A Kobe Bryant and LeBron James card that nobody knew existed spent nearly two decades ungraded in a private collection, and this week it hit the block at Alt with bidding already past $2.4 million and the all-time record in play.

Meanwhile, PSA finally opened a door for budget collectors with a $59.99 tier, Arch Manning walked away from Panini to sign with Topps, and thieves smashed their way into Fanatics' London flagship.

The hobby spent this week finding things that were hidden, and pricing them.

What we're covering:

🏀 The Kobe-LeBron Dual Logoman surfaces after 20 years and could challenge $12.93 million
📉 PSA's backlog falls under 10 million and a $59.99 Standard tier opens Monday
🏴‍☠️ Collectibles.com's beginner's guide to One Piece, the fastest-growing TCG of the decade
🏈 Arch Manning leaves Panini for Topps days before his season opener
🔥 Heatseekers: Top upcoming releases

Let’s get into it.

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A one-of-one 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman Autographs card of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James opened for bidding on Alt last Friday, the first time it has ever been offered publicly.

It sat ungraded in a private collection for nearly two decades before it surfaced this spring, sold to the current consignor, and came back from PSA in August graded 8. It carries a game-worn NBA Logoman patch from each player, both signatures in blue ink, and a "23" inscription that LeBron added under his name.

Bidding passed $2 million within hours and reached $2,472,280 after seven bids as of Tuesday. The auction runs through September 24, and Alt has declined to publish an estimate, so the comparable sales are the only guide anyone has.

The 2007-08 season was Bryant's only MVP year and LeBron's only scoring title, and this copy is graded higher than either previous Kobe-LeBron sale. Alt CEO Leore Avidar has called it the best card the company has ever handled, and the stakes are real for the platform too, since Alt had never sold a card for $1 million or more before this summer.

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One week after SGC tripled its cheapest fee, PSA moved the other way. Tuesday's backlog report showed the active queue down from 10.9 million cards on August 25 to 9.9 million, and on Wednesday the company announced Standard, a new $59.99 tier that opens Monday, September 14. It is the first PSA option under $80 since the Value tiers were paused on June 2.

Here is how the lineup looks once Standard goes live:

The trade is straightforward: $20 less per card for roughly a month of extra waiting, and Standard orders are processed behind everything already in the Value and Bulk queue. PSA says it will bring back additional tiers in phases rather than reopen everything at once, since the last time it invited demand back in, submissions spiked 20 percent and added 1.6 million cards to the backlog.

The larger change is geographic. PSA Europe opens in Frankfurt on September 15, taking direct submissions from European collectors for the first time and giving PSA six grading facilities worldwide, with production up 40 percent over last year on the $200 million investment announced in May.

Add CGC's deal to turn more than 170 EB Games stores in Canada into submission centers, and collectors on three continents have new places to send cards this month.

A single One Piece card sold for $440,420 this year, while most of them cost less than a dollar, and Collectibles.com just published the beginner's guide for navigating the gap.

The One Piece Card Game launched in English in December 2022 and is now one of the fastest-growing card games in the world. The guide covers how the game works, what to buy first, and which cards carry real value:

It also includes a five-point check for spotting counterfeits, which have become a real problem for high-value singles, and a section on collecting One Piece beyond the cards, since the manga is the best-selling comic series in history.

Read the full guide at Collectibles.com.

Topps announced last Thursday that Arch Manning has signed an exclusive trading card and autograph deal, ending a Panini partnership that had run for three years.

His first Topps autographs arrive in 2026 Bowman Football this fall, where he was added late to the Prospects checklist as card No. 201 and will have five cards in the set, including chrome prospect autographs, an Anime NIL short print, and a Bowman GPK card.

How the last three years played out:

The timing suits Fanatics, which now holds the NFL license and can carry Manning's cards from college through the draft without a change of manufacturer. By the time the Bowman autographs ship, the player with a $2.5 million On3 NIL valuation will have a full season of games behind him, which is more than his Panini launch card had when it sold for six figures.

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:

Two stories this week point in the same direction. A Kobe-LeBron card that spent nearly 20 years ungraded in a private collection is now the most closely watched auction in the hobby, and PSA, after three months of turning away anything under $80, reopened a lower tier and started grading in Europe. In both cases, supply that had been locked up is being released, and the market is about to find out what it is worth.

The rest of the issue is about where the money is going. Arch Manning took his autograph rights to Topps, EB Games put CGC drop boxes in 170 Canadian stores, and Alt moved $55.5 million in a single month. The hobby is still growing faster than the systems built to serve it, but this week the systems made real progress.

See you next week!