Some weeks are slow. This was not one of those weeks.

A baseball card just sold for $5.2 million. A video game turned into a trading card game and broke Kickstarter. Mr. Wonderful showed up to a red carpet wearing $20 million around his neck. And somewhere in California, a judge is being asked to decide whether cracking packs on a livestream counts as running a casino.

Totally normal week in collectibles. Let's get into it.

This week:

🎬 McKenna Grace opened Pokémon cards at the Oscars
🏆 A $5.2M baseball card rewrites the record books (again)
🎮 Cyberpunk 2077 crashes Kickstarter with a TCG nobody saw coming
💎 Kevin O'Leary's $20M necklace and the celebrity card playbook
⚖️ Is card breaking gambling? A lawsuit says yes
🔥 Heatseekers: Top upcoming releases

Without further ado, let’s dig in.

Also, send us feedback and ideas on how to improve by replying to this email!

The Cyberpunk 2077 trading card game hit its $100,000 Kickstarter goal in five minutes on March 17. Then it literally crashed the platform for seven minutes. Then it raised over $10 million in its first few days. There are still 28 days left in the campaign, and the developers have been adding new stretch goals in real time.

Reward tiers include theme decks, booster boxes, playmats, and exclusive collectibles. Backers might be treating this less like a preorder and more like a ground-floor investment.

Cyberpunk is a globally recognized IP with a fanbase that seems to skew older and wealthier than the average TCG player, and one that already proved it could survive a disastrous game launch and come out the other side. These don’t feel like impulsive buyers. The real question is whether the secondary market holds once retail hits, since TCG Kickstarters have a mixed track record there. But with $10M+ in early demand and the developers scrambling to keep up, the floor looks more solid than most launches. The era of major video game IPs sitting out the TCG boom looks like it’s over.

In partnership with Cash App

Now that tax season is here, there's no better time to file with Cash App Taxes. It's fast, 100% free, and it only takes a few minutes. Cash App Taxes is a completely free way to file your federal and state taxes-and get your refund*.

Learn about Max Refund Guarantee details and eligibility. **Learn about Accurate Calculations Guarantee details and eligibility. Exclusions apply. *5-day refund estimate is based on filing data from tax year 2024. Refund windows are subject to change for 2025. We do not guarantee when you will receive your refund. Timing estimates are dependent on the timing of your submission of a complete return and when the IRS submits your refund. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Tax Filing Preparation services are provided by Cash App Taxes, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Scream star McKenna Grace walked the Oscars red carpet in a custom Vera Wang gown with pockets… filled with Pokémon cards. She opened them throughout the night apparently, and announced she was on a quest to be the first person to crack packs at the Academy Awards. Mission accomplished, probably.

Was it staged? Maybe. Did Pokémon Company have something to do with it? Almost certainly. Do we care? Not really. Cool to see celebs nerding out either way.

On March 12, a 1-of-1 Aaron Judge Bowman Chrome Superfractor Autograph sold for $5.2 million, the highest price ever paid for a modern baseball card. Not a typo. Five point two million dollars for a piece of cardboard featuring a guy who is still very much alive and playing baseball.

This isn't a 1952 Topps Mantle pulled from somebody's attic. It's a contemporary issue, and it just lapped the entire vintage market for modern cards. The logic is simple: a Superfractor is by definition the only one in existence. No comparable, no ceiling. High-end investors are treating 1-of-1s like blue-chip art, and the Ohtani $3M sale we covered last week was apparently just the warmup act.

The takeaway for everyone else: stay out of the middle. Ultra-rare grails are appreciating. Base cards of stars have a floor. The $2,000–$10,000 "nice but not special" cards are getting squeezed from both ends. Nobody wants to be stuck there.

Kevin O'Leary walked the 2026 Actor Awards red carpet wearing a Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan Dual Logoman card around his neck. The card cost him $13 million in 2025. Add 2.2 pounds of Tiffany white gold and 100 carats of diamonds, and you're at $20 million total. Just a normal thing to wear to a party.

This is the exact strategy Logan Paul ran with his Pikachu Illustrator card.

1) Buy the most expensive card you can find.
2) Encase it in diamonds.
3) Wear it somewhere cameras are rolling.

A card in a vault appreciates quietly, but a card on a celebrity's chest at a televised event kind of creates a cultural moment, and cultural moments move markets (whether you like it or not). And O'Leary didn't become Mr. Wonderful by accident!

Cynical read: marketing dressed up as passion. Optimistic read: it's working, and new buyers entering means prices go up for everyone. The hobby has always had evangelists. The new ones just have TV deals and jewelers on speed dial 🤷‍♂

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:

Big weeks in collectibles used to mean one record sale. Now they mean five stories happening simultaneously across five different categories, all pointing the same direction: this hobby (and its market) is not slowing down!

The $5.2M Judge card. The $10M Cyberpunk Kickstarter. O'Leary's $20M necklace. McKenna Grace cracking packs at the Oscars. Our child selves couldn’t have comprehended what any of those things even meant 20 or 30 years ago 😂

But we would have been stoked to see cool new TCGs succeed and famous people showing our hobbies some love. And in that sense, the passion of our hobby is still there. It's just got a lot more zeroes behind it now.

See you next week!