The health of the hobby can be measured in myriad ways.
Dollars spent. Price of new product. Attendance at cards shows. New investment. Vibes!
No single measuring stick is correct, and I am self-aware enough to recognize my bias in conflating the state of collecting with the high-end of the market. Not because I’m wheeling and dealing million-dollar transactions, but because my entry into this industry, for better or worse, came through the world of collectibles as assets for the wealthy, and I remain interested by the high-end despite the fact I have never spent more than a few hundred dollars on a collectible in my life.
All that throat clearing aside; I do want to talk about numbers. So, consider all of that preamble my attempt to pre-empt the unavoidable response from some readers accusing me of missing the point of the hobby, which is about people, not money.
Duly noted.
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Throughout 2025, I watched as the number of million-dollar sales climbed closer to heights not seen since the COVID-19 boom.
As the dust settled and the ball dropped on New Years Eve, we ended with 29 transactions of at least seven digits in the past year.
That is a 314.286% year-over-year increase and brings us closer to the lofty numbers of 2021 and 2022.
Here is a look at the number of million-dollar sales from 2019 to 2025:
- 2019: 1
- 2020: 9
- 2021: 43
- 2022: 41
- 2023: 11
- 2024: 7
- 2025: 29
The numbers are intriguing and broadly suggestive of a strong rebound at the mega high-end, but, of course, they are far from a full story.
After all, $1 million is not some scientific threshold. It’s just a nice round number.
So, I looked at sales over $100,000. In that light, the gap between the pandemic highs and 2025 began to shrink even further.
Here is a look at the number of six-figure sales from 2019 to 2025:
- 2019: 79
- 2020: 204
- 2021: 978
- 2022: 1037
- 2023: 530
- 2024: 525
- 2025: 911
On average in 2025, there were nearly 2.5 card sales of $100,000 or more each day.
Then I looked at $10,000 sales and found that 2025 was not a year on the rebound. It was a year of record-breaking.
Here is a look at the number of five-figure sales from 2019 to 2025:
- 2019: 1,998
- 2020: 5,720
- 2021: 17,846
- 2022: 21,649
- 2023: 12,711
- 2024: 12,573
- 2025: 24,994
With the scope broadened to $10,000 and up, 2025 surpassed even the mind-numbingly frothy times of 2021 and 2022 ... and just about doubled the number of transactions recorded in 2024.
For those counting at home, 68.5 sales of $10,000 or more occurred on average each day in 2025.
In order for these numbers to mean anything, they must be parsed with qualitative data and analysis. Otherwise it’s simply an exercise in watching lines on a chart go up and down with jaws agape.
For starters, collectors spending in these categories ($10,000 and up) are a minority. So, how do we know participation is up for the everyday collector and not just the investor types? Card Ladder recorded 5.96 million transactions through December, the most ever in a single month since the tool began tracking.
Then there are the grading numbers, which, despite many collectors’ grumblings concerning the rapidly consolidating state of the business, remains a vital lifeblood of the collecting ecosystem. A record of more than 26 million cards were graded in 2025.
Without rehashing too much of my column last week, in which I argued that 2025 was the year collecting went mainstream, it would be a dereliction of duty to fail to mention the efforts of brands such as Dick’s Sporting Goods and others to bring non-traditional demographics into the fold.
The numbers included above, combined with the broader notes regarding more holistic participation, suggest to me 2025 was an even hotter year for card spending than meets the eye.
We might be on the precipice of COVID-level surges, and unlike during the pandemic, the collector base is far broader, the infrastructure more stable and the wallets even fatter.
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Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.