Card That Mysteriously Appeared Hits Over $100K
Remember back in February, when Jack Hughes scored the “Golden Goal” in the gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics. His overtime heroics gave the U.S. a 2-1 win over Canada – and the country’s first gold medal in men’s Olympic ice hockey since 1980.
Later that day, Topps was selling cards of Hughes celebrating his goal as a part of its “Topps Now” print-on-demand card set. The card was available for a short period of time for $11.99 each. However, one lucky buyer would receive the card with Hughes’ autograph on it, along with the inscription “Golden Goal 2/22/26 Go USA!”
Well, that card has recently surfaced, and it is currently up for bid at the Fanatics Collect auctions website. The card currently has 26 bids and is at $110,000 – and it still has 7 days to go!
Could it top the $200K mark? It probably will.
People with stupid amounts of money are spending stupid amounts of money on cards. It must be nice.
But what really bugs me is that the Topps Now Jack Hughes card was heavily publicized, but no one claimed to receive the autographed version when the cards were shipped out a month or so later.
The signed version just magically appeared in early September and then – surprise! – it is up for auction at the Fanatics website.
Topps cards are made by Fanatics.
In the past, Topps and Fanatics have used a chase element to entice upsells of its print-on-demand cards. Whereas the card might sell for $11.99 for one copy, if you buy five or more, the price drops a bit – and even more if you buy 20 of the SAME CARD. Some standard versions cards would randomly get replaced with a gold, blue, or other sort of parallel, sometimes with a serial number. But one REALLY LUCKY person would get an autographed version of that card.
This last practice is what really makes people buy many copies of the same card, hoping that they might be the lucky one to get the signed version, which will either be the cornerstone of their collection, or something that they could sell for life-changing money.
Topps/Fanatics used the hype and hope of getting an autographed card to sell many copies of the Jack Hughes card.
How many?
The Hughes card had a press run of 332,447. Compare that to the Topps Now card of Megan Keller, which sold 5,077 copies. Keller, if you recall, scored the game-winning goal for the U.S. Women’s Olympic team in its gold medal game against Canada.
Topps/Fanatics used the hopes of getting a signed version of the Jack Hughes card to increase sales. No one came forward and claimed that they got the card until a few days before it goes up for auction – at the Fanatics website.
Call me crazy, but I think that maybe Topps never actually shipped the signed version of the Hughes card out. Maybe they held onto it and decided to sell it on their own auction platform so they could make all the money off of it.
That’s my conspiracy theory, anyway. But I’d love to know what you think. Reply to this blog post, or hit me up on social media @puckjunk, and let me know what you think.
Note: This article is an updated version of an editorial that originally appeared in Volume 4 – Issue 37 of the Puck Junk Newsletter. For stories like these, plus news and updates about hockey cards and collectibles, subscribe to the newsletter here.
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