Hot Takes on Logan Paul, Ken Goldin Pokemon Sale

Collectors, by now you’ve likely heard: Logan Paul sold a Pokemon card at Goldin for $16.5M, making it the most expensive card to ever sell publicly. If you want the rundown of the card, the sale and the buyer (AJ Scaramucci, who says he’s on a ‘planetary treasure hunt’), I recommend this piece from Mantel’s Mike Metzler. 

Everyone in The Hobby seems to have a hot take on this sale, so here’s mine: this card, albeit rare and clearly coveted, wouldn’t have come within sniffing distance of $16.5M without the showmanship of Logan Paul and Ken Goldin. From Paul putting the card in a diamond and gold chain, which he wore around his neck at WrestleMania, to the duo agreeing to list the card for sale in an episode of the Goldin Netflix series, King of Collectibles, to the promotional tour and the live event auction, every single move was carried out to achieve maximum exposure and debate (like my pal Will Stern wrote about here).

Was the price Scarmucci paid worth it? Time will tell. But the we’ll be talking about this sale for a while, and credit goes to Paul and Goldin (Mantel Hobby Awards 2025 Exec of the Year) for making the world pay attention, and getting bidders to go record-breaking-big.

The Athletic: Why the Texas Rangers’ Nolan Ryan Bloody Jersey Giveaway Presented a Challenge

On Sept. 8, 1990, Nolan Ryan famously finished seven innings after a Bo Jackson grounder split his lip. Ryan’s blood got all over the jersey, which you’d think would have made it an instant collectible. But this was 1990 and the Rangers clubhouse team was more concerned with getting the jersey back into Ryan’s rotation, so instead of getting authenticated and framed, the uniform got seriously scrubbed. Now the Rangers are leaning into the lore with a May 29 giveaway of replica “blood-stained” jerseys, sparking buzz around one of baseball’s grittiest moments and a reminder of how differently memorabilia was treated before authentication became standard.

Mantel: From First Days to Free Agency: How to PC a Player Throughout Their Career

When trades and big wins reshape rosters, collectors face a familiar dilemma: keep the card, pivot the PC, or chase the market. Mantel scribe Andrew Gretchko frames three archetypes — the Team Player who prefers cards showing current uniforms, the Investor who follows price momentum on rookies and news-driven spikes, and the Fan Favorite who sticks with a single athlete regardless of jersey changes. Whether it’s buying “first card in a new uniform,” loading up on rookies after a trade, or building a player supercollection, each path reflects a different philosophy for navigating roster churn.

Sports Collectors Daily: The Babe Ruth Baseball That Came with a Nazi Spy Bust — And Lingering Small-Town Jealousy

A Babe Ruth–signed baseball with a wild backstory is heading to auction, and it reads like a movie script. The ball was gifted in 1945 to Maine teen Harvard Hodgkins after he helped alert authorities to Nazi spies landing by U-boat. Decades later, the keepsake carries not just Ruth’s autograph, but a complicated legacy of fame, small-town resentment, and family history, all now coming to market as one of the hobby’s most unusual provenance stories.

Mantel: One Piece Silliness

The One Piece “US Voyage” giveaway frenzy is drawing skepticism as thousands of stadium-distributed cards — from St. John’s, Rutgers, Illinois, and others — continue selling for $200+ despite massive supply. The take: prices likely compress as flippers undercut each other, with ticket reselling potentially the cleaner arbitrage. Elsewhere, 2026 Topps Series 1 earns strong early reviews for its design and inserts, (though J.R. Fickle has a few nitpicks on the Top 75 list), while figure skating card prices show relative stability despite on-ice volatility, reinforcing a familiar hobby lesson: collect what you enjoy, not just what spikes.

Hypebeast: Tiny Michelangelo Foot Sketch Smashes Records, Selling for $27.2M

A previously unknown Michelangelo sketch of a red chalk study of a foot for the Sistine Chapel’s Libyan Sibyl, stunned the art world by selling for $27.2M at Christie’s, nearly 20× its estimate. The palm-sized drawing surfaced after its owner casually submitted a photo for valuation, unaware of its significance. With most Michelangelo studies held in museums, the sale highlights the extraordinary demand for rare, museum-quality works still in private hands.