PSA published its April 2026 grading report this week. The Top 5 categories, in order: Pokémon, One Piece, Baseball, Basketball, Football. Read that order again. Two trading-card-game properties came in ahead of every American major sport. PSA’s April 2026 Top 5 categories. Pokémon: 1,189,145. One Piece: 241,586. Baseball: 222,217. Basketball: 188,716. Football: 151,488. The numbers…
As of April 1, 2026, one company controls every newly issued licensed sports trading card in America. Fanatics — through its subsidiary Topps — now holds exclusive, long-term licensing deals with the NFL, NBA, and MLB, plus their respective players’ associations. Six deals. Up to twenty years each. No competing manufacturer. No alternative product. For…
Scammers use real Beckett cert numbers on fake autographs. And even when authenticators examine items in person, they can’t agree — PSA authenticated a Lindbergh autograph, rejected it, then authenticated it again.
Brian Wolfe was seen as a trusted breaker. A guy people knew from industry conferences and Panini parties. Now he’s being accused of scamming collectors out of thousands through empty packages, ghosted messages, and shipments that never arrived. Multiple hobbyists went public this week with receipts showing a pattern: deals that only accepted CashApp or…
A New York card shop pulled a Cy Young 1/1 cut signature from 2022 Topps Series 2, but Steve Grad and other authenticators immediately questioned its legitimacy.
Whatnot just got hit with arbitration demands claiming it operates an illegal gambling operation. The platform says it’s nonsense. The hobby says it’s nothing new. But here’s what very few people are talking about: Fanatics Live does the exact same thing. St. Louis attorney Paul Lesko filed 15 arbitration demands against Whatnot on behalf of…
This week, we published an article about fake Beckett authentication stickers being sold on eBay, allegedly by someone connected to the company. The story detailed suspicious eBay accounts and collectors losing thousands on items with forged COAs. Steve Grad—who recently left Beckett Authentication after 24 years—responded. In a video posted to Sports Card Radio Clips‘ YouTube channel, Grad…
Junk Wax Sal—ranked on SCR’s Hobby Influencer Rankings—posted what thousands of collectors are thinking: “Fanatics, can you suck any harder? I add Bowman’s Best to my cart the second it goes live. After numerous errors, get a 20 minute wait to checkout. By the time my 20 minutes is up, says 10 boxes aren’t available, your…
Sports card collectors are hitting a breaking point with grading companies, Fanatics pricing, and breaker practices, according to a YouTube creator whose recent video is resonating across the hobby. Mike, who runs the channel “Baseball Collector,” argues the hobby itself is healthy and growing, but the industry side is pushing collectors toward a revolt. “The…
A group breaker on TikTok posted a warning this weekend after buying what turned out to be an entire lot of fake PSA slabs. ACBreakz posted to Discord Saturday evening that he bought the cards in person, only to find out every single slab was counterfeit. “Every card is counterfeit,” he wrote. “The PSA numbers…
A hobby shop owner’s frustration with the retail vs. hobby product divide sparked debate on X this week after a high-end hit from a Target blaster. Alex Altenhof, owner of Michiana Sports Cards in Granger, Indiana, posted his complaint Tuesday morning: “As a hobby shop owner, it bothers me so much when a product hit…
A North Carolina card show promoter is claiming “competitors” tried to sabotage their Raleigh event by scheduling a Charlotte show on the same weekend — but the alleged sabotage appears to have backfired. Tidewater Cards & Collectibles posted on social media Saturday that their Feb 27-March 1 show at the NC State Fairgrounds broke attendance…
Brian Gray ran Leaf Trading Cards for 13 years and left in August 2023 citing burnout. The timing told a different story.
The complete deep-dive on the 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken ‘FF’ card — every known variant decoded, current market values, PSA pop data, and the truth behind one of the hobby’s greatest mysteries.
Dappz Sports owes a vendor ,275 from an August 2025 invoice. Six months later, they’re still ghosting—while launching Dappz Kicks. Here’s the timeline of how not to run a business.
On Sunday, Logan Paul sold a Pikachu Illustrator card for $16,492,000. It’s the most expensive trading card ever sold. And the hobby should be furious. Logan Paul wearing the PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator — the card just sold for $16.49 million. Not because a Pokémon card broke the record. Because of everything that happened before…
One company now controls 80% of card grading — PSA, Beckett, and SGC under one roof — and just raised prices for the second time in six months while a congressman demands FTC action.