Everything in this hobby is getting bigger. The dollar amounts, the categories, the global reach.

Just take a look at the headlines this week:

💰 2026 on pace to shatter all-time record for million-dollar card sales
🎮 Hasbro's CEO: Trading cards will be the biggest toy category on EARTH
⚡ A 1998 Trophy Pikachu just sold for $1.769 million at Goldin
🎴 One Piece TCG is crushing baseball, Luffy card prices up 215%
🔥 Heatseekers: Top upcoming releases

Let’s get into it!

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Through mid-March, 2026 already had 12 million-dollar card sales, more than the entire first half of 2025.

The pace has only accelerated since, with Jokic's Logoman topping $1 million in May and a Trophy Pikachu reaching $1.7 million at Goldin. SI Collectibles projects the year could produce 50 or more million-dollar sales, smashing the 2021 record of 43.

Those numbers are mind-boggling to us, but Evan Parker at Mantel put it in perspective this week: Christie's sold over $1 billion of fine art in three hours, with Pollock and Brancusi each joining the $100 million club. In other words, our lovely little hobby celebrates $1 million cards… but fine art clears $100 million lots.

By the way, that gap isn't depressing, it just tells you how early we still are 😉

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That’s 6 sales in 7 months. 29 all time. And the performance?

16.5%, 17.6%, and 17.8%, net annualized returns on sold works held longer than one year (See all 29 at Masterworks.com)

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Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks just called trading cards "the hottest category in all of toys and games" and said he expects the category to eclipse building sets in total size either this year or next.

That's not a throwaway line! He backed it with numbers: Wizards of the Coast revenue was up 26% year over year, with Magic: The Gathering specifically up 36%. Secrets of Strixhaven already surpassed Lorwyn Eclipsed as the largest Magic premier set ever. MagicCon Las Vegas sold 23,000 badges, making it the largest Magic event in history.

But the supply chain is feeling the pressure. Cocks noted that reprints now take three to four months, up from six weeks, because demand is outpacing capacity. When asked about supply challenges, he pointed to "a bunch of new entrants" in the TCG space all competing for the same card stock.

As mentioned above, a PSA GEM MT 10 1998 Japanese Promo Bronze 3rd Place Trophy Pikachu sold for $1.7M at Goldin's Spring TCG & Manga Elite Auction, setting the all-time record for any Trophy Pikachu at public auction.

PSA has graded only five copies of this card. This is the only one that received a GEM MT 10. The next closest graded NM-MT 8. The Trophy Card series was printed just twice, once for Japan's inaugural Pokemon tournament in 1997 and again for the Lizardon Mega Battle events in 1998, making these among the rarest Pokemon cards in existence. The sale came from the same auction that produced the record-breaking $236,543 Bubble Mew. And it arrived in a year where the Pikachu Illustrator already hit $16.5 million 😩 The Pikachu market is on absolute FIRE right now!

It’s official: One Piece is no longer a niche TCG!

Just kidding, you already knew that.

According to Card Ladder, Monkey D. Luffy card prices are up 215% year over year, and PSA's monthly submission reports now show Luffy consistently ranking among the top TCG cards submitted, surrounded by nothing but Pokemon.

In December, a 2024 Tournament Promo Gold Luffy in CGC Pristine 10 sold for $315,600, the highest One Piece card sale ever. A Red Magna Art BGS 10 followed at $104,400 in February. Netflix's Season 2 launch on March 10 poured gasoline on the demand, and One Piece even landed an NCAA basketball tie-in, with promotional cards selling for as much as $1,800. SI Collectibles wrote that One Piece may soon challenge Pokemon's long-standing dominance in the TCG market. The treasure-hunting pirate is coming for the throne!

The world of collectibles is wide and deep, and there’s a constant stream of new releases. Here are some of the big ones that are coming up:

The hobby had twelve million-dollar card sales before spring was over, and it's tracking toward fifty by year's end. Hasbro's CEO sees trading cards overtaking building sets as the biggest toy category on the planet. A single Pikachu card just sold for more than what a house costs in most American cities. And an anime pirate's trading cards are generating more grading submissions than baseball's biggest star!

And yet, the hobby is still early, the market is still growing, and the categories that matter are expanding beyond anything the old guard imagined.

See you next week!