Buyer Beware: The Injury Report Hobbles Card Prices

The sports card market giveth and then the sports card market taketh away. It almost makes you want to cry. 

Collectors spent over $43 million on Caitlin Clark cards over the past two years, according to CardLadder. Clark then went down with a season-ending injury and her prices have dropped over 7% since her injury, according to Alt. 

Joe Burrow was among the three favorites to win the MVP this season. The Bengals offense was meant to be a record-setting one and, well, down went Burrow. The Bengals are looking historically bad right now. Burrow might return this season, but his card market is probably another offseason hype sesh away from recovering. 

Jayden Daniels, aka “the future of the NFL,” went down with a knee sprain and so did his market. Only Anthony Richardson has had a rougher 30-day trend than Daniels, who has fallen over 13% in the last 30 days, according to Alt. 

Anthony Volpe might go down as one of the worst “investments” in sports card history, after a brutal season in which he was supposed to play at an All-Star level. Dylan Crews might not be far behind. 

Meanwhile, Daniel Jones and Mac Jones are the two highest risers in the NFL card market, according to Alt. Need I waste precious space on this newsletter typing “buyer beware”?

Despite the many, many cautionary tales, everyone is trying to find the “next guy” to buy low on in the QB or prospects marketplace, but of course as you know it rarely works out. 

However, you have someone on the market like Baker Mayfield who “is who we thought he was” and his market just remains as cool as it ever was. 

The card market moves on “flash and eye appeal” but man Mayfield is a winner and sometimes it feels like we don’t really like winners. We like guys who we think can win and then when they do actually win, well, we start to hate them. 

If you’re a “buy what you love” collector then the rise and fall of the market probably doesn’t bother you as much. 

Unless, of course, you’re a masochist. Then, yes, you love this vicious cycle very, very much. 

Topps Holiday season is upon us. You know, the one set that is so charming that its charm actually usurps its uselessness. It’s a set that has literally no resale value and the design is borderline lazy, but the set is so charming. 

The giant cardboard ornament in the box is one of those cards that is “dumb fun.” 

Tom Brady. Mickey Mantle. Michael Jordan. Ben Johns? Buster has a really fun story about the card you’re probably kicking yourself for not buying for $5 a year ago. 

Excuse me while I go buy another 3 boxes of Leaf’s Table Tennis cards. 

The Paige Bueckers card market is about to explode. What do we think? Does the Paige Bueckers 1/1 Kaboom outsell the Caitlin Clark 1/1 that sold for over $340k? 

Hey, the McDonald’s Monopoly game is coming back! Maybe we can use our NBA Prizm Monopoly cards to pay for them. Maybe? Hopefully? Please? I’m sitting on 900 boxes of those cards, so I can only hope. 

I do love that you can get the details about it by calling a 1-800 number, but then the fact that the game seems to be “digital only” kinda kills it for me. I would have loved it if they went full analog on this one. But I guess the Monopoly Man himself is pretty jazzed about all the data that a multi-billion dollar corporation is about to collect on his behalf. 

Finally, maybe the best news of all, 2025 Topps Chrome Disney is releasing this week. This is always a huge hit with collectors, and even as the Winnie the Pooh autos are literally “fake,” we’ll still see them sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. 

What a time to be alive!!