Over the course of our 12 plus year existence, we’ve seen A LOT of cards. In many cases, we first saw a superstar’s cards long before they became a household name. As a result, this lends itself to some pretty hilarious completed sales in our historical sales history. Whether these buyers are cardboard Nostradamus’s, or simply happened to pick up a card before it’s value skyrocketed into oblivion, one thing is for sure: they got a crazy good deal!
In our previous installments we’ve shown you Mike Trout Trading Cards that now the grace the nose-bleed section of the high-end of our hobby, and Giannis Antetokounmpo rookie cards that sold for just a fraction of their present day value. We’ve scoured our sales data and are ready to unleash our next wave of cards that make for some pretty good laughs.
The Miami Marlins have two World Series Championships in their brief but memorable franchise history. While the current state of the Marlins may leave plenty to be desired, there is no doubting that the organization has a proven track record for manufacturing homegrown talent. Unfortunately, some of those players full potential never comes to fruition in a Marlins uniform. Such is the case with Christian Yelich, who’s star grew brighter following a trade to the Milwaukee Brewers.
The 2018 National League MVP winner and Silver Slugger posted career highs in home runs, RBI’s, stolen bases, batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS last year, leading the Brew Crew to a playoff run. He picked up right where he left off to start the 2019 campaign, and appears to be on pace to shatter most of those career highs once again. The 27 year old outfielder quickly became one of the faces of the MLB once he arrived in Milwaukee, and his trading cards have never been more sought after. Christian Yelich rookie autographs and rookie trading cards continue to see new top sale prices on a monthly basis.
Without further ado, the six Christian Yelich Trading Cards you can no longer find at these prices:
The buyer of this card managed to sneak in their purchase on August 28th, 2018, just before the Christian Yelich trading card market really started to skyrocket. This card has since sold for $300+. Not a bad return on investment.
Whenever pricing data is this skewed, you have to assume that a player’s career trajectory took a massive turn upward. In this case, we saw a BGS 9.5 Christian Yelich 1st Bowman Chrome auto sell for $52.69 in March 2015. Raw copies of this card routinely sell for a price tag of several times that.
2012 Bowman Platinum – Prospects – Red Refractor #BPP49 – Christian Yelich /25 [BGS 9.5 GEM MINT]
The 2012 Bowman Platinum set and it’s parallels are truly beautiful cards in person with their orange-peel like textured backgrounds. This BGS 9.5 Christian Yelich red refractor sold for just $18 back in July 2013.
Flash forward almost six years later and this exact same card (which is a pop-2) sold elsewhere for over 4-times the original purchase price:
2013 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects – [Base] – Purple Ice #40 – Christian Yelich /10
It goes without saying that Bowman purists have a wide arrange of opinions on non-original color parallels (Ref, X-Fractor, Blue, Gold, Orange, Red, Superfractor) and also about the ice parallel. Regardless, you would be hard-pressed to find any collector who wouldn’t want to add this /10 Purple Ice Christian Yelich card to their collection for about $40. Recently completed sales put this card in the $275-300 range now.
2013 Topps Chrome – Rookie Autographs – Red Refractor #CY – Christian Yelich /25
Alright, now we start to get into the comical historical sales data. This Christian Yelich Red Refractor true rookie autograph numbered to just 25 copies sold for just $87 on April 3rd of last year, just months before he was traded to the Brewers and his rise to greatness began. Could this buyer predict the future? Was it just a case of right place at the right time? Are they a Marlins fan who was crushed when he was traded?
We’ll never know, but we’d like to believe that they weren’t at all upset just a year later when a gold /50 version of this card sold for $1250. It’s hard to imagine what the even more elusive red refractor autograph may fetch….
2013 Topps Update Series – [Base] – Black #US290 – Christian Yelich /62
Which brings us to this LOL-worthy historical sales data. Were you one of the 11 lucky individuals who managed to scoop up this card from COMC for $25 or less? Probably not. Numbered to just 62 copies, COMC has seen 1/6th of the entire print run of these now coveted Christian Yelich black parallels of his True RC out of 2013 Topps Update. Recent sales have seen this card fetch $695 via Buy it Now.
Now we want to hear from you! What Christian Yelich trading cards slipped through your hands over the years? Do you still have a coveted Yelich card that you won’t sell for all the money in the world? Share your best investment and #collectfail stories with us!
Bought several Topps Supreme Autos right after the Brewers traded for him for $4-5 each and flipped them for a cool $7-8 each, Score!
Bought a 2015 Gypsy Queen Yelich Auto for $2, then the Silver Parallel Auto /50 for $1.25. Both were shipped from COMC and now are sitting happily in my collection!
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