An autographed Tom Brady rookie card broke its previous sale record on Friday when an anonymous buyer purchased one for $2.25 million through Lelands, a sports memorabilia and card auction site. This sale was nearly $1 million over the previous record, when a similar card was sold for $1.32 million back in March.
The card itself is a 2000 Playoff Contenders Championship Rookie Ticket that was autographed and one of just 100 made. Fitbit CEO James Park purchased one in March. His card was rated an 8/10 for card quality, and 10/10 for autograph quality. The one purchased Friday was an 8.5 and 9, respectively.
“I wasn’t shocked (by the price), but I was certainly surprised,” Lelands president Mike Heffner said, per ESPN. “I know the market is headed upward, especially with rare and desirable cards such as that one, but I didn’t really anticipate it. I had an inkling just feeling the performance of the other cards over the past month, it was certainly a possibility but these modern cards are definitely for real.”
The first of those two cards had smashed a previous record for most expensive NFL rookie card. That record used to belong to a Patrick Mahomes rookie card, which sold for $861,000 in February — though that card is even more rare, with only five in existence.
These high price tags for trading cards are emblematic of the recent explosion in card collecting that has happened throughout the country since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.