GameStop just tried to buy the biggest marketplace in the hobby. A watch engraved "Drive Carefully Me" is still worth $17.75 million. And somewhere in a pack of UEFA Chrome, a Linkin Park trading card became the most unexpected pull in soccer.

This week:

⌚ The most expensive celebrity watches ever sold at auction
🎮 GameStop bid $56 billion for eBay, eBay said no
🏀 Is AJ Dybantsa's card market about to move? Draft #1 Likely!
🎸 A Linkin Park 1/1 SuperFractor just surfaced from a Champions League set
🔥 Heatseekers: Top upcoming releases
🏆 A Nicola Jokic card crossed the $1M barrier!

Let's get into it!

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Collectibles.com published their updated ranking of the 10 most expensive celebrity watches ever sold, and the through-line is clear: provenance is everything. Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona, engraved "Drive Carefully Me" by Joanne Woodward, sold for $17.7 million at Phillips. A standard Ref. 6239 retailed for $250. Newman's is worth 70,800 times that.

Provenance is the documented, chronological history of an item’s ownership, custody, or location, ideally tracing back to its creation. And it’s (obviously) super important in collectibles.

Some more examples from Collectibles.com’s top 10 list: Marlon Brando's Apocalypse Now GMT-Master, missing its bezel because Brando ripped it off himself on set, sold for $1.95 million in 2019, then resold for $5.5 million at Christie's in 2023. Nothing changed about the watch. The market's understanding of what it was looking at did. Stallone's unworn Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime brought $5.4 million at Sotheby's, and Tom Brady's "John Player Special" Daytona hit $1.1 million. The lesson for collectors: the story is always worth more than the object.

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Late last year, a Klimt sold for the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

An outlier sure, but it wasn't a fluke. U.S. auction sales grew 23.1% in 2025. The $1-5mm segment even grew 40.8% YoY.

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On May 4, GameStop submitted a $125-per-share, $56 billion proposal to acquire eBay, half cash, half stock. CEO Ryan Cohen told the Wall Street Journal the goal was "turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars." On May 12, eBay's board rejected it, calling the bid "neither credible nor attractive."

But the implications for the hobby are real regardless. eBay owns TCGplayer. GameStop runs Power Packs. A combined entity would control a massive share of both primary and secondary collectibles markets. ComicBook.com flagged concerns about fee increases and pricing power over the TCG resale market. Kovels antique trader raised questions about what consolidation would mean for independent sellers. The bid failed, but Ryan Cohen is still determined to make it happen. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this!

Washington won the No. 1 pick on Sunday with 14% odds. Utah landed at No. 2, Memphis No. 3, and Chicago jumped to No. 4. The consensus top pick: AJ Dybantsa, BYU's freshman scoring champion who averaged 25.5 points per game and earned first-team All-American honors and FIBA U-19 MVP.

For collectors, the lottery is an annual catalyst. It's the moment prospect cards get real landing spots and move toward real market valuations. We wouldn’t be surprised if Dybantsa's Bowman University cards start seeing more and more movement now that Washington may be his destination. The NBA Combine is underway in Chicago this week, with measurements and workouts adding data points for card speculators. Darryn Peterson (No. 2) and Cameron Boozer (No. 3) are the other names to watch. The draft is June 25.

A one-of-one Mike Shinoda SuperFractor autograph from 2025-26 Topps Chrome UEFA Club Competitions has been pulled by Sunday League Investors, and it's the kind of card that makes you rethink what belongs in the hobby. Linkin Park headlined the Champions League Final Kick Off Show in Munich last May, performing "In The End," "Numb," and "The Emptiness Machine" to a global audience.

Topps put the band in the UCL Final Performers Autographs set with five signers, each with Black, Blue, and SuperFractor parallels. There's also a Shinoda/Emily Armstrong dual auto available only as a SuperFractor. The original Topps NOW Linkin Park card (print run 5,313) launched at $8.99, with numbered variations now selling over $800. Music, soccer, and a 1/1 card. The hobby keeps getting stranger in some ways, but we're down 😂

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:

So, GameStop wants to control where you buy. Heritage and Goldin already control where the biggest lots trade. The draft lottery just determined who controls the most valuable pick in basketball. And somewhere in a pack of UEFA Chrome, a Linkin Park SuperFractor reminded everyone that nobody controls what becomes collectible 😉

See you next week!