Caitlin Clark rookie card sells for $660,000, smashing women's sports card record

New York Times

a day ago

Another Caitlin Clark card, another record for the most expensive women's sports card ever.
Clark's 2024 Panini WNBA Rookie Royalty Flawless patch autographed one-of-one rookie card sold for $660,000 through Fanatics Collect's July Premier auction Thursday night. This card nearly doubled the March sale of a different one-of-a-kind Clark card, her 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl autograph rookie card, which went for $366,000 through Goldin Auctions.
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This record sale could have quick competition, though. Clark's one-of-a-kind Immaculate patch autographed rookie card, also from the Rookie Royalty set, is up for auction. The card currently holds a price of $219,600 on Goldin with the auction set to end Aug. 9.
Thursday's sale is another example of Clark's card market being unfazed by her injury riddled 2025 season. She's only played in 13 of the Indiana Fever's 25 games so far — even missing this year's WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis — with calf and groin injuries.
A few key elements set the Rookie Royalty one-of-ones apart from the Prizm card that previously held the record sale.
The autograph on the Flawless and Immaculate cards are directly on the card — this is far more desirable to collectors than autographed stickers that are placed on cards, which is what the Prizm card has. In addition, the Flawless and Immaculate cards also feature the WNBA 'Logowoman' patch from Indiana Fever jerseys. Even though they're from jerseys that weren't personally worn by Clark, league logo patches command a premium in cards.
Clark also inscribed the Flawless card with '769 pts and counting.' This refers to how many points she scored during her 2024 campaign in which she won the WNBA rookie of the year award. The Immaculate card is inscribed with 'ROY 24' to signify Clark's rookie of the year honors.
The Flawless and Immaculate brands typically stand as two of Panini's top high-end products, meaning the cards from those sets command some of the highest price tags for collectors to buy on the secondary market. Flawless and Immaculate have traditionally been a stand-alone sets, but Panini inserted the brands and other high-end company labels like National Treasures and Noir within the Rookie Royalty boxes. That means there is also a similar one-of-a-kind National Treasures Clark Logowoman autographed card in Rookie Royalty, too. This wasn't the only part of the unusual set up.
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Panini launched its Dutch auction for the boxes containing two cards starting at $30,000. Most boxes sold for around $4,000, though. Each box includes just two cards and is guaranteed to contain an on-card autograph of either Clark or Angel Reese and a Downtown or Kaboom insert of one of 12 players (including Clark and Reese).
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