Shohei Ohtani card sells for $11 million, becomes third-most-expensive sports card

ROSEMONT, Ill. — Matthew Allen, known in the trading card world as “Shyne,” became entranced the moment he laid eyes on the Shohei Ohtani 2026 Topps Chrome Back-to-Back dual Gold Logoman dual patch autographed card.

“It’s the perfect card,” Allen told The Athletic Thursday afternoon at the National Sports Collectors Convention. The card features two special gold MLB logo jersey patches Ohtani has worn the last two seasons to mark his consecutive NL MVP awards in 2024 and 2025. It’s also autographed with his standard signature and his Kanji signature, which he more rarely uses.

Allen and his partners Kevin O’Leary and Paul Warshaw in Secure Collectibles, a high-end trading card investment firm, showed the sports card industry how much “the perfect card” costs by paying $11 million for it, easily making the biggest splash sale of the National so far.

---

Top all-time publicly known sports card sales

1. $12.9 million: Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite dual NBA Logoman patch autograph one-of-one, PSA 6 card/10 auto grade (Aug. 23, 2025, Heritage auction)

2. $12.6 million: Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps, SGC 9.5 grade (Aug. 28, 2022, Heritage auction)

3. $11 million: Shohei Ohtani 2026 Topps Chrome Back-to-Back dual Gold Logoman patch autograph one-of-one, ungraded (July 30, 2026, private sale)

4. $10 million: Michael Jordan/LeBron James 2006-07 Upper Deck Exquisite dual NBA Logoman patch autograph one-of-one, ungraded (Sept. 26, 2025, private sale)

5. $7.25 million: Honus Wagner 1909 Sweet Caporal T-206, SGC 2 grade (Aug. 4, 2022, private sale)

6. $7.2 million: Babe Ruth 1914 Baltimore News, SGC 3 grade (Dec. 3, 2023, REA auction)

7. $6.6 million: Honus Wagner 1909 Sweet Caporal T-206, SGC 3 grade (Aug. 15, 2021, REA auction)

T8. $5.2 million: Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps, PSA 9 (Jan. 14, 2021, private sale)

T8. $5.2 million: LeBron James 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite rookie patch autograph numbered to 23, Beckett 9 card/10 auto grade (April 26, 2021, private sale)

T8. $5.2 million: Aaron Judge 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Pick Superfractor autograph one-of-one, Beckett 9.5 card/10 auto grade (March 12, 2026, private sale via Fanatics Collect)

---

Secure initially placed a $6.5 million public bounty on the card — an open offer to be paid to whoever pulled it from a pack of recently released 2026 Topps Chrome Baseball. Earlier Thursday, Topps announced the redemption card for this one-of-a-kind Ohtani card had been hit from a hobby box purchased by an unidentified collector at their local card shop, Boca Sports Cards in Boca Raton, Fla.

The public bounty for the Ohtani card reached at least $10 million. Allen took it a step further and made the purchase, which is the third-highest publicly known sale of a sports trading card, according to online card sales database Card Ladder. This follows the group’s purchase of the most expensive sports card to date, the $12.9 million Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite dual NBA Logoman patch autographed card purchased last year.

Allen and Warshaw sat down with The Athletic at the National to break down what went into the decision to buy the Ohtani card:

What drew you to the Ohtani card?

Allen: “The product gets released. I’m in contact with breakers, and I’m like, ‘Listen, I want the Ohtani spot in every case that you open.’ I’m using my name. I’m using burner names, and I’m in pretty much every Ohtani case break (of 2026 Topps Chrome Baseball). I’m not even watching the breaks. I figured if they hit it, I’m going to find out. …

“So I’m in the breaks, and I’m hoping to hit it. I have a few little boxes myself. Open them, no luck. But I felt it coming. I know it’s going to get hit. People are ripping like crazy for this thing. …

“So I decided to put a bounty out on the card. Somebody put a bounty out for ($2.5 million), but it wasn’t really significant enough for anybody, really. … So I just chilled, and then probably about four or five days later I decided I’m just going to put a bounty out. That way, people know that if somebody hits it and I don’t do that, I run the risk of not being contacted.

“And once I put that $6.5 million bounty out, it ignited the hobby and people started putting bounties out to catch the momentum of it. It was great, and in hindsight I look at it like, that was fun. There was some cool stuff to all these bounties going. The $10 million (offer from Hong Kong-based collectibles company Grade 10), we didn’t know it was legit at first. I have to admit I didn’t think so. So I (called), and they’re like, ‘No, this is this person and it is legit.’ …

“(Two nights ago) I get a message from a guy. Other people say they hit it, too, but they don’t know it’s redemption. So they’re sending me images of the card in their hand using AI and they’re like, ‘I told you I’m not bulls—-ing.’ They have all these packs in the background and it’s (Topps) Series One. Nick (Connolly,  Fanatics’ head of collector relations) noticed that, and it’s not legit. There’s a lot of other people (trying to scam Allen).

“… This particular guy sent me a message, and he says, ‘I hit the card and I’ll show you.’ I knew he was telling the truth.”

(Warshaw said he was sleeping.)

“So this one particular time (Warshaw’s) not answering, and I’m blowing him up, and I’m like, ‘I got to make the decision myself.’ …

“So I get on the phone with him. I negotiate with him. He says, ‘Look I want to wait until tomorrow. I’m interested in finding out what other people are willing to pay because $10 million is a significant number. An extra $2 (million) to $5 million means a lot.’ I said, ‘Look, if you give people options on this card, I’m not going to want it anymore. It’s going to take away the luster that this card has.’ … If somebody gets offered the card and they turn it down, it devalues the card because they could say. ‘I was offered that card but I passed.’

“I said I’m willing to step up and buy this card right now because of being able to control the narrative, and being it got pulled and buying it the same day. There’s a really great story with that, and the provenance of these things and all this stuff really matters to me.

“After we spoke about that a moment, he’s like, ‘Look man, if you can get the $12 million, we got a deal.’ I said, ‘Tell you what, we can do the good old-fashioned way and meet in the middle at $11 million.’

“He sits there quietly. It’s dead silence for a good 45 seconds to a minute. That’s a long time, and it was just dead silence. I know to keep my mouth shut. So he finally said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’

“It’s done.

“… So it’s amazing. I know we’re happy. I know when we told Kevin, he didn’t love it because when you don’t understand something, you don’t process it the same. Then once he understood it more, he likes it now.”

How did the original owner hit the card?

Allen: “So basically he got two hobby jumbo boxes from his local card shop. He was at his house ripping them in his office, just opening them on his phone with his friend on speakerphone with the guy with the TV on. The guy he’s talking to is not in the sports card space, and he hits the card and he tells the guy, ‘You have no idea what I just hit. I just hit a $10 million card.’

“He said he came to me first because he’s been watching me and he says that the bounty is why he came to me. He literally said, ‘Look, I know there were bigger bounties out there. I don’t know who they are, so I was just going to come to you. I know you’re going to pay more than $6.5 million once that happened.’”

While $11 million is a historic sum for an Ohtani card, surpassing the previous record set in July of $3.365 million for his one-of-one 2018 Bowman Chrome Superfractor rookie card, the question remains how much it would have gotten in a public auction versus the private negotiation that took place. Collectors will debate whether it could have gotten more.

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.