Paul Skenes and his girlfriend, former LSU gymnast and social media star Livvy Dunne, had just returned from Italy, enjoying a combination of a vacation and some activities with the USO. (Skenes had just spent two nights on an aircraft carrier before coming home.) That’s when Lance Fischer, president and founder of trading card company…
From high school sensation to all-time NBA leading scorer, LeBron James is one of the rare athletes who lived up to (and exceeded) the sky-high expectations of coaches, scouts, the media and card collectors. Given the hype that surrounded James when he first entered the NBA at age 18 in 2003 and his still ongoing…
The 1990s were a chaotic time in the sports card world. It’s a period known today as the “Junk Wax Era” because there were so many companies overproducing cards to such a degree that they ended up crashing the market and rendering a seemingly endless supply of wax packs mostly worthless. So many different cards…
Drake Maye isn’t Mac Jones. Drake Maye isn’t Mac Jones. New England Patriots fans and football card collectors keep telling themselves that. And so far, the statement stands true. The 2024 No. 3 pick enters Week 7 as a top-five NFL quarterback both statistically speaking, via TruMedia data, and in the 2025 NFL MVP race,…
Fanatics Collectibles CEO Mike Mahan likened the emotions of the long-anticipated return of NBA licensed cards into the Topps portfolio similarly to his bated breath right before turning 16 and receiving his driver’s license. It’s funny Mahan pointed to 16 since that’s about how many years Topps had been without the NBA license for trading…
TORONTO — They are fraternal twins separated at birth, sharing a league but not a country, a starting line but not a pace. The Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League as expansion teams in 1977, but for years they were opposites: Seattle the problem child, Toronto the model citizen. It has…
By the time a head-shaven Victor Wembanyama derobed to hop in an “ice bath” and cut it up with comedian Kevin Hart on stage at Fanatics Fest in June, the basketball card market for the San Antonio Spurs star had already started to rebound after his injury scare a couple of months before. Wembanyama’s 2023…
Welcome to The Athletic Collectibles Staff’s 2025 Sports Card Power Rankings! Here we spotlight a mix of the most notable, eye-catching, and downright fun sports cards released so far in 2025. Our selections and rankings are not based on anything scientific — not market value, rarity, or sales volume — it’s about highlighting cards we…
One word has butted its way into common trading card vernacular within the past 18 months, while becoming one of the most lucrative business approaches within the hobby. Repacks. A repack typically contains one card — either graded or ungraded — that has already been pulled from its original pack or box produced by a…
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Jake LaRavia, the first free agent the Los Angeles Lakers contacted this summer, couldn’t believe he was there, face-to-face with someone he’d wanted to meet ever since he fully invested in this part of his life. Being in the NBA had granted him this kind of opportunity, to approach the people…