Back in the middle of August, we got the first shot across the bow with Fanatics’ entry into the sports card arena. They had wrestled away the MLB exclusive from Topps and were poised to do similar acquisitions in the NBA and NFL. Now that we have had an opportunity to digest all the news, I wanted to take some additional time to walk through a few more aspects of the takeover now that more of it has come into focus.

What We Know

Thanks to some reporting from the Wall Street Journal, it became abundantly clear that the MLB exclusive secured by Fanatics was not going to be the end of their head first dive into sports cards. When the news first broke, WSJ clearly stated that the NFL and NBA were next, and within a week, both had made announcements similar to what Topps faced.

Come 2026, Fanatics will have exclusive control over the NBA, NFL and MLB sports card market, and in the case of the NFL, we also know that will be a lengthy contract. Adam Schefter reported that they had negotiated a 20 year exclusive, which is not only fucking ridiculous, but kind of a moot point. When the leagues have a stake in the company producing the cards, there is no more negotiation. Fanatics will make cards for as long as they want to.

Similarly, we know they have big plans. According to a CNBC article posted a few days ago, Fanatics plans to use their retail empire to do a number of things that could have a vast impact on the hobby. Services and businesses adjacent to the production and sale of trading cards is in scope for this new world order, and none of it should be surprising.

Things like grading, authentication and retail stores are all within scope, some of which already have roots planted in the current Fanatics environment. Fanatics has been authenticating and slabbing player signed cards for years, mostly with a huge stable of signers that have used their company as a primary vehicle for their signatures.

We also know that Panini and Topps are going to face down some challenging times once this goes into effect, having lost the majority share of the market to this new juggernaut. One could point to other property licenses that drive revenue, or finding ways to produce unlicensed cards, but neither will generate the type of influence that they get from the big three.

This could lead to companywide transition periods for both major manufacturers, with many hobby pundits thinking a sale of assets or the entire company could be possible for both. I have heard things that are more than rumblings stating that Fanatics is going to be looking to acquire intellectual property to supplement their team’s creative brain trust, but nothing concrete has been announced.

What We Don’t Know

As of right now, we have heard little to nothing from Fanatics, or their leadership in terms of any concrete plans for 2026. They have been oddly quiet given the storm of news, and with four and a half years to make this work, I guess we shouldnt expect much speed in revealing their chess pieces on the board.

We also have very little idea of what will happen between now and 2026, as there were early reports that the player’s association exclusives could go into effect earlier than the property exclusive that gives rights to the logos and team names. If the player’s exclusive licenses do go into Fanatics’ hands early, they could potentially lock out a lot of action that would give Topps and Panini access to make cards of current players. Leaf has found ways to sign individual deals with guys like Steph Curry, Aaron Rodgers, and Giannis, but finding enough talent to mass produce profitable products at a level to satisfy license requirements is going to be VERY tough.

The main key question is how Fanatics plans to unleash their presence, either focus on capitalizing on a market that has become increasingly focused on super premium product lines, or shift to a more mass market appeal. If the licenses were slated to start tomorrow, I think it would be stupid to totally abandon the current approach, mainly because of the historic success cards have had since the beginning of the pandemic.

As that hype cools, something that has already started for the bottom 50-75% of the market, there is clearly going to be some desire to appeal more to the people who dont want to spend $1000 on a box of sports cards. Considering that Fanatics has already optimized their businesses and relationships to do that, it seems like a combo approach should be on the table from the get go. Normalizing the availability of cards is something many collectors want, while still providing a premium experience for those that want to engage in that fashion.

Because Fanatics has such a wide web of influence, I think we are going to see a brand new era of cards that has some of the same wheels turning as before, with a whole different car and driver built on top of them.

What is Coming Into Focus

If there is going to be a constant as the hobby hurdles towards this massive shift, its change. Things across the industry will change dramatically. Some will be for the better, some will be worse, some will be a train wreck. The adjacent businesses like the community of group breakers, retail shops and distributors/dealers will absolutely need to adjust. If we look back to the online shift, it took decades for some aspects of those areas to catch up.

There are still shops around the country that missed the boom because they have/had no clue how to stay agile in this industry. Others in the hobby have found ways to exploit the lack of agility in the industry, and its likely they are going to have to rethink their approach at some level.

Its obvious that the hobby’s entrepreneurs will find ways to stay relevant, but the people that can navigate the waters in the most effective possible way to create new services, new money making opportunities, and new exploitative techniques will progress quickly. Probably more quickly than they have in past shifts, because there are SO MANY more eyes on this hobby.

When the previous shifts happened, things were orders of magnitude smaller, and much easier for people to stand out. Places like COMC came into being because it was easy to see that a service was needed in their market spot. I would almost argue it was too easy, because we see how those peripheral businesses have struggled to scale with the boom.

Fanatics has scale built into their model from a retail and production standpoint, but what they dont have is experience. That aspect of building can be poached and acquired like the licenses, so its likely not as big a deal when you have half a decade to get ready.

Lastly, we dont have any clue how things will change before 2026. The card industry boomed in two years, and another four on top of that seems like a lifetime. I could see the news that collector’s favorite products will be transitioning into Fanatics’ hands or oblivion could both hurt and help value – depending on where those items sit on the spectrum of worth.

There will also be more licenses changing hands that could impact value across the board, and even more change coming from a business perspective. This is one of the hobbies where the secondary market is exponentially more important than the primary market, and that influence is beyond important.

Shoes, video games, comics, and other collectibles face the same dilemma, but licensing is much more fluid or non-existent in those universes. Fanatics has taken over a billion dollar industry in one fell swoop, and with that comes the burden of the supporting markets.

When you think about it, come 2026, everything we know in this hobby will have the potential to look entirely different. I cant remember the last time that happened, and it might not happen again. We always wondered what the next big thing would be after the invention of the jersey card in 1996. This is bigger.

Earlier, I spent a long time writing about how trading card licenses are the next true battleground for all interested entities that want to cash in on the recent boom. It was inevitable and obvious considering the cutthroat competition that has become commonplace each time a license came up for renewal. Yesterday, we might have seen what the endgame looks like, as the entire landscape of the industry shifted in the course of a few hours.

To put this in a TL;DR fashion – come 2026, the three biggest sports cards licensing brands will all be controlled by Fanatics, leaving Panini and Topps on the outside looking in for the first time, well, ever.

Lets take a step back to better understand why everything led to the news that came down yesterday. For a long time, trading cards didnt matter. They were a small piece of licensing that seemed big to the people in the mix, but tiny in the overall scope of things. With changes to the way brands worked with card companies finally taking shape in the mid 80s, it became very difficult to be a major player in the small niche card industry without a license from the leagues.

To break this down, any card company needs two licenses to operate freely in the major sports. First is the properties license that grants access to use team names, logos, stadiums, and events all covered by that body. The second is the player’s association license that grants access to current player likenesses and names. Theoretically, there are ways to get around the lack of both licenses, but the cost becomes exponentially higher, politics with the leagues get complicated, and product sizes and profits shrink. Without both licenses, one can make cards, but not at a scale that presents a grandly profuse amount of power or money.

Being that Fanatics, according the WSJ, has exclusives in place with the NFLPA, MLBPA, MLBP, and NBAPA, its inevitable that they will get the other two licenses needed to complete their trifecta. Its not just inevitable, its basically assured to happen quickly.

Most of this situation came to a head in 2007 when everything in the licensing game got inexplicably more complicated. At the time, there were three major players, which consisted of Topps, DLP (Donruss, Leaf, Playoff), and Upper Deck. This was following the collapse of previous powerhouse Fleer to bankruptcy and Pacific to similar circumstances. Unfortunately, cards werent as popular overall, so each company was doing what they could to scrape by.

For all intents and purposes, Upper Deck and their investment in super premium products put them at the forefront of the three major sports, with Topps’ history giving them a close second. DLP was on the outs, having lost their baseball license in 2005. Enter, the Panini Group, based out of Italy.

With a group of people left over from the Fleer days and strategic people from DLP, Panini decided to buy directly into the slumping US card market from their roots in sticker albums, looking to stoke a flame where they saw potential. Panini America was created, and within 2 years had ripped away the one license that made Upper Deck a powerhouse. For the first time in the industry, an exclusive license was granted, locking out other companies from producing cards in that sport. Panini took Upper Deck’s history of shady business practices and declining finances to shore up both the properties and player’s association license from the NBA, and start their path in the hobby.

Unbeknownst to almost every collector, this license would start an era of competition in trading cards that would change everything about the way people collected. Arguably, the first player exclusives signed by Upper Deck with Michael Jordan and LeBron James could be considered the XRC to this RC, but its semantics overall. From that point forward, every league saw the ease and benefit of investing in a single company, and by 2015, every league had an exclusive. It took 6 years for the entire licensing platform to change, and another 6 years before it would shift again.

As a result of the exclusive licenses being signed, the competition for those licenses and licenses of every potential licensing property became the goods by which industry manufacturers bought and sold. To be fair, it was this competition that led to a surge back to stability prior to the pandemic boom, but from a collector perspective, it was akin to losing children. Brands that people loved in multiple sports rarely crossed barriers, and some were lost forever. It was a time where hobby titans found their place in line moved up or moved back, and this giant period of flux was unlike anything we had ever seen, until yesterday.

Yesterday, multiple reports surfaced that upstart card company and global merchandising mammoth Fanatics will be taking over in 2026 for the MLB license owned exclusively by Topps for decades. Beyond that, they have also secured player’s association license exclusives with NBA and NFL beginning in 2023, which effectively means that the properties licenses for those leagues wont be far behind. Come 2026, its likely that Fanatics will be the sole provider of trading cards in the entire marketplace, leveling the incredible progress made by Topps and Panini over the last 20 years.

This is where the speculation takes center stage, as we saw a planned public merger for Topps to go public be terminated a day later. Basically, this removes a considerable part of the valuation for both companies, likely relegating both to a secondary position after a decade in power, which also included the biggest hobby boom in the history of cards.

So, what does this mean?

A few key questions need to be answered, and answered clearly for us to gauge the impact to our collecting lives. First, Fanatics is a mass market type of company, what is their vision for the trading card market segment? Are they going to continue down the trail blazed by their predecessors, or is it time to more fully integrate the mass market appeal of collectibles into the fabric of the leagues?

Unlike Topps and Panini, each of the three leagues has equity in Fanatics. Its not a small chunk either, with some investments looking to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For all of the tenure that Panini and Topps had in cards, the league was always their licensor, not their partner. Its different here, and that’s a game changer. Because there is actual business stakes involved, the leagues have a vested interest in the success of Fanatics in this space. This will likely open doors that the other manufacturers could only dream of. Even though Trading Cards are white hot right now, they still pale in comparison to the overall sports value segment that Fanatics now has an unblocked highway to exploit.

Because cards have shifted from grocery store impulse buys at a quarter a pack, to luxury investments that cost as much as a house, the accessibility to product is something that isnt suited for the mass market. Fanatics can straddle the line, but I have a feeling they may opt for more consumers taking smaller bites than whales that bite off giant pieces. Again, all part of where they see this going.

Honestly, the trajectory of the industry seems suspect right now for the first time in years, even prior to this big news. Things are trending down, and 2-4 years is a lifetime in this industry. We could be in a completely different space in 2026 than we are now, hell it might not even be that long. Fanatics will be tasked with prolonging the sales trajectory to a favorable spot, and Im curious if the current structure is more suffocating than it is helpful.

Right now, there are 3-4 levels of people that all need to make money for the industry to remain on the track it was on 6 months ago. First, the manufacturers have to make money, selling their product, recouping budget, and licensing costs. Then the distributors have to make money, because they bring the product to the market, save a small percentage that goes direct. Then the breakers have to make money, the people who open the sealed wax and sell their results to the last level, the end user who has to make money too.

If Im Fanatics, where the manufacturer and distributor levels are easily taken care of, do the other levels make as much sense? This might be the biggest question facing the hobby, because for the first time ever, there is a manufacturer that is also a wholesale distributor, flush with partners and a giant network of retail to sell and distribute product.

This brings us to the last part of the speculation, which is what happens with other properties that are still owned by companies who sucked them up in the great consolidation era of the 2010s? I already posted news that WWE will be moving their exclusive license to Panini, who will still have NASCAR, Soccer, and a number of other properties to float their business. Topps will still have Star Wars, Disney, F1, Soccer, and a number of confectionary licenses like Ring Pop, that is nothing to scoff at. Are those companies going to continue down the path they are on, or is a sale in their future too?

There has been a ton of talk that Fanatics will be looking to buy out either one, but I think the other questions about vision need to be answered before we get to that point. The only reason to buy either company is for their brand IP, of which Topps has Bowman and Chrome, and Panini has Prizm and NT. It is yet to be seen whether or not Fanatics wants to create their own brand recognition or use another company’s.

What this does mean is that for the foreseeable future, Fanatics and their league partners are going to be peas in a pod. There is no use in competing for those licenses due to the equity based partnership Fanatics has with MLB/NFL/NBA, and that’s huge. Licensing competition drove innovation, product creation and partner engagement – none of that matters anymore, unless Fanatics kills off any momentum there already was. Dont get me wrong, that’s a huge possibility.

If Fanatics decides that a mass market vision doesnt include $27k boxes of cards, or even $5k, it could create a subculture similar to what we saw with older Upper Deck products. Mass market appeal for non-essential items at a ultra premium price point doesnt exist unless you are Apple, Tesla or Google. Its hard to see them try to continue that path. That could make older cards, vintage and previous era items even more collectible, knowing that this era of cards is relatively over.

However, if Fanatics does decide to swing the pendulum back the direction it was already going, we could see stuff unlike anything that has ever been offered. Direct access to the league’s assets means unprecedented opportunities for premium collectibles, and that could usher in a brand new crop of crazies.

Like I said, the next few years will feel like a lifetime in this hobby, but hopefully more information will be coming that provides some clues as to the direction things are headed.

There is big news today, as Collector’s Universe has purchased Goldin Auctions. For those not completely up to date on the goings on of this side of the hobby, Collector’s Universe is the parent company that owns PSA grading. I have been a staunch detractor of grading since the beginning of this site, and this news only furthers my aversion to using any sort of grading in my collecting journey.

Over the last 18 months, PSA grading has gone from a present but not overwhelming aspect of being a collector to a monolithic presence that governs every last little transaction and impacts every collector in some way, shape or form. It used to be that as long as you werent dealing in prospects or vintage, grading was relegated to portions of the hobby that you could avoid if you wanted to. Thanks to a collector boom, it has become almost impossible to sell raw cards on eBay without fear of returns, and as a result, values of raw cards have become absolutely dependent on their potential grading result.

Without going into a 10 page long tirade that goes into the deep corners of why grading is more scam than service, I will sum it up in as short a manner as I can, and why this new merger is something everyone should be very interested in – especially as it pertains to potential conflicts of interest and manipulation of the grading results.

Basically – grading in general is shielded from any sort of regulation or accountability, other than to collectors that assign value to, buy and sell graded cards. Because those collectors have a vested interest above all else in making more money, its hard to rely on that as a governing body. Therefore, with no government intervention in any grading service, it allows grading companies to broadly define their service process in exceptionally vague terms, and opens giant avenues for conflicts of interest that compromise the integrity of the end product. Because they dont have to answer to why a card gets a specific grade, there is every reason to believe that manipulation of the final graded product can and does happen.

In short, grading was established as a way for collectors to be confident in buying single cards online that are authentic and in good shape. Digital cameras hadnt evolved to multiple megapixels on a phone yet, so there was need to ensure that digital faceless deals could be done without fear of getting scammed by fakes or trimmed cards. In that sense grading is TREMENDOUSLY valuable – in 1998. I would argue that piece of it is still valuable in 2021, but that is .0001% of the reason why people grade modern cards.

Right now, grading is almost entirely about marketing gimmicks. Assigning needless grading results above and beyond mint condition (hyper-mint) to entice collectors to pay more money for subjectively perfect examples of a given card, for the sole purpose of then expecting more cards to be graded. This includes BGS offering the fabled “black label BGS 10,” which by all study should never exist. Its literally a marketing gimmick designed to sell more submissions, if not only because of the ability for collectors to crack and resubmit as many times as they want, in order to achieve the desired grade. In itself, that is a giant problem.

This begs the question of how all these major problems create more problems with a grading company buying an auction house, right?

Pretty simple answer with a woven web of conflicts that arrive. Auction houses sell graded cards, now more than in any time in the history of cards. This means that by owning an auction house, there is a potential for giant conflicts of interest due to the nature of the subjective non-transparent service method grading employs.

This is not saying that grading companies or auction houses regularly conspire to defraud collectors, but co-ownership presents avenues in which that could take place. Given that grading companies and its high profile executives have had long storied histories with law enforcement, we have to cast a skeptical eye. Its our responsibility.

Lets look at ways this could take place. First, is the actual manipulation of graded cards. Although its hard to believe that a grading company would actively manipulate grades en masse to achieve higher prices in their auction house, it doesnt mean that it couldnt happen. An example would be a generational type card, one that would sell for money only spent by the top .00000001% of the hobby. If that card would get a hyper-mint grade vs a standard mint grade, it could mean the difference between selling at $XXXXX dollars to now selling at $XXXXx100 dollars. Not only would the sale benefit the auction house, but the national press from that sale would benefit both the auction house and the end goal of the grading company – more subs.

Because mainstream news has become a regular spectator in the hobby these days, attention from more people have benefitted a ton of card values to the point where a $10,000 dollar card in 2019 could now be a $100,000 dollar card or more. That’s the type of stakes we are dealing with on the smallest possible level. On the largest level, multiple cards have sold for record prices, and every single one of those record sales featured a subjective opinion grade from PSA or BGS.

Another example is any potential funneling of cards between the two sides of the business. Either PSA offering to list cards with Goldin Auctions at the end of the grading process, or Goldin Auctions featuring PSA grades more prominently in their listings. This example presents huge conflicts of interest across the board, especially if PSA starts publicly advertising direct access to auction listings.

Imagine you send in a card worth $100k. If PSA offers to directly send and list that card for you at the end, without transparency into the process of assigning a grade, there are no regulations in place that say it is illegal for them to artificially inflate that grade to get a better auction price.

That’s the whole problem here – no one knows why a PSA 10 got a PSA 10. Although PSA presents vague descriptors of what goes into the decision making behind the scenes, its not like they send out a report detailing their findings, nor do they keep record of specific cards to prevent collectors from gaming the system. PSA could also argue that its collectors that have assigned the massive values associated with hyper-mint grades and that they dont control the secondary market, but its obvious that if customers dont get the grade they want, they find ways to make sure they do down the line.

People always cite the fact that they dont care and honestly that makes sense. No one wants to see how a hot dog is made, they just want to eat a delicious meal. Even if they did see, the chance it makes a difference in their preference is slim to none.

Obviously Im just stating why I personally dont engage with grading and will always call out these inconsistencies and opportunities for fraud, despite the millions of people who have used the service. Just because we all make tons of money from a specific exploitation, doesnt mean it the merits of a potential conflict shouldnt be a part of our focus.

There are ways to fix these problems, but all of them would curb the success of PSA as a company because it would mean that they would lose access to the marketing gimmicks they have purposefully created to build their business empire. I have already seen more of a growing trend of collectors who have sworn off grading all together, but I doubt any of my ramblings will do anything to make that more prominent.

When this boom first started, I immediately tied the insane growth to people existing in a brand new world, one where they had all the money they would normally spend, but no place to spend it. No eating out, no extravagant vacations, nothing. Because people that have money like to make more money, they are start looking for places to take this extra income and spend it on something worth while. Something like cards.

Here is the thing, though.

I never expected this to explode the way it has. That initial group of spenders who started buying and buying and buying eventually spread to parts of the population that never had exposure to collectibles in this way. Celebrities, influencers, entire platforms, all decided that this first blip on the radar was an indicator of big things to come. From that point, everyone was all in.

From that point it was 16 months of pure adrenaline, as collectors from all corners of the world decided that spending their money on cards was what they wanted to do. Exponential growth followed, to the point where people in target were fighting over cards, and PSA had to stop (!!!) taking submissions for grading because they were overrun with orders.

In the meantime, a few things happened. First, the vaccinated population started growing to a point where states felt much more comfortable opening up their previously closed off parts of life. Second, the places where all those people would usually spend their money came back to the forefront of their consciousness. Lastly, the backlog of all those people trying to cash in started to move through the works.

This meant, less money was going to be spent, supply went up, and most importantly, interest started to dwindle. If there is a ton of demand, but no supply, prices spike – basic economics. But when you start seeing a huge influx of supply mixed with waning demand, its a recipe for a plateau at best, or a downward crash at worst. As I talked about in a previous post, things arent all going to come crashing down to earth at once. Its not like that million dollar card is just going to back to being worth a thousand.

As mentioned, the trends will start in the artificially created value first. The places where people went to get their fix when the original place was too expensive. Those 4th year Prizm singles that are available in the hundreds of thousands? That’s where things will soften first. The stuff that is readily available and has a growing supply thanks to PSA clearing their backlog will be dropping very fast. People will start to see that even though the demand was insane, the supply was small due to external factors. Factors like “this card was never valuable in the first place, so why invest to make it available to the public” type of situations. Those market supply limiting factors are well on their way to being cleared, which means that dam is about to break.

The truly rare examples, those cards that are from an era where supply never existed in the first place, those things will stay valuable for a longer period of time. Hopefully quite a bit of time. To ensure that the boom period doesnt lead to a massive bust, those cards need to maintain their value. If we start to see massive declines, thats when the panic should set in. Luckily, even as recent as this past week, record prices for those types of items are still happening. Everything else seems to be falling, as expected.

Reports from the recent big Dallas show seem to range from cautiously pessimistic to people telling tales from their hellscape of despair resulting from a lack of buyers and an overflow of sellers. Remember, 3 months ago at the last show, people were still riding high – that’s how much the narrative has shifted.

To answer the question of where this leads, I think its still too early to tell. I thought the wave of interest driven by famous people would last longer than it did. Unfortunately, the banks of the other side of this giant sea of card related growth seem to be visible from the ship, and the waters behind us look to be much more expansive than those in front.

Part 1, discussing the first day of the release, can be found here.

Part 2, discussing the experience with the market and WAXP currency, can be found here.

Part 3, discussing the future of the platform and possibilities, can be found here.

Wrapping up this series, I wanted to take some time to walk through the last part of my journey with Topps NFT, as I feel the platform has a lot of interesting features and capabilities, but has been generally not attended to the way it needs to be. My initial $100 investment yielded quite a bit of entertainment and fun, as well as substantial return, but because of the challenges Topps is experiencing entering the NFT market, hasnt been the growth vehicle it looked like it was going to be up front.

Catching Up – The Experience After Week 1

After the packs started being opened and cards being traded, the market settled considerably. Once people realized that this was something that was going to have value, everything exploded. For about a week, cards were selling for huge numbers and everyone was excited for the potential long term craziness that has been in place with NBA Top Shot.

Unfortunately, even through the giant growth over the course of that second week, sellers still outnumbered buyers by 2 to 1 and the lack of volume sales were shrinking interest in the platform. By the end of week 4, most cards settled back down to about 30% of where they were during that first boom.

I had already pulled out my original money (ill get to that process in a second), so I was fine seeing the money evaporate to a certain degree. I was prepped for a long term hold and seeing what Topps was going to do with new sets and new products.

Along that path, I really changed my mind, as there was almost zero information provided to the public and very little communication from Topps Digital about future plans. Other collectors grew bored as well, and the sales transaction figures have tanked.

Although its only been about a month since the initial release, the sheer lack of planning is really showing here. Even if the internal planning is very flushed out and very detailed, the public knows nothing of it. As a result, we are left to wallow in our holds, or cash out.

Cashing Out

I decided it was time to move out of Topps Series 1 a few days ago, and started listing my cards on the market place. I did really well, all things considered, but it was still beyond disappointing that there wasnt more Topps was doing to keep interest high.

This is also where things get really complicated. I didnt really post about selling the NFTs and getting money back the first time around, as it isnt simple – at all. Because WAX does not have a platform to convert the currency to USD, there is a lot of steps to get the cards sold, currency converted to a readily transferrable crypto, which can then be sold and deposited to a bank.

Here are the steps needed:

1. Sell the cards
2. Take the currency and transfer it to KuCoin
3. Convert the currency to BTC
4. Send the BTC to Coinbase
5. Sell the BTC
6. Transfer the currency out to your bank or paypal

This is where I think this whole platform is going to be lost on a number of people. Although the process only took about 2 hours to complete, it takes a lot of steps. If you arent technically inclined, and dont really understand the way CryptoCurrency works, its going to be an exercise in futility. I think I got it to work by luck rather than skill, which is fine for 100 bucks, but not for amounts well above that.

There are a lot of places in the process where you can go completely off the rails, and it would be a disaster. There are step by step instructions posted on a number of different forums, but its treacherous at some points.

Looking Forward

If the question is would you do it all over again, the answer is yes, only because of the return. I was able to get a ton of money back compared to what I put in. If the second question pertains more to participation the future, that’s where things get complicated.

I think the technical difficulties during the first drop means that this could hinge on some improvements to the delivery method. Similarly, if its true that Topps isnt going to release more of Series 1, it will depend on a few things. First, is the product they choose to release, second is the pack price.

If they choose a set like Series 2, with the same basic format, Im in. Ill just do what I did here, or hold the packs until they dry up. If we are talking something like Tribute or Definitive, where packs will be 1000 bucks, time to find a new get rich quick scheme.

Similarly, Upper Deck is getting into the game with recent trademark applications pending for NFT related sets. Panini is already in the market to degree as well, which means true NFT sets like this are likely on the way for them too. Because it seems like everything will exist in different crypto universes, its going to be tough to trade or intermingle the way I would outline a utopian NFT collectible market to be set up. However, if eBay does start offering NFT auctions, things could change all together.

I think the volatility of these cards makes them tough for people to really dive into in any meaningful way. Topps’ lack of commitment to keeping the public informed is beyond problematic as well. Overall, Im happy to have had the experience, but overall glad to be rid of it.