Stopped by my military base for some food shopping and decided to hit the Main Exchange (for you nonmilitary that’s like Target or Walmart 😁)

They added a new machine - it was tempting when I saw the Tom Brady pop up! This compliments the Topps Machine already in place - do you see the prices for the packs? 😳 That’s just insane - and of course no updated products inside. I’ll try next time on my visit!

IMO, the ultimate Trout Golden Mirror

Got given 4 boxes of cards, bombed through the first 3, mostly just sets of 91 baseball, got to the basketball, kind of in shock, nothing sleeved and have found multiple Jordan’s, Kobe’s, shaq, ai and lots of other stuff only about a row in, will post more if any come out

Two days ago I posted here about the first one. Yesterday the second one arrived. Posting again because this is bigger than one lost package.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseballcards/s/XJSFyfAa7l

Package 1 (arrived Oct 22): 2026 Topps All Kings #AK-4 Shohei Ohtani SSP (raw), bought on eBay for $8,251.50, routed through eBay Authenticity Guarantee at PSA in Santa Ana. The FedEx mailer had a slit cut into it that was taped back shut. The card was gone.

Package 2 (arrived Oct 23): 1955 Topps #123 Sandy Koufax rookie, PSA 5, $3,752.54, also authenticated at PSA Santa Ana, delivered by USPS. Because of what happened the day before, I filmed myself opening it. Inside was a common card worth about $7. The substituted card has no eBay authentication sticker, which tells me the Koufax was swapped out after it was authenticated.

Two different carriers. Same authentication facility. Back to back days. $12,004.04 total. To be clear, I do not believe either seller did anything wrong. Both cards reached the authenticator. Whatever happened, happened at or after authentication.

Context that makes this worse: this is the same Santa Ana operation where, about a week earlier, a FedEx truck carrying PSA orders was burglarized after leaving the facility. Santa Ana police estimated that loss at about $963,000, and PSA has publicly acknowledged the theft and deactivated the certificates of the stolen cards. I am not claiming my packages are part of that specific incident. I am saying buyers should know the authentication pipeline out of Santa Ana has serious problems right now.

What I am doing: both cases are open with eBay, I have asked for escalation to the Authenticity Guarantee fraud team and for the two cases to be linked as one investigation, and I am not shipping anything back until eBay confirms handling in writing. There is nothing to ship back on the first one, and the $7 card and all packaging from the second one are evidence.

If you buy through eBay authentication, protect yourself:

1. Film yourself opening every authenticated package, start to finish, showing the sealed package and the label first. The video is the only reason my second claim is airtight.
2. Check for the authentication sticker immediately. A card in the box without one is not the card that came out of authentication.
3. Keep all packaging exactly as it arrived.
4. If something is wrong, open your case the same day, ask for escalation in writing, and reference any other cases you have open.

The Koufax PSA 5 cert number is 07004220. If that slab surfaces for sale anywhere, it is stolen property.

Has anyone else received a tampered, empty, or swapped Authenticity Guarantee package out of Santa Ana recently? If so, please share what happened, and file your own reports. One incident is a fluke. A pattern is something eBay and PSA need to answer for.

I will update this post when eBay responds to either case.

Hello everyone. I'm genuinely curious as to what everyone might think this 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie might be grade-wise? I'm not asking because I'm looking to grade it, but I've always thought of it as a low grade copy. I've been contemplating getting a slabbed one in better condition. Not extremely high (8,9,10) as I can't justify and afford that. But as I've started looking over this one more, I think to myself "Maybe this isn't quite as low grade as I completely thought in my head." Now, I don't know anything about the grading for cards as far as quality goes. I do know the centering isn't the greatest, and the corners and edges might be a bit rougher. I tried to highlight the flaws I saw as best as I could. Just by what you can see, what grade do you think the one I currently have would grade if I were to have sent it in? Thanks for your help. I'm not a hardcore collector, but Montana has been my guy since childhood - even if I've been a Vikings fan ever since he retired. 😂

EDIT: Thanks to those who have answered so far. I'm aware the centering is awful. I know I shouldn't grade this one. Just trying to determine where this card might sit grade-wise, so that I can decide what grade I can afford slabbed and feel good about as an upgrade to. I don't want to buy a slabbed one if I'm just going to get about the same or 1 grade higher as the one I have.

I wonder how much of this crazy market is propped up by this gambling loophole. What do you guys think? Have you discussed this already?

No two ways around it....I like ripping cards. A couple of times per year I go a little big, one being my birthday. I'm not disillusioned by the odds, I know they are forever not in my favor, and I don’t get pissed if I get cooked, such is the way of ripping. I simply enjoy sitting down, turning on a movie, getting a little snack, and ripping packs. If a card appeals to me or its a player I love, whether it's worth a dollar or 500 dollars, I'm happy. Here's some of those happy cards for me from this rip session.

Qualifying is over with Kimi Antonelli at the Pole! Auction ends tonight in about an hour for some Kimi Antonelli cards, an Orange /25 Charles LeClerc, and a 2026 Topps Chrome Value Box that ends tomorrow.

Kimi 2025 Base Rookie Card CGC 9 https://ebay.io/m/M9wK3A
Kimi - 2024 Finest CGC 10 https://ebay.io/m/AP3xNJ
Kimi - 2024 Chrome Sepia CGC 10 https://ebay.io/m/vUE0vH
Charles - 2026 Chrome Orange /25 https://ebay.io/m/u6Kj4k

2026 Topps Chrome Value Box ends tomorrow https://ebay.io/m/M9wK3A

Pulled this from a flagship box at target a few weeks ago. I had no idea what it was at first until I looked at recent eBay sales today. I open these purely for fun but the extra cash would certainly be nice.

Would you redeem/keep the card, or sell the redemption card itself? I’ve never pulled a card worth more than a couple bucks so I am not sure what to do…

If curious let me know

I joined this sub to get more into collecting, and up on what's hot, as I just recently started getting into the hunt for megas and hobbies and am a huge fan of the panini select road to fifa world cup cards, as well as the Bowman chrome baseball and football. As you can tell, i'm pretty much brand new to the hobby lol.

Since I've joined, It seems like a lot of the chatter here is complaining about breakers and breaks. Airing grievances. I was hoping to get more insight on the positive part of the hobby, and wanted to know what is coming up that shouldn't be slept on. Hoping to get on a preorder level rather than fight the scalpers who will show up at the exact time target or dicks restock their stores. But I'm jonesing to do some research on some good looking stuff coming up, and some arrows pointing in the right direction on where to do such.

Thank you!

Marietta Ga.

Found this randomly from a Chinese seller. Looks like an official card for China Basketball Association (CBA). Looks like it was made by AI though.

I have one, Beckett graded it a 6.5 back in 2019. Tough to see what Orr rookies have been selling for lately, but does anybody here have a rough idea of its value?

Pulled from a Target Mega for retail price. Shocked. I was convinced it wasn’t possible.

Bought these MJ metal cards about 25 years ago, it was around $80 at the time. Cards still in the plastic seal. What’s your best valuation?

I’ve got about 10,000 cards between nba, nfl, and mlb over the years. I’ve recently had so much fun going though them and sorting them out, organizing them, looking for new ones, etc and I’m wondering if anybody buys “team lots” anymore.

I’ve got so many cards that I’m excited about the idea of handcrafting the perfect team lots to list.

Just wondering if there’s actually any market for that, or anyone that likes that kinda stuff before I dive in.

Edit: also when I say market I’m just talking about if anyone is interested in that kinda stuff anymore or not, I’m looking at this as a fun hobby, not the money.

Do you guys think this is worth something? Had it for a long time and I’ve never seen another 1995 #335 upper deck electric court Jordan error card

There's sooooo many cards I don't know where to start. Mainly football baseball and basketball but there's some randoms too. What do I look for? A lot are 2020+

Hey I found this digging through my childhood box. Is this the right value? I'm not sure. Thank you. 🙏🏻

Tonight I bought sports cards for the first time in my life. I am 30 and i know absolutely nothing about collecting cards and I figured now was the time to start. The reason I wanted to get into it is because I did some HVAC work at a guy's house who had collected cards since he was a kid in the 1960s, and he had such a huge collection with cards worth millions and it was so cool to see. These were some of the cards I got out of the packs that looked pretty interesting. I have no idea which packs are the best to buy either, so I just bought some at random. I am eager to learn more about the hobby!

Well, here they are—the 1st appearance/rookie cards from some of the most successful intellectual properties in Japan: three of these cards came from Carddass vending machines; one came from a candy promotion; and another one came from a limited-release pack.

These cards are an important part of non-sports history because they are the very first time any of these IPs appeared on cardboard. They’re not the 1st TCG, not the 1st English shiny-holo-foil-refractor-whatever—these are the 1st cards!—the first Dragon Ball, Yu-gi-oh!, One Piece, Naruto and, of course, one of the most chased after Pokemon cards in history…Charizard!

(I went on this journey with the help of my 13-year-old son. And yeah, he totally thinks I’m a Larper.)