  • Iconic Buyback Redemption: 1:248,490 hobby packs, or about one per 12,425 hobby boxes, for any buyback. Topps’ checklist lists a graded 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout #US175 among the redemption cards.
2026 Topps Update Flagship Real One Golden Mirror Autograph sample card of Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
A Flagship Real One Golden Mirror Autograph, shown here on Shohei Ohtani’s card. Griffin’s US1 is on the same 1:3,555-pack checklist. Image source: DraftKings Network (Topps image).

That buyback is the tell. Topps is putting the historic lesson into 2026 packs. You almost certainly won’t pull it, but you can study the card it points to. One honest caveat: as of release week there’s no meaningful sold tape for 2026 Update. ShopCardHub, which only posts dated medians once a card has at least three sales, hadn’t logged a 2026 Update sale yet (ShopCardHub). Anyone quoting a Griffin Gold comp today is quoting an ask.

The historic lesson: Trout’s 2011 Update Gold /2011

Gold parallels have been a Topps flagship staple since the brand’s 50th anniversary in 2001, and the Trout Gold from 2011 Update is one of the most important of them, according to the Fanatics Collect lot essay for a PSA 10 copy. Trout played 40 games for the Angels in 2011, and his #US175 became one of the most recognizable modern baseball cards. Topps made both the 2011 card and Griffin’s 2026 card, and both use the same idea: a flagship Gold parallel numbered to the year.

Here’s what PSA’s CardFacts page for the Trout Gold showed on October 15, 2026: 53 copies in PSA 10 and 174 in PSA 9. PSA’s auction-price table for that card tracks the top grade through the boom and after it:

  • $25,600 (eBay, March 16, 2021), $24,600 (Goldin, March 20, 2021), and $23,350 (Memory Lane, March 20, 2021) at the 2021 peak.
  • $20,400 at Heritage on November 20, 2021.
  • $10,800 at Goldin on May 11, 2023.
  • $6,599 on eBay on October 21, 2024, the most recent PSA 10 on PSA’s list.
  • $7,500 on September 18, 2026, the last PSA 10 sale on Card Ladder, and its only one from July 15 to October 15, 2026.

That last print is about 70% below the $25,600 high. The bigger lesson is the gaps. PSA’s list shows two PSA 10 sales in 2024 and none in 2025, so a last-sale price on this card can sit untouched for a long time.

Back of a 2011 Topps Update Mike Trout #US175 Gold parallel in a PSA 10 slab, showing the serial number stamped out of 2011
The Trout Gold’s back carries its serial number out of 2011. PSA shows 53 copies of this card in PSA 10. Image source: Fanatics Collect.

The PSA 9 tier shows the same thin-market spread. The Fanatics Collect sales history on a Gold PSA 9 listing shows $2,880 on May 4, 2026 and then $1,860 on May 18, 2026 (Fanatics Collect). That’s two sales of the same card in the same grade, two weeks apart and $1,020 apart. When few copies trade, whoever happens to be bidding that week sets the price.

Base vs Gold: what liquidity actually looks like

Trout’s base #US175 in PSA 10 is the opposite case. Card Ladder lists a PSA 10 population of 7,062 and 121 sales from July 15 to October 15, 2026, averaging $959.18 in a $723.16 to $1,100 range, with the last sale at $925 on October 13. The Fanatics Collect history on one PSA 10 listing shows five sales from September 4 to October 1 at $1,000 to $1,050 (Fanatics Collect).

2011 Topps Update Mike Trout #US175 rookie card graded PSA Gem Mint 10, base version
Trout’s base #US175 in PSA 10: more than 7,000 graded 10s, and a sale more than once a day on average over the last 90 days. Image source: Fanatics Collect.

Put the two side by side:

  • Population: 7,062 base PSA 10s against 53 Gold PSA 10s, roughly 133 times as many.
  • Price: the latest Gold PSA 10 print ($7,500) is about 8 times the latest base PSA 10 print ($925).
  • Turnover: 121 base PSA 10 sales against one Gold PSA 10 sale in the same 90-day window.

Liquidity also isn’t the same thing as appreciation. Card Ladder has the liquid base PSA 10 down 11.82% over that same window. A deep market just means you can find out the price quickly and act on it. A middle tier tells the same story: CardVolume lists 361 PSA 10 copies of the Diamond Anniversary parallel, a $22,140 record from April 6, 2021, and a last verified sale of $4,550 at Fanatics Collect on August 28, 2026 (CardVolume). That’s the same thin-tape pattern we flagged in the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey, where the market prices each grade as its own product, and in our look at iconic cards as liquidity anchors.

What it means for a Konnor Griffin Topps Update buyer

Our take: if you’re spending on Griffin’s Update rookie, decide first whether you’re buying to hold or buying to flip, because the Trout tape says those point to different cards.

  • To hold: the Gold /2026 is the parallel with the clearest lineage. It’s year-numbered, flagship, and the same structure that produced a premium on Trout’s rookie. Expect a thin, uneven market for it in high grade.
  • To keep an exit open: the version most likely to trade often is the one with the most copies in circulation, which is the base US1, eventually in top grade. Trout’s base PSA 10 sells more than once a day on average. His Gold PSA 10 has logged one or two public sales a year lately.
  • For upside: the Golden Mirror Autograph is the lottery ticket, at 1:3,555 hobby packs across a 131-card checklist, per Checklist Insider’s count. Price it as a card that may take months to trade, not days.
  • Don’t chase the buyback math: at about one per 12,425 hobby boxes for any buyback, the Trout redemption is a story to know, not a reason to buy a box.

Checklist before you buy a Griffin parallel

  • Confirm the number. US1 is Griffin’s base rookie. He also appears at US80 (combo), US99 (Season Highlights), and other spots on the Topps checklist, so a listing title alone isn’t enough.
  • Separate asks from sales. Release-week prices are almost all listings. Wait for dated sold comps from at least three sales.
  • Count the copies. A Gold /2026 run is up to 2,026 copies of one card, and at 1:21 hobby packs they show up roughly once a box across the set.
  • Check how often it trades. Look at how many sales your exact version and grade logged in the last 90 days, not just the last price.
  • Expect gaps in high grade. On Trout’s Gold, two PSA 9 sales two weeks apart landed $1,020 apart.

Sources

Product, configuration, and dates: Topps 2026 Update Series hobby box page, Topps official checklist (PDF), Topps official odds (PDF), Checklist Insider. Chase rankings: DraftKings Network, October 14, 2026. Griffin debut: Sports Illustrated. Sold-comp status: ShopCardHub. Trout Gold /2011 population and auction history: PSA CardFacts (pulled October 15, 2026). Recent sales and population: Card Ladder, Gold PSA 10 and Card Ladder, base PSA 10. Listing sales histories and images: Fanatics Collect (Gold PSA 10, Gold PSA 9, base PSA 10). Diamond Anniversary data: CardVolume. Populations and prices change daily, so check live pages before you buy. Nothing here is investment advice. Cards © Topps.

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