Pittsburgh Pirates star Paul Skenes created a frenzy amongst baseball card collectors when his MLB Debut Patch Auto 1/1 rookie card was released as part of the 2024 Topps Chrome Update series. And that momentum carried over to the secondary market as the card fetched $1.1M at auction including buyer’s premium this week.
The card, which was pulled by an 11 year old Dodgers fan, is a new record for any Skenes card, and the most expensive non-Mike Trout modern baseball card of all-time. The buyer, who chose to remain anonymous, won following a frenzied bidding process on the Fanatics Collect service.
Since their launch, the MLB Debut Patch Auto 1/1 rookie cards have been a massive hit with collectors. Anthony Volpe’s version of the card sold for $150K in a private sale, while Jackson Holliday’s went for $198K in the same auction as Skenes’.
The sale also puts an end to a whirlwind saga for the family of the boy who pulled the card as well. First there was an online movement alleging that the card never existed, but was merely a marketing ploy concocted to drive up sales of the 2024 Topps Chrome Update series.
Then there were rumours amongst a disgruntled group of collectors that the “11 year old” was made up, and that Fanatics (which owns Topps and Fanatics Collect) created the card and sent it directly to the auction house as a quick way to make additional revenue.
Finally, due to the California wild fires, the family which owned the card had to be evacuated several times as they were weighing auction house options, making communication, and collection of the card itself an ordeal as well.
This led to Kevin Lenane, VP of Fanatics Marketplace, telling sharing the story with reporters. “This was complicated by the fact that the family was evacuated from where they were in Los Angeles multiple times,” Lenane said. “I got the card from Topps in Texas and brought it to the family out there, then the following day, graded it for them [with card grader PSA] and brought it back to New York.”
“I honestly felt like Ed McMahon, bringing this check to an excited, modest Southern California family. A lot of times with larger items, you’ll spend a bunch of money and make a bunch of money; in this case, the family bought one box of cards for a few hundred bucks, and this is the outcome. It was a pleasure to be able to bring it to them.”
Fanatics has said that as part of the deal for choosing Fanatics Collect as the sales service, they plan to arrange a meet and greet with the 11 year old collector and Skenes at a future date as well. The family has said that they plan to use the funds to put their son and his brother through college.
For their part, Fanatics has committed to donating the Fanatics Collect proceeds from the auction to L.A. Fire Relief as part of the rebuild efforts to regions devastated by the wild fires out west.
Photo: Johnmaxmena2. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.