Heritage Auctions just ran the largest sports auction in history. $62.9 million over three days, more than 200 individual records, and a Honus Wagner at the top of the pile. Meanwhile, Topps is sewing patches onto every NFL rookie's jersey, eBay started yanking leaked Pokémon 30th Anniversary listings, and somebody paid $378,000 for a volleyball with a bloody handprint on it.

The hobby never takes a weekend off.

What we’re covering:

💰 Heritage's $62.9 million weekend, the biggest sports auction ever held
🏈 Every NFL rookie is wearing a Debut Patch this season
🏎️ The Star Wars x F1 helmets that got signed by Lando Norris himself
🟡 eBay cracks down on leaked Pokémon 30th Anniversary cards
🔥 Heatseekers: Top upcoming releases

Let’s get into it.

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The record for the largest sports auction in history was $61.6 million, set in 2024 when Heritage sold Babe Ruth's Called Shot jersey for $24 million. That record fell on Sunday.

Heritage's Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, which closed August 21 through 23, realized $62,963,254 and set more than 200 individual auction records along the way. This time there was no single $24 million item carrying the total. Four different cards cleared seven figures on their own.

The headliner: A 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner with a Piedmont back, one of just three Piedmonts known to exist, sold for $5,856,000. Nearly every surviving Wagner carries a Sweet Caporal back, and this one traces its provenance to the earliest days of the organized card market. It's now the highest price ever paid for a Wagner graded Authentic.

The Mantle: A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 8 with an MBA Silver designation brought $3,721,000, a record for the grade by more than $1.2 million. Only 14 copies have ever graded higher.

The ball that missed its estimate: The photo-matched 1986 Diego Maradona "Hand of God" ball, the one that scored both goals against England in the World Cup quarterfinal, sold for $3,355,000. That's a record for any non-jersey soccer item and still about a third of the $10 million estimate Heritage put on it in July. The 1979 Panini Maradona PSA 10 in the same sale did better against expectations, setting a Maradona card record at $225,700.

Everything else: A 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth PSA 9 ($1,525,000), Sandy Koufax's photo-matched 1963 Dodgers jersey ($1,311,500), and a 2006 Fleer Jordan rookie buyback autograph numbered 11/23 ($1,204,750). Cooper Flagg's game-worn rookie jersey set a Flagg record at $329,400 before he's played a full second season.

The hobby had a $50 million auction last summer and called it huge. Twelve months later that's the consolation prize.

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The card that sold for $11 million this summer started as a small patch on a jersey collar. The NFL just decided it wants in.

Topps announced Wednesday that beginning with the 2026 rookie class, every player making his first regular-season NFL appearance will wear a Debut Patch on his jersey. After the game, the patch is removed and embedded into a 1/1 autographed Topps card, with the cards scheduled to land in sealed products in 2027.

Why it matters: This is the same program that produced a $1.1 million Paul Skenes Rookie Debut Patch in baseball and turned Cooper Flagg's NBA version into a card that drew a $1.5 million cash advance offer from Goldin. Football has the biggest audience of any American sport and had no equivalent chase card. Now every rookie who takes a snap this fall is a potential 1/1.

The names to watch: No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza, Jeremiyah Love, Arvell Reese, and Carnell Tate. One breakout debut and the patch that came off that jersey becomes the most important football card of the year.

Not everyone loves it. NBC's Pro Football Talk called the patches a step toward jersey advertising in a league that has held out so far. For collectors, though, the timing is nice.

2026 Topps Flagship Football, the company's first fully licensed flagship football set since 2015, hit shelves August 21. Week 1 kicks off in two weeks.

Max Gifford was sitting on his sofa talking to his wife when two words collided: "Lando" and "Mando." He ran upstairs and started drawing. Today he's the only person on Earth holding a Mandalorian-style Lando Norris F1 helmet signed by Lando himself, and Collectibles.com just told the whole story.

There are five Landolorian helmets in existence. Max made all of them, out of a two-story flat with no spray booth, using a filament printer, standard PLA, and rattle cans. The details are the fun part:

The original is retired from public life, headed for a sealed box, never leaving it. A signature adds a few thousand dollars. A signature with photos, documentation, and a story like this one is why crossover pieces are quietly becoming the most interesting corner of the hobby.

In related news, LEGO revealed a 6,130-piece Executor Super Star Destroyer this week, the longest Star Wars brick model ever made at 53.5 inches and $799.99, with all six bounty hunters as minifigures for the first time. Nice day for Star Wars collectors.

Read the full story at Collectibles.com.

The 30th Celebration set doesn't release until September 16. People have been opening it on camera for two months.

On Monday, eBay started removing in-hand listings of 30th Anniversary cards and merchandise under its Stolen Property Policy, after The Pokémon Company International notified the platform that the product is not available through any authorized channel. Sellers got a notice telling them not to relist without documentation proving a legitimate source.

How it got out: Most of the product appears to have leaked somewhere along the distribution chain, likely a distributor or warehouse. The earliest openings surfaced in Australia, with more countries following. Factory thefts and distribution leaks have been a recurring problem for TPCi since Shining Fates in 2021, and the company runs an internal task force to chase them down.

The catch: eBay is the only major platform acting. Other marketplaces are still letting leaked product move at exorbitant prices, and some of the highest-profile openings have been happening on livestreams. The listings will almost certainly come back after release, but at post-release prices, which is the point.

All of this lands as Pokémon Worlds opens today in San Francisco with more than 50,000 people expected. If you're not there, badges have been sold out for weeks anyway.

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 Maradona ball was supposed to be the story. Ten million dollar estimate, the most famous ball in the most popular sport on Earth, timed to land right after a World Cup. It sold for a third of that, and the auction still broke the all-time record without it.

That's the real takeaway from a $62.9 million weekend. The top of this market is no longer one trophy carrying the rest of the place. It's a Wagner, a Mantle, a Ruth, a Koufax jersey, and a Jordan buyback all clearing seven figures in the same catalog, plus 200 smaller records nobody will even remember.

See you next week!