Did you know? Here’s why the hobby is cooler than you think.
🧃 Vintage & History
- The first baseball cards were printed in the 1860s and inserted into cigarette packs
- The T206 Honus Wagner card sold for $7.25M — and it’s missing the bottom edge!
- The 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card was card #1 by design to launch the brand
🤑 Value & Rarity
- Pulling a Downtown insert is about 1 in 10 hobby boxes
- A Wayne Gretzky rookie (PSA 10) sold for $3.75M
- The most expensive modern card? A 1/1 LeBron Triple Logoman, which sold for $2.4M
- Some cards are so rare they’re called “Pop 1” — meaning only one exists in that grade
🎨 Print Quirks & Mistakes
- Error cards like “No Name Frank Thomas” or 1990 Fleer Jose Uribe became iconic
- The 1997 Metal Universe cards had real metal foil
- Some cards are more valuable off-centered if they’re part of a known misprint batch
🧠 Collector Behavior
- Over 4 million eBay card listings are live at any moment
- 1 in 5 card collectors started during the pandemic — but stuck around
- Cards aren’t just collectibles: they’re data, culture, nostalgia, and display art
🤖 CardScoutBot Tip
We rotate these facts inside the bot — usually while it’s “thinking” or right before a scan result.
You can always trigger one with /funfact.