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, Giannis Antetokounmpo rookie cards that sold for just a fraction of their present day value, and Christian Yelich cards that sold for prices that would make you as sad as Miami Marlins fan.

We’ve scoured our sales data and are ready to unleash our next wave of cards that make for some pretty good laughs. We don’t need to talk up the greatness of Ronald Acuna Jr. If you’ve been following baseball at all, you know that the 21 year old is on a meteoric rise to super stardom. At this point the only question is whether or not his rookie cards will reach Trout-esque levels in the next 2-3 years!

Let’s get right into how silly the trading card industry can be with just a little bit of hindsight:

2017 Bowman – Chrome Prospects – Gold Shimmer Refractor #BCP127

A great debate in our hobby will always rage about non-original Bowman Chrome parallels. Whether you like ‘Shimmers’ or hate them, we can all agree that for $145 this Gold Shimmer numbered to 50 copies of Acuna’s first Bowman Chrome would be an absolute steal present day. BGS 9.5 copies of this card have sold for around $500, and that’s before the huge September bump the Acuna market saw.

2017 Bowman – Chrome Prospect Autographs #CPA-RA

Were you one of the five lucky collectors who were able to snag this card for under $160 on the COMC Marketplace? How about the collector who bought the very first one to hit our marketplace for $53.07? It’s very likely that we’ll never see a $50 Ronald Acuna Jr. autograph of any kind on the COMC Marketplace in a very long time, if ever again. BGS 9.5 copies of this base auto are now selling for around $1500. While they still have a long way to go to reach the levels of Mike Trout’s 1st Bowman Auto, they’re still up 10x from the last copy to sell on the COMC Marketplace!

2017 Bowman – Chrome Prospect Autographs – Blue Refractor /150

Oh, you thought we were done with Acuna’s 1st Bowman Autos? Not yet! Had you been able to predict the future, and had $500.99 to spend on COMC on 7-7-2017, you could have been the lucky (notice all of those 7’s!) owner of this beautiful tried-and-true blue gem! This card recently fetched nearly $11,000 earlier this month at auction. We can’t imagine where this card will be if Acuna and the young Atlanta Braves team is able to bring a championship back to Georgia.

2018 Panini Flawless – Rookie Dual Patch Autographs #RDP-22

Similar to the argument about non-traditional Bowman Chrome parallels, another argument in the hobby rages on about unlicensed cards. With Topps having an exclusivity agreement with the MLB, Panini and other manufacturers are relegated to creating cards that do not infringe on MLB copyrights such as team logos. Even without the logos, Acuna’s Panini cards are still trending upwards, with this encased Flawless auto numbered to 25 being sold for nearly double what the COMC buyer originally paid for it just three months ago.

2018 Topps #698.2 – Back Behind Back Variation

Without question this is one of the hottest trading cards on the planet today, and probably will be for a very long time. With Acuna posed in a follow through swing, and it being an extremely tough pull out of a Topps Series 2 product, it has all the makings of an iconic trading card. While the card is a short print, we have seen significant volume of the card bought and sold, with over 50 total copies changing hands. One thing is for sure, nobody is acquiring this card for under $50 anymore, and the two lucky individuals who were able to get their hands on one for under $25.00 certainly have a story to tell around the hobby!

2018 Topps Update #US250.3 – SSP White Jersey Variation

As rare as the 2018 Topps Series 2 Bat Behind Back SP Variation is, there is an even more elusive Acuna Jr. rookie card – the super short printed white jersey variation from 2018 Update! This is a card that is rarely seen in the wild that most collectors aren’t even aware it exists! The card has already found it’s home in the high-end section of the hobby, where raw copies have recently sold at auction for nearly $2,000! Not a bad come-up for the two COMC buyers who were able to snap this card up for 1/3rd of that price just three months ago!

Now we want to hear from you! What Ronald Acuna Jr. trading cards did you not hold onto just quite long enough? Do you have a stash worth the equivalent of a new sports car that you’re hoping will one day be worth a new house or boat? Share your best investment and #collectfail stories with us!