Shohei Ohtani Rookie Card Sells For $190,000 On eBay
The world of sports cards has been pretty stupid for a while now. Earlier this year, major retailers like Target and WalMart stopped selling them because of safety concerns. They're having to do this because there have been fights breaking out in stores over sports cards getting put out for sale, and one guy even pulled a gun in a parking lot.
This isn't anywhere near what it was like when I was growing up. I started collecting cards when I was really little, by high school was normally buying dealer tables at sports cards shows to sell and trade cards. I was able to make a little bit of money, have a lot of fun, and learn a lot of lessons.
I drifted out of collecting when my kids were young. At least out of collecting sports cards. I still had my comic books, but I really trimmed down what I was collecting. Now that my kids are older, and I don't have to worry about them getting into a much stuff around the house, I'm safe to start piling up card collections again.
But back in the day when I started collecting, packs of cards were only $3-$10 dollars each, and boxes for $100-$200. Today's sports card world is full of single packs of cards that sell for thousands of dollars. It's gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic as well. Finding unopened boxes of sports cards in stores has become so difficult, many stores have stopped trying to even keep stock up.
These packs and boxes are becoming so expensive because the prices that single cards are selling for are just crazy. Not classic holy grail cards like Mickey Mantels and Babe Ruths, but modern cards. They are selling week after week for hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
Most of the time, in the modern world, the cards that sell for these insane prices are basketball cards. However football and baseball have held their own too. Mostly driven by Mike Trout in baseball, and a combo of Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady in football.
This week, it was a baseball card that took the high mark on eBay, but it wasn't Mike Trout. It was actually his teammate, Shohei Ohtani. This version of his 2018 Topps Chrome rookie card sold for a crazy $190,000. Here are the other high roller modern cards that sold last week on eBay...