"Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated." — The Hobby, 2025
During the massive collectibles boom in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a never-ending series of show-stopping headlines.
Million-dollar sales for modern cards for players such as Luka Dončić, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert became commonplace.
That baseball prospect still two years away from his major-league debut? Surely worth a few hundred grand, right?
Much like NFTs and meme stocks, prices only went up, for a time, and the obvious signs of the bubble were minimized by insiders hoping to keep the good times rolling.
Of course, it was a bubble, undoubtedly, and the good times did not, in fact, continue rolling.
As the card market returned to pre-pandemic levels, and many of those splashy record sales began to look worse and worse in retrospect, many speculated, with good reason, the pandemic surge was nothing more than a black-swan event — an anomaly with little to no indication of the future of the hobby.
Yet, more than five years since the start of that boom, and a couple years after the dramatic downfall, it feels safe to say it: We are so back.
The bull market has returned. And in some important but anecdotal respects, it’s already surpassed pandemic levels.
I’m not just talking about high-end sales. While those have certainly rebounded from the post-bubble lows — there have already been more $1 million sales in 2025 (nine) than in all of 2024, and we're on pace to record the most since 2022 — they do not tell the full story, nor the most important elements.
Overall sales volume is setting records nearly every month, thanks to collectors snapping up $2 base cards for their PC on eBay. Repackers are pumping money into the mid-to-high-end market. And the big auction houses are generating record sales for everything from vintage to '90s inserts to new WNBA cards.
July set an industry record with $308 million spent online, beating the previous record held by ... checks notes ... June.
During the pandemic bubble, Caitlin Clark was hardly a factor in the hobby. Today, her name ranks with Jordan and LeBron among the most popular athletes for collectors. Shohei Ohtani has been a big deal since his debut in 2018, but the past year since his 50-50 game has been a whole new level.
We have seen new innovations from Fanatics take the hobby by storm, particularly the Rookie Debut Patch Autograph, to rave reviews.
One of the oldest auction houses on the planet, Sotheby’s, has made it clear it wants to be a part of the hobby in a real way, hosting card auctions in addition to a partnership with the NBA to become its official game-worn partner.
Heritage cleared $200 million in sports sales in 2024.
Goldin is now owned by one of the largest marketplaces in the world (eBay) and has had its Netflix show renewed for a third season.
Topps NOW has struck gold in the past year since leaning in to its 1/1 autos as chase cards.
GameStop has jumped in with both feet with a PSA partnership for grading and repacks.
Venture money has continued to flow into the more innovative companies in the space such as Courtyard, a marketplace that sells digital repacks, which recently announced a Series A funding round of $30 million.
Collectors now have their own social media platform with Mantel, which has grown rapidly in the past year.
Of the 34 indices tracked by CardLadder, 26 of them are positive in the past six months, including Pokemon (+41.8%), Basketball (+19.02%), High-End (+17.97%) and High-Pop (+20.73%). Hell, even Ken Griffey’s 1989 Upper Deck card in a PSA 10 — a classic but extremely common piece of cardboard history — has doubled in price in the past year!
RELATED STORIES:
- Hobby stays hot: Record $308 million spent online on cards in July
- The National reports record attendance for third straight year
- Caitlin Clark sets new record for most expensive card for female athlete
- Fanatics Fest organizers happy with results, confirm return in 2026
We are seeing the hobby reflected more and more in the mainstream, whether that is in Coach Prime sending recruits 1/1 cards, Dick’s Sporting Goods snapping up the Paul Skenes RDPA or the shocking number of brand activations at Fanatics Fest all focused on collecting for the first time.
Speaking of Fanatics Fest, the 125,000 people who attended this year’s show in New York — many of whom were not necessarily collectors and were exposed to our hobby for the first time — along with the 100,000+ who attended this year’s record-breaking National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago, is proof positive the hobby is not only alive and thriving, but might need a bigger boat sometime soon.
Are we seeing the exact same levels of unfettered spending at the highest levels that we did during the pandemic bubble? No. But, more importantly for the health of the hobby, we are seeing incredibly positive sentiment throughout, in the places where it matters: average collectors who power the hobby, brands injecting more money into the hobby as they recognize the potential of the space, and new innovations and activity on an industry level.
Not only has the bull market returned, but this time it isn’t drunk on stimulus checks and bored at home scrolling eBay.
This time, it’s legit.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.