This is Not an Election Email. Read, Escape and Enjoy.

We promise today’s Mail Day isn’t about the election, even if our first nugget is related to presidents…But we couldn’t resist mentioning the latest release of Allen & Ginter, because people are going CRAZY over the 1/1 autograph relic card featuring President John F. Kennedy’s signature.

Assuming nobody reading this pulled the card, and spending thousands of dollars on a JFK autograph isn’t quite your speed, might I suggest this John Kennedy on-card auto that will only run you about $15?

As the famous quote goes, “Ich bin ein shortstop!”

There was an all-time high set for a Shohei Ohtani card last week over at Goldin, with Ohtani’s 2018 Bowman Chrome Orange Refractor Autograph rookie card selling for over $533k. There are only 25 copies of the card that exist in this world, and this card is notably special because it is a BGS 10 Pristine Black Label (fancy way of saying ‘flawless’), which makes it even rarer. I fully expect us, though, to see this record go down very, very soon. 

And while the Ohtani market is booming again, the Aaron Judge market is starting to cool quite a bit. It makes sense, as Ohtani got his first World Series ring and Judge is coming off a series in which the narrative was that he just “didn’t show up” (which is the more generous take to, 'his error in Game 5 cost the Yankees the World Series’). 

For the first time in what seems like forever you can get an Aaron Judge 2017 Topps rookie card in a PSA 10 for just under $100. 

What makes me bullish about Ohtani is that he’s probably the best baseball player to ever play the game; what makes me as equally bullish about Judge is that he plays in the world’s biggest market for the Yankees. If you’re looking for a Judge rookie card, the offseason dip might be the time to make the move. 

Speaking of ridiculous sales, here’s a fun one surfaced by LeMeme_James that just breaks your heart a little. 

A Jalen Brunson 1/1 Nebula Choice Prizm rookie sold on Goldin for over $96k. It’s a 1/1 rookie card for a player who could go down as one of the all-time great Knicks, so it’s not that crazy to imagine it going for such a haul. 

But, what makes it a heartbreaking story is that they found the Reddit thread from 2019 showing the card shared by its original owner. Very sweet. Very fun. Except that within that thread you can see that the owner sold the card a few hours after posting it for $300. 

Yeah, that one hurts. 

We’re a few weeks into the NBA season and, yes, I’m going to take a victory lap on calling it in the second newsletter that Cam Thomas was someone to buy in the offseason. Thomas is averaging over 26 points per game for the not-terrible-but-not-very-good Brooklyn Nets. 

Another guy having a hot start to the season is Gradey Dick. He’s already put up two 30-point games in the first two weeks of the season. Probably could have seen this one coming, but the bigger question is whether or not it’s sustainable. I’m personally looking to offload my Dick cards, but that doesn’t mean I’m not bullish on him… it just means that I need more cash to load up on Cam Thomas cards. 

OK, wait, over-under time: how many of those Panini Haunted Hoops Halloween packs were actually given out to kids while trick or treating and how many were opened by degens like us looking for rare Wembys? I’ll set the over-under at 25% handed out - head over to Mantel to take a guess at a game we’ll never have an answer to!

To be fair, those Holo Web parallels are pretty sweet. 

Would you ever spend $24k for a quad-auto Superfractor 1/1 if the autos were of people who never existed? Your head is saying “no,” but your heart is singing “🎵🎶 Someday my prince will come 🎵🎶”

Finally, while I have you, remember to be good to one another. Election Day can be tough, and we’ll continue to hear that our country is divided, but we have a really incredible community both here and over at Mantel, and there isn’t a single one of you I wouldn’t want to sit down and talk cards and collectibles with. 

Thank you for your company and kindness. We’ll do this again next week.