Fanatics Collect Auction Results - Weekly Auction #238 Recap

Weekly Auction #238 is officially in the books, with 57 Arthur’s Cards & Collectibles listings sold across football, baseball, soccer, and Bo Jackson Battle Arena Tecmo Bowl.

The auction generated 275 total bids, with an average buyer price of $14.99 and a median buyer price of $12.00, including the Fanatics Collect buyer’s premium.

Football supplied the highest sale of the week behind a Caleb Williams rookie, while Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland led a strong group of 2025 Finest UEFA cards. An Alex Rodriguez rookie topped baseball, and several of the more distinctive Tecmo Bowl Battlefoil parallels separated themselves from a large group of affordable graded cards.

Weekly Auction #238 at a Glance

Listings sold: 57
Total bids: 275
Average buyer price: $14.99
Median buyer price: $12.00
Listings at $30 or less: 54
Including 41 at $18 or less

Buyer prices include the 20% Fanatics Collect buyer’s premium. Individual results below show both the hammer price and final buyer price.

Top Auction Results

2024 Select Certified Caleb Williams Rookie #1 CGC 10 Gem Mint

Hammer price: $36
Buyer price: $43.20
Bids: 12

Caleb Williams finished as the top result in Weekly Auction #238, with his 2024 Select Certified rookie reaching a $36 hammer on 12 bids.

The result helped football claim the top spot in a week that featured several recognizable young quarterbacks and established NFL stars. Williams combined rookie appeal, a CGC 10 grade, and the popularity of Select to produce the auction’s only hammer price above $30.

2025 Finest UEFA Club Competitions Shadow Play Kylian Mbappé #SH-2 CGC 10 Pristine

Hammer price: $29
Buyer price: $34.80
Bids: 13

Kylian Mbappé finished second overall and attracted an auction-high 13 bids.

The Shadow Play insert also carried a CGC 10 Pristine grade, giving collectors a combination of an internationally recognized player, a distinctive Finest insert, and a premium grade.

The bidding activity may be just as notable as the final price. Mbappé attracted more bids than any other listing in the auction and helped establish soccer as one of the stronger categories of the week.

1994 Flair Alex Rodriguez Rookie #340 CGC 10 Gem Mint

Hammer price: $26
Buyer price: $31.20
Bids: 8

Alex Rodriguez led the baseball group with his 1994 Flair rookie finishing at $26.

The card stood out from a baseball lineup that included Bryce Harper, Mike Schmidt, Barry Bonds, Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken Jr., and Larry Walker.

Despite being an unnumbered card from the 1990s, the combination of rookie status, Flair’s premium design, a major star, and a CGC 10 grade was enough to make it the third-highest result in the entire auction.

2024 Score Football Drake Maye Rookie #303 CGC 10 Gem Mint

Hammer price: $24
Buyer price: $28.80
Bids: 9

Drake Maye gave football another strong result, reaching $24 with nine bids.

Like Williams, Maye benefited from rookie-year interest and a Gem Mint grade. The result was particularly notable considering the card comes from the relatively accessible Score product rather than one of football’s more expensive chromium releases.

It was another example of player and rookie demand giving collectors a clear reason to compete even when the underlying card is not especially scarce.

2025 Finest UEFA Club Competitions Finest of the Millennium Erling Haaland #FM-7 CGC 10 Gem

Hammer price: $24
Buyer price: $28.80
Bids: 11

Erling Haaland matched Maye at a $24 hammer and attracted 11 bids, tying for the third-highest bid total of the week.

Along with Mbappé, Haaland helped give the 2025 Finest UEFA group a strong showing. Both players reached the top five despite neither card being serial numbered.

The result again reinforced the importance of the combination of player recognition, visual appeal, insert identity, and grade within modern soccer.

2023 Absolute Star Gazing Spectrum Blue Jordan Love Jersey Number Match #10/50 #SG-8 CGC 10 Gem Mint

Hammer price: $22
Buyer price: $26.40
Bids: 5

Jordan Love’s Spectrum Blue Star Gazing card finished at $22.

The card was one of the more structurally scarce football cards in the auction, carrying a 10/50 serial number that matches Love’s jersey number, along with a CGC 10 grade.

Although it did not generate the bid volume of Williams, Maye, or Mahomes, it still finished as the sixth-highest sale of the week and added another football card near the top of the results.

Most Active Bidding

Several listings stood out not only because of their final prices, but also because of the amount of bidding activity they generated.

Football Results

Football was the strongest traditional sports category in Weekly Auction #238.

The ten football listings generated 65 bids, and eight of the ten finished with hammer prices of at least $16.

Caleb Williams led the entire auction at $36, while Drake Maye reached $24 and Patrick Mahomes II finished at $21 with nine bids.

Other football results included:

• Jordan Love Spectrum Blue Jersey #10/50 CGC 10 — $22
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba Prizm Draft Picks Green Rookie CGC 10 — $20
• Brock Bowers Prizm Green Wave Rookie CGC 9 — $18
• DeVonta Smith Select Silver Die-Cut CGC 10 — $16
• Jaxon Smith-Njigba Funkadelic Emerald Rookie CGC 9 — $16
• Xavier Worthy Prizm Silver Rookie CGC 8 — $15
• Saquon Barkley Select Green & Yellow Die-Cut CGC 7 — $15

One of the more interesting aspects of the category was how well recognizable players held up even when the numerical grade was below Gem Mint.

Mahomes reached $21 in a CGC 9, while Xavier Worthy and Saquon Barkley each reached $15 despite CGC 8 and CGC 7 grades, respectively.

At the same time, rookie demand was evident at the top. Williams and Maye occupied two of the auction’s four highest positions, while Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Brock Bowers, and Xavier Worthy gave younger players additional representation throughout the category.

Soccer Results

Soccer produced some of the most active bidding of the auction.

Kylian Mbappé’s Shadow Play insert led the category at $29 with 13 bids, while Erling Haaland followed at $24 with 11 bids.

Other soccer results included:

• Gareth Bale Prized Footballers CGC 10 Pristine — $19
• Mohamed Salah Purple Checkerboard Refractor /150 CGC 9 — $13
• Julián Álvarez Prized Footballers CGC 10 — $12
• Paul Pogba CGC 10 — $10
• Lionel Messi Donruss FIFA Cubic CGC 7 — $9

The category showed a clear concentration around the strongest combinations of player, insert, and grade.

Mbappé and Haaland were not serial-numbered cards, yet they comfortably outperformed Salah’s Purple Checkerboard /150.

That does not make serial numbering irrelevant. Instead, the results demonstrate that scarcity operates alongside player demand, condition, set appeal, and visual presentation rather than automatically determining the final price.

Messi offered another useful example. Despite being arguably the most recognizable player in the group, his 2023 Donruss FIFA Cubic finished at $9 in a CGC 7.

Baseball Results

Alex Rodriguez led baseball with his 1994 Flair rookie reaching $26.

The result was followed by a 2025 Topps Chrome Platinum '55 Double Headers card featuring Mike Schmidt and Bryce Harper at $19, while Trey Yesavage’s 2024 Panini Stars & Stripes rookie reached $18 with seven bids.

Other baseball results included:

• Will Warren 2025 Topps '90 Rookie Auto CGC 9.5 — $12
• Larry Walker 2020 Topps Update Turkey Red CGC 10 — $11
• Barry Bonds 1995 Flair Hot Numbers CGC 6 — $9
• Cal Ripken Jr. 2024 Topps '89 Foil CGC 9 — $9
• Derek Jeter 1997 Bowman Chrome CGC 8.5 — $8
• Arjun Nimmala 2024 Bowman Prospect CGC 10 — $7

The Rodriguez result was particularly interesting because it showed that an established 1990s rookie can still compete effectively against newer inserts, prospects, autographs, and serial-numbered cards when the player and grade line up.

Meanwhile, several recognizable veteran names remained inexpensive. Bonds, Ripken, Jeter, and Walker all finished between $8 and $11, giving buyers access to graded cards of accomplished stars without significant bidding pressure.

Bo Jackson Battle Arena Tecmo Bowl Results

The largest portion of Weekly Auction #238 came from 2026 Bo Jackson Battle Arena Tecmo Bowl, with 31 graded cards finding buyers.

Most remained affordable, but a handful of the more distinctive Battlefoil versions separated themselves from the rest of the group.

The Skyline Battlefoil Merlomes CGC 10 led the category at $19 with 11 bids, tying Haaland for the third-highest bid total in the entire auction.

Other notable Tecmo Bowl results included:

• 80's 8-Bit Rad Battlefoil Dentist CGC 10 — $18
• Battlefoil Merlomes CGC 10 — $14
• Silver Battlefoil Boom CGC 10 — $14
• 1st Edition Battlefoil Judkernaught CGC 10 — $12
• Scoreboard Battlefoil Amigo One CGC 10 — $11
• 1st Edition Battlefoil Skatter CGC 9.5 — $10
• Sore Thumb Battlefoil BrockNess CGC 10 Pristine — $10
• 1st Edition Sore Thumb Battlefoil Reindeer Hunter CGC 10 — $10
• Battlefoil Yeti CGC 10 — $10

The broader group generally settled into the $6-$10 range, but the stronger parallel treatments created noticeable separation.

Merlomes provided perhaps the clearest example. The Skyline Battlefoil reached $19 with 11 bids, while the standard Battlefoil version reached $14 with six bids.

That suggests collectors were willing to distinguish between variations rather than treating every Tecmo Bowl CGC 10 as essentially interchangeable.

The category also showed the importance of recognizable parody characters and premium-looking parallel treatments. Skyline, 80's 8-Bit Rad, Silver, Scoreboard, and 1st Edition Battlefoils generally produced the more competitive results within the group.

Collector-Friendly Results

Weekly Auction #238 was especially accessible from a buyer’s perspective.

Of the 57 sold listings, 54 cost buyers $30 or less, including 41 with final buyer prices of $18 or less.

Only three cards crossed the $30 buyer-price mark:

• Caleb Williams — $43.20
• Kylian Mbappé — $34.80
• Alex Rodriguez — $31.20

That made this a very different auction from weeks driven by a small number of higher-dollar cards.

The $14.99 average buyer price and $12 median buyer price were relatively close together, showing that the average was not being substantially distorted by one or two outsized sales.

Collectors were able to pick up graded cards of Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Patrick Mahomes II, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Lionel Messi, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken Jr., Larry Walker, and numerous Tecmo Bowl subjects without the auction moving into premium price territory.

Arthur's Market Notes & Insights

Now for the fun part: interpreting the results.

The individual sale prices tell us what happened, but the more interesting question is what—if anything—we can actually take away from them. The following is what we understood the market to be telling us this week.

Traditional Football Cards

Traditional football continued to show signs of heating up as the NFL preseason officially got underway. That is a trend we expect to continue as we move closer to the regular season.

There also appears to be some additional energy around the category with Topps once again producing fully licensed NFL cards, giving collectors another reason to pay attention as the season approaches.

This week's results reflected some of that enthusiasm. Caleb Williams led the entire auction, while Drake Maye, Jordan Love, Patrick Mahomes II, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and Brock Bowers all produced respectable results.

We would not read too much into one week, but football is a category we expect to receive more attention over the next couple of months simply because collectors finally have actual football to react to again.

The results also continued to reinforce the idea that "the trend is your friend" when it comes to football cards. Right now, demand remains heavily concentrated around quarterbacks, with a select group of top positional players able to break through.

That doesn't necessarily mean every quarterback is worth chasing. But when choosing where to allocate money within football, the market continues to give us a pretty clear indication of where collector attention is concentrated.

Tecmo Bowl

The Tecmo Bowl results were interesting, to say the least.

Personally, we really like these cards.

They offer something different at a time when new traditional sports-card products seem to enter the market almost every week. The designs are fun, the characters are memorable, and the cards do not take themselves particularly seriously.

We were also happy to see most of the group remain affordable.

It can be tempting to look at a $6, $8, or $10 graded-card result and automatically view it as disappointing, but we are not sure that is the right way to think about this particular set.

At the end of the day, these cards are designed to be fun—and, importantly, accessible. They are the type of cards a younger collector can actually buy, trade, and build a collection around without needing hundreds of dollars.

We think that affordability could ultimately be a positive for the set rather than a weakness.

If every desirable card immediately becomes a $50, $100, or $500 collectible, it becomes much harder for new collectors—especially kids—to participate. Tecmo Bowl does not need to become an expensive product to be successful.

The results also showed some differentiation within the set. Most cards established an affordable baseline, while stronger characters and more visually distinctive Battlefoil variations such as Skyline Merlomes and 80's 8-Bit Rad Dentist were able to separate themselves.

That is about where we would like to see the market right now: accessible enough that collectors can actually collect the set, but with enough variation for certain cards to become more desirable over time.

Soccer

Soccer provided one of the more interesting comparisons of the week because the results came shortly after the World Cup.

Mbappé and Haaland both strengthened their standing among the sport's biggest stars with strong tournament performances, and their cards were also the strongest soccer performers in this auction.

Mbappé's Shadow Play insert reached $29, while Haaland's Finest of the Millennium reached $24.

On the other side, Mohamed Salah's Purple Checkerboard /150 finished at $13, while Julián Álvarez's Prized Footballers card finished at $12.

Our interpretation is that the World Cup may still be influencing how collectors are viewing these players in the short term.

Strong performances can reinforce the perception that a player belongs among the very top tier of the sport. A quieter tournament can do the opposite—or at least create some hesitation when collectors are deciding where to spend their money.

That does not mean Salah or Álvarez suddenly have weak collector markets. Far from it.

What the results may be telling us is that, at least right now, the cards themselves did not carry much value beyond the combination of the player and the grade. In other words, they were worthwhile cards to have graded, but there was not enough additional demand for those particular issues to push them significantly higher.

Another consideration for these two players is that there are some club-level storylines worth watching.

Álvarez remains with Atlético Madrid but has been the subject of considerable transfer speculation this summer. From a collecting standpoint, that uncertainty may also help explain some hesitation.

One of the challenges he faced at Manchester City was playing alongside Haaland, arguably the most dominant striker in the sport. Atlético has given Álvarez more room to establish his own identity, but another move would introduce a new set of questions. Would joining a club like Barcelona elevate his global profile, or put him alongside another group of stars competing for attention? And if one of Europe's biggest clubs ultimately decides not to make a deal happen, does that change how collectors perceive his ceiling?

Regardless of the outcome, we continue to like his long-term potential—especially at current values.

Salah's situation, although more certain at this point, is potentially more challenging from a hobby perspective. He recently left Liverpool for Trabzonspor in the Turkish Süper Lig after nearly a decade in the Premier League.

That does not change what Salah accomplished at Liverpool or his status as one of the best players of his generation. But moving away from the Premier League could reduce his week-to-week exposure to the broader collecting audience.

It may also raise the expectations surrounding his performance. A dominant season in Turkey could reinforce his stature, while merely good production may receive less attention than the same numbers would have generated at Liverpool.

Could he clear that higher bar? Absolutely. He's that good.

But it adds another variable to watch as we try to understand where his card market goes from here.

As always, these are only a handful of cards from one auction. We would not treat the results as evidence of a broader decline in either Salah's or Álvarez's market. What they do give us is another data point—and a few storylines worth following in future auctions.

Baseball

Baseball continues to be the category we find the most difficult to read right now.

Outside of higher-end cards and the most heavily hyped prospects, the results we’ve been seeing have generally felt subdued compared with what we became accustomed to over the last couple of years.

Some of that may simply reflect the season itself.

There has not been one dominant offensive storyline capturing the broader sports audience. Aaron Judge has been sidelined since the end of May with a fractured rib. Roman Anthony, one of the early-season rookie sensations, has missed much of the season after suffering a right wrist injury in early May. Munetaka Murakami has shown serious power potential, but a midseason hamstring injury and low batting average have also raised some questions. Even Shohei Ohtani—while still producing at an elite level—has looked relatively human at the plate compared with the historic standards he has set in recent seasons.

That matters because hobby interest does not exist in a vacuum.

Big performances, record chases, breakout rookies, playoff races, and national storylines give collectors a reason to suddenly care about a player or card. When fewer of those narratives are dominating the season, the middle of the baseball-card market can feel noticeably quieter.

That seemed to show up again this week.

Alex Rodriguez's 1994 Flair rookie was the strongest baseball result at $26, while several established names—including Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken Jr., Derek Jeter, and Larry Walker—remained firmly in the affordable range.

We do not necessarily view that as a negative.

In fact, quieter stretches can create some of the better buying opportunities because collectors are not competing over every recognizable name.

But at least from what we are seeing in our own auctions, baseball buyers remain selective. The cards that separate themselves generally need something extra—a premium rookie, significant scarcity, a desirable prospect, an autograph, or a genuinely distinctive insert.

For everything else, patience may be required.