The best way to describe the ceiling for Shohei Ohtani’s baseball card market might be as “breakable,” as he’s established new highs time and time again.

Gauging when Ohtani’s ceiling will become a more permanent fixture, though, is an ongoing and possibly never-ending exercise. Take, for example, the plight of Randy Boudreaux.

The CEO of House of Cards, a Metairie, La. based sports card shop, said he once traded an Ohtani 2018 Topps Transcendent autographed rookie card (serial numbered to five) with a Gem-Mint 10 grade from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) for a 2018 one-of-a-kind Josh Allen rookie patch autographed card. At the time of the trade in 2020, Boudreaux said he valued the Allen card at about $10,000. Three years later, he said he saw the Ohtani card he once owned sell well into the six-digit range. 

Boudreaux simply said Thursday, “It’s all part of the game!” 

The ceilings have only continued to shatter throughout the past 18 months since Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season. A historic 50/50 season and a World Series ring in 2024 only maintained the upward trajectory for Ohtani’s card market. But his iconic three home runs at the plate combined with 10 strikeouts in six innings pitched in Game 4 of this year’s NLCS — dubbed by The Athletic’s Jayson Stark as the greatest individual performance in baseball history — have propelled Ohtani’s card market higher into the stratosphere.

Ohtani’s 2018 Bowman Chrome rookie card in a PSA 10 (population: 4,825) sold on average for $3,472 as of Wednesday, according to Market Movers — an online trading card sales database. That’s a 233 percent price hike from six months ago.

The card carried average sales of $1,042 in late April. Almost six months later, these cards were up 96 percent with average sales of $2,041 as of Oct. 17. It only took one week after Ohtani’s iconic NLCS performance for the card to launch another 75 percent higher than its previous averages. 

A similar price jump occurred with Ohtani’s 2018 Topps Chrome No. 150 Refractor PSA 10 rookie card.

The Refractor (population: 1,782), a popular parallel of his Topps Chrome base card, sold for $675 on average in late April and steadily climbed to an average of $1,388 as of Oct. 17 — a 106 percent jump. Then the card trampolined within the past week with average sales of $2,063. That’s a 206 percent increase from late April.

“A year ago, I got made fun of because I used to tell people on my streams on Whatnot and in other places that Shohei Ohtani is the greatest player to ever step on a baseball field for that second,” former Leaf Trading Cards CEO Brian Gray said. “Now, his career body of work, obviously, he’s got to put up a career set of stats to be called the goat of history or whatever in baseball. He has proven that he is the greatest player to ever play the game for any period of time. 

“And his cards are reflective of that.”

What may be more telling of the current strength of Ohtani’s market is how much his more common PSA 10 graded rookie cards are selling. Two of his most heavily printed base rookie cards are up between 97 percent and 105 percent from six months ago.

Ohtani’s 2018 Topps No. 700 card with a PSA 10 grade sold on average for $180 in late April. Two weeks ago, the card carried average sales of $233. Those cards are currently averaging $369. This comes even with a population count of more than 10,500.

The 2018 Topps Chrome No. 150 PSA 10 averaged $199 six months ago. It’s now up to $391, even with a pop count north of 14,000.

“Specifically, the guys who are solidified — the Kobes, the LeBrons, the Jordans, the Currys — those markets are skyrocketing right now because what people are realizing, the general public is realizing that these are cards of GOATs,” Boudreaux said. “So I think Ohtani is falling in that (category) even though he’s actively playing and still young. He’s solidified himself.”

Spikes in prices often occur within the sports card world during the postseason when certain players produce on the field. Then, once the season ends, those prices often return closer to pre-postseason values and collector interest shifts to other sports. Therefore, it might be a good idea to sell off Ohtani’s more common, high-population cards while the market is hot right now (and buy them back at lower prices in the offseason if you still want them in your collection). However, at this point, for his autographed and rarer cards, they may never decrease again.

“You’re seeing this parabolic spike where people who have ultra high-end Ohtani cards don’t even want to sell anymore,” Gray said. “They are now convinced that he’s the greatest player of all time. Every person who’s ever sold Kobe, Jordan, LeBron, they’ve all been proven foolish for selling great cards. 
No matter even when it felt like it was too high, it was a mistake to sell at any point. … It feels like even though it’s a little frothy, it feels like there’s plenty of upside (with Ohtani).”

Boudreaux added: “It’s hard because a lot of people are already going to enshrine him as the greatest baseball player of all time, and I don’t blame them. I would still have a little bit of reservation with that, but I do think he’s pretty close at this point. You’ve got to imagine at some point there has to be a theoretical ceiling, but he’s such a unicorn that you don’t know how to judge it.”

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