Are you a card aficionado? Need some additions to your collection? Maybe LeBron James‘ limited edition legacy card will do. Or how about a Victor Wembanyama special version? Well, then it’s time to get ready with a bag! Topps Mercury presents an opportunity to grab both of those, but things only get sweeter. On Tuesday, the company announced that they are releasing the first-ever Wemby & Bron dual autograph card! A significant moment in card history, one might say!
This autographed collectible only has 6 copies in existence, with one Superfractor edition and a Red version- limited to 5 copies. The autographed card forces collectors to roll back their calendars, as it has impressions from the hoopers’ rookie seasons where both of them won the ROTY awards. LeBron James achieved the feat in the 2003-04 season and Wemby won it last season.
While this might impress a lot of avid trading card collectors, Bronny James doesn’t seem to be a fan of the young Frenchman’s cards because of a recent instance. A video surfaced where LeBron’s son was seen pulling cards during the Topps Hobby Rip Night, hosted at Rizo Sports in Santa Monica. The new Lakers addition opened a pack and found a Victor Wembanyama rookie card, but his mild reaction was starkly contrasting from that of the host and the gathered crowd.
However, that, in no way, means card collectors will change their minds over the latest Topps release. What do they have to say?
Fans make distinct observations after LeBron James-Victor Wembanyama collab shakes up the game
Topps is well known for its baseball trading cards. And now, their jump to the basketball hemisphere, after the whole saga with Panini, will certainly boost their $1.3bn net worth. “Topps did a great job with this card!”, wrote an X user after seeing a picture of the card on the social media platform. The card has LeBron James and Victor Wembanyama facing each other with both of their signatures above their ROTY win season. But the alignment of the two stars on the card has caught the eye as well.
“Beautiful card but Topps should of printed a centered 1/1 for them to sign first,” a fan wrote. On second viewing, the figures on the card seem to be not centrally aligned. King James’ candid picture takes up more than half of the card with the young star cornered on the left side, handling the ball. For a rare edition card, that’s a ‘rare fault’ that can cause trouble to raise the price of it.
Talking of the price, a fan added, “That piece of cardboard could put my son through College.” Trading cards don’t come cheap and the Topps Chrome Hobby box won’t be either. Each box is reportedly worth $8000 and on October 9, at 12:00 p.m. ET, a drawing for these boxes is expected to be launched on the Topps website. So that might be quite a hefty affair for many, but one thing is for sure, there will be buyers!
Recognizing it, an awestruck fan wrote, “7 figure card with or without a bounty right here.” In August, sports-card hobbyist Jared Bleznick laid out his intention to pay $1 million for a ‘one-of-one Superfractor rookie card’ carrying Victor Wembanyama’s autograph. Despite the underwhelming sales of the Frenchman’s trading cards, the LeBron James dual edition can shoot up the sales.
The 03-04 LeBron James Exquisite Collection Rookie Parallel Card #78 was sold for $5.2 million in 2021, making it the costliest LBJ card out there. The response from this preview on the internet certainly proves that the upcoming release has the potential to reach somewhere around that figure. After all, having a card consisting of LeBron and Wemby is a flex in itself.
What do you think?
