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The Hobby Riding High After Record Sales Online, at The National
More than $300M Spent on Sports Card Online in July, 100K+ Hit The National in Chicago
Evan Parker
August 07, 2025
Morning, Collectors.
The Mantel team is still coming down from The National high — last week’s convention was the best sports card and memorabilia show, maybe ever? It was certainly the best-attended. Organizers announced that the show saw double-digit growth from last year’s event, which welcomed more than 100K attendees.
Brands and sellers raised the standard with better booths and entertainment, the autograph pavilion was packed with A-list names, the A/C worked and Wifi was actually half-way decent! With the show set to be back in Rosemont next year and the year following, The National re-cemented itself as a can’t-miss event for sports collectors.
The Mantel team had a blast meeting so many from our community in person. Thanks to all who stopped by to say hi, ripped Mantel x VibesTCG packs, hit up Trade Night and Mantel Bingo and more.
It was a week to remember.
On Tuesday, Ken Goldin and Logan Paul came together for an eBay Live stream where they broke $10M in product, including boxes of 2009 Topps Basketball, 1980 Topps Basketball, 1985 Topps WWF and 1960 Topps Baseball. The duo hit some pretty massive cards, including multiple of the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird (w/ Dr. J) rookie card, and a ton of Hulk Hogan rookies. Not everything was broadcast live, with plenty of rips held back for Season 3 of King of Collectibles, returning to Netflix later this year. Mantel’s Buster Scher was in the room, and we can’t wait to share our inside look soon.
Sports and trading card sales hit another record in July, topping $308M in online transactions, the highest monthly total ever recorded by Card Ladder. That figure surpasses June’s $306M and March’s $303M, with eBay accounting for the lion’s share at $266M. Fanatics Collect, Heritage, and Alt followed behind with $23M, $10.5M, and $7.3M respectively. Over 5.5M individual transactions were logged, and 2.3M cards were graded, per GemRate. July’s top sale? Caitlin Clark’s 1/1 Panini Rookie Royalty Logowoman, which sold for $660,000, setting a new record for a women’s sports card at public auction.
If you read Mantel’s other newsletter, Mail Day, you are familiar with writer J.R. Fickle’s, ahem, unique personality and sense of humor. Mr. Fickle has been super emotional since we announced The Hobby Awards, because we didn’t brief him in advance or include him as a judge. So to retaliate, he created The Fickle’s as a competing awards program, and wrote about them in this week’s email. The team at Mantel, of course, does not co-sign his opinions, and urges everyone reading to check out the REAL awards below.
A former Miami Heat security officer, Marcos Perez, has been charged in a massive memorabilia theft involving over 400 game-worn items, including LeBron James’ 2013 NBA Finals Game 7 jersey, which sold at auction for $3.7M after Perez allegedly offloaded it for just $100,000. The DOJ says Perez, a former Miami PD officer and trusted staffer, accessed the team’s secure equipment room over several years, selling items online and raking in around $2M. Nearly 300 additional jerseys were recovered in a raid of his home. It’s one of the largest sports memorabilia heists ever, and the FBI investigation is ongoing.
Topps is doubling down on the authenticity of Lionel Messi’s autographs amid PSA’s refusal to authenticate several Messi-signed cards from five different sets. Fanatics Collectibles CEO Mike Mahan publicly addressed the issue at The National, reaffirming that Topps will replace any Messi-signed card rejected by PSA. The standoff began when a few collectors had their Messi autos flagged, with some speculating that they were signed by Messi’s brother. While early replacements included alternate stars like Shohei Ohtani and Lamine Yamal, Topps now claims to be in a better position to remake Messi cards directly.
Long a nickname among collectors for red-and-blue bezel GMTs like the Rolex GMT-Master, Seiko is finally creating a real Pepsi watch, as they launch two limited-edition watches that proudly sport the soda brand’s name on the dial. The Seiko x Pepsi duo includes a 42mm GMT housed in a black SKX-style case and a stainless steel Seiko 5 automatic with a retro twist. Each is limited to 7,000 pieces and comes packaged in a Pepsi can. With clever branding, subtle design nods, and expected sub-$400 pricing, these “literal” Pepsi watches are a fizzy take on an iconic nickname (sorry, bad pun).
We really enjoyed this long-read from Highsnobiety, which dropped a 20th-anniversary oral history of streetwear. The article isn’t a timeline, but rather a collage of lived moments, shaped by subcultural energy and rooted in downtown New York. Through the voices of figures like Chris Gibbs, Angelo Baque, Heron Preston, and Salehe Bembury, the piece traces the rise of streetwear from underground to global, spotlighting early-2000s scenes where shops like Union, Supreme, and Nom de Guerre doubled as cultural hubs. The collision of subcultures — skateboarding, hip-hop, Japanese fashion — formed a style language spoken worldwide, and the article is both entertaining and educational. A worthy read.