Five sales topped $1 million in May as the sports card market continues to experience unprecedented price growth and sales volume. The $5.11 million private sale for one of Victor Wembanyama’s most important cards was the highlight of May, landing just days before the San Antonio Spurs secured a spot in the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks. Trading card grading leader Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) also shook up the industry by announcing pauses to popular service levels at the start of June in an attempt to cut into what has become a more than 10 million card backlog that will impact the industry for months to come.
Here’s an overview of what happened across the hobby throughout the month of May.
Top sports card sales in May
2023-24 Prizm Victor Wembanyama Black 1/1, PSA 10: $5,110,000
2025 Topps Chrome Josh Allen Honors MVP Gold NFL Shield 1/1 Patch Autograph: $1,350,000
2018 Panini Cristiano Ronaldo Kaboom Green 1/1, PSA 10: $1,350,000
2025 Topps Chrome LeBron James Superfractor Autograph 1/1: $1,260,000
2015-16 Panini Immaculate Nikola Jokic Rookie Patch Autograph 1/1, PSA 8/DNA 10: $1,102,600
Source: Card Ladder (May 1 to May 31)
Of the five cards to top $1 million in May, four — Wembanyama, Allen, Ronaldo and Jokic — set all-time records for the player featured. The most notable sale was the 2023 Panini Prizm Victor Wembanyama Black one-of-one card, graded a Gem-Mint PSA 10 for $5.11 million in a private transaction brokered by Fanatics Collect. That sale easily toppled the previous high for Wembanyama of $860,100 for his 2023 Prizm Nebula Choice one-of-one while becoming the most expensive basketball card without an autograph.
Despite lacking a signature, the Wembanyama rookie is considered arguably the best card in existence for the Spurs superstar due to its one-of-a-kind Black parallel design, which is highly regarded among collectors. Wembanyama doesn’t have any licensed autograph rookie cards with Panini America, holder of the exclusive NBA card license at the time, due to a personal exclusive deal with Fanatics.
Best-selling athletes in May: It’s Wembanyama’s world
Victor Wembanyama (50.9k)
Michael Jordan (39.2k)
Cooper Flagg (26.6k)
Jaxson Dart (16.4k)
Shohei Ohtani (15.5k)
Source: Market Movers
Interest in Wembanyama cards has spread across the hobby from the ultra high-end to the low end of the secondary market. Trading card sales tracker Market Movers logged more than 50,000 sales for Wembanyama in May, easily outpacing NBA legend Michael Jordan, who often sits atop the sales volume rankings.
Of the data points supporting Wembanyama’s current hobby supremacy, none may be more stunning to everyday collectors than the roughly 700,000 cards that have already been graded for the French star. According to grading tracker GemRate, Wembanyama is already the sixth most graded athlete of all time, behind only Jordan, Shohei Ohtani, Ken Griffey Jr., LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. At the current submission velocity, he could realistically pass Bryant, James and Griffey Jr. by the end of the 2026-27 season.
Notable rises in value: Trio of Spurs stars surge
Victor Wembanyama (+22.1 percent)
Dylan Harper (+17.8 percent)
Stephon Castle (+10.9 percent)
Michael Jordan (+7.5 percent)
Kobe Bryant (+2.5 percent)
Source: Market Movers (minimum 5,000 sales)
The data presented above probably made Wembanyama’s place here feel expected, but it’s worth noting that high sales volume can sometimes make positive price growth difficult across an individual player’s entire market. With each market made up of a mix of high-end, low-end, graded and ungraded cards all transacting with different volume and price points, there’s a certain amount of price volatility involved over any timeframe. The basketball card market — and really the entire market as a whole —is trending up, however. Card Ladder’s Basketball Index, which attempts to gauge the strength of the basketball market through price movement for its key cards, is up nearly 57 percent over the last year.
Overall market health, postseason success and lofty expectations for a pair of top-five picks has also helped push Wembanyama’s teammates Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle into this space. Interest in Castle remained steady through his Rookie of the Year campaign last season while Harper is considered among the hobby’s favorite rookies from the 2025 NBA Draft class.
What’s fascinating is the total absence of New York Knicks from these two lists, given how the team has excited one of the NBA’s largest fan bases. With the Knicks now up 2-0 in the NBA Finals, standout performers like Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns seem likely additions in June. Certain cards of theirs are already climbing in a big way, with Brunson’s 2018 Prizm Silver parallel rookie card in a PSA 10 grade (population 639) rising from $400 to $1,550 in the last month, according to Card Ladder.
Going down: Offseason dropoff hits 2025 NBA Draft class
Kon Knueppel (-18.6 percent)
Cooper Flagg (-17.6 percent)
VJ Edgecombe (-16.3 percent)
Cam Skattebo (-12.5 percent)
Jaxson Dart (-12.3 percent)
Source: Market Movers (minimum 5,000 sales)
It’s common for hobbyists to narrow their collecting focus or shift away from specific players completely when the offseason arrives, and that’s likely what we’re seeing with Flagg, Knueppel and Edgecombe. Don’t be surprised if these prices continue to dip as collectors turn to baseball and eventually the NFL in the coming months, potentially creating a good buying opportunity for three standout rookies ahead of their second season in the NBA.
For Dart and Skattebo, the offseason lull is likely coming to an end sometime soon. Expect prices for that pair to begin rebounding in the coming weeks and when teams begin preseason games.
Best-selling cards: Buyback program drives Stafford sales
2025 Topps Cooper Flagg Base #201 (1.4k)
2025 Bowman Cooper Flagg Base #1 (1.4k)
2025 Topps Chrome Jaxson Dart #306 (1.3k)
2025 Topps Chrome Matthew Stafford #169 (1.2k)
2023 Prizm Victor Wembanyama #136 (1.2k)
Source: Market Movers
One of these cards is not like the others. Surrounded by flagship rookies for some of the most popular players in the hobby, you’re probably wondering why a card from Matthew Stafford’s 17th season has been so coveted lately. Well it has everything to do with Topps’ MVP Buyback program, which allows collectors to trade in cards of the most recent NFL MVP to participating card shops for store credit.
Stafford’s cards from 2025 Topps Chrome Football can be redeemed for anywhere between $20 and $200 depending on the card’s rarity. Some hobbyists sell these cards for less than redemption value because they don’t want to be bothered trading them in while others are willing to do the legwork of buying and redeeming in-person or through the mail for a profit. According to Market Movers, Stafford’s 2025 Topps Chrome Base #169 is trending around $14 on the secondary market over the last 30 days with a redemption value of $20.
Grading recap: PSA’s backlog forces service pauses
PSA (2.07 million total cards, 625k sports cards)
CGC (641k total cards, 114k sports cards)
BGS (145k total cards, 44k sports cards)
TAG (52k total cards, 2k sports cards)
SGC (48k total cards, 45k sports cards)
Source: GemRate (May 1 to May 31)
One of the biggest stories in the collectibles industry so far this year has been PSA announcing a temporary pause to multiple card grading service levels in order to trim what has become a more than 10 million-item backlog. PSA originally estimated it could reopen the impacted value service levels, which are the company’s cheapest and most popular tiers, when the backlog is eventually cut down to about five million cards. Early projections placed that timeline at up to four months, but a surge in submissions between the announcement and the final cutoff for orders of those service tiers has likely extended that timeline significantly.
Overall grading activity in May was down five percent compared to April but up 20 percent year-over-year. The most notable change was a 49 percent increase in output from Beckett, which has recently benefited from hiring more graders and operational upgrades. According to GemRate, Beckett’s 145,000 graded cards in May was a single-month high for the grader. Beckett general manager Colin Hudson says the goal is to expand the company’s grading team by more than 20 percent in 2026 and eventually reach 200,000 cards per month by the end of the year.
What sellers are saying
Card prices are way up for DCSports87, one of the largest sellers of trading cards on eBay, so far in 2026. According to DCSports87 vice president Tory Hermens, the company has already topped $100 million in gross merchandise value (GMV) for the year after totaling $92 million in 2025. Through May, Hermens says the company’s sales volume is up 80 percent compared to last year — the current goal is to list about 450,000 items for auction each month — and the average price per item is up 96 percent. That mix of volume and price increase has DCSports87’s sales up 249 percent year-over-year with between 55,000 and 60,000 unique buyers each month.
“Name of the game has just adding as much technology as we can,” Hermens told The Athletic. “We’re chasing a lot of automation projects for our listing flow and our fulfillment process because we have to find ways to move faster. The entire hobby is, and we’re certainly not exempt from that.”
Hermens believes the secondary market will see collectors moving to sell cards faster after they are pulled from packs due to PSA’s value service pause.
“In the past, when there was an available $25 to $30 value submission level, there was a chance to make a lot of profit by grading bulk, getting those back and then selling graded,” Hermens said. “Now that’s taken away and the cheapest service at PSA is $80, collectors and dealers have to be a lot more sensitive to where there’s still value in using that service. As a result, I think we’ll see people chasing liquidity faster with just selling right away on the secondary market rather than kind of waiting to grade first and then move it.”
According to Hermens, Wembanyama has had the most buzz among DCSports87’s customers, but people haven’t known when to buy or sell with his market surging.
“I think the thing we find the most interesting right now is watching the market try to decide when to act,” Hermens said. “Everybody knows that it’s (Wembanyama), a huge gap and then everybody else as far as demand and buzz in the hobby. But that doesn’t always align to when people should be selling.
“Common things we see people asking now are, ‘I know he’s skyrocketing right now. Should I be buying him right now or should I wait? Should I be selling him right now or should I wait?’ it’s really an interesting thing in a market with so many data sources … yet nobody really knows where the exact peak is and where the valley is.”
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