When I heard Panini was getting the WWE license, I wasnt happy. I had never been a fan of much of what Panini had done in the hobby, and I knew my days as an easy going Becky Lynch collector were going to change dramatically. As things got closer to release, I started to warm up to the new era, especially as more and more people jumped on board with WWE cards prior to the first release of the license. Eventually, everything that I was sure was going to happen, started happening, as the price of Prizm wax ballooned to four figures before a box was even ripped.
As the wax was climbing, all I could think about was how crazy things would get for the first gold prizm of the Rock, who had emerged as the top name in WWE cards over the boom. His Miami Hurricanes football “rookie” had sold for high five figures and again to a group of NFL players and their partners. Everyone wanted a piece of the Great One, just as the most hyped set in WWE history was about to land. What I didnt realize, this one card would not be the rallying point I expected it to be, instead representing the worst the boom era had to offer to a small but vocal group of wrestling card collectors.
Before we get to the how and the why, I want to step back and talk about Prizm, and more specifically the golds that have captivated collectors over the more recent investment focused years of the late 2010s and early 2020s. This period of time has been one of the most fruitful in the entire history of trading cards, but also one of the most controversial. Especially since 2020, when the boom really started, cards have become a new asset class, with many new investors invading the space. At the center of this boom is Prizm, a set that became the banner for the hobby day trader.
Back when Prizm originally came out, it was anything but a banner for anyone. Riding the coat tails of Topps’ shiny empire that spanned MLB, MILB, NFL, and NBA, I used to call Prizm “Diet Chrome.” The cards werent as nice as Topps’ flagship product line, the autographs were stickers, and the designs seemed second rate. Upon its release in 2012, many hobby shops struggled to move the product off their shelves. It wasnt seen as a viable chrome style alternative.
The original sets weren’t the woven web of parallels either, they were 3 parallels deep – the Silver, the Gold (/10) and the Black (1/1). Keep this in mind as we get further on. Because the hobby hadn’t found its happy place yet, many collectors just ignored both the initial NFL and NBA releases and went on with their day. As the sets continued to be released in the main sports year after year, they started to gain a loyal collecting base, especially after Topps lost their football license in 2015.
By 2018, the rookie year of Luka Doncic, Prizm had evolved to be Panini’s cash cow. Multiple configurations of box types, pack types and close to 50 parallels in each year’s set. It was close to becoming the hobby standard across many areas of the new investment focused crowd, looking to pad their “portfolios” with the best Prizm cards in the world.
One aspect of this story remains in tact, and this is where our story truly begins. Because collectors continually find themselves fawning over firsts – the legacy of the gold prizm became solidified. If you were going to find the best of the best, the gold rookie of your favorite player was the way to go. If a gold rookie wasnt available, a gold from the first year of prizm became just as important. Players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James saw their initial gold cards creep into the five figure range. Others like Tom Brady, who was already a decade into his career when Prizm was created, saw their “first prizm” take on an extreme value.
By the time WWE Prizm hit shelves in April 2022, the Golds were the standard across the entire universe of trading cards. These cards were popular enough that Topps Chrome golds started taking on exponential growth as well. Leading into its debut in the squared circle, it was no surprise that many of the collectors who were indoctrinated hobby wide during the boom, were starving to get their hands on a gold of the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.
Unlike launches in WNBA, NASCAR, and UFC, the existing collector base for Panini cards wasnt the same type of collector that was used to this focus on unsigned parallel cards. When word got out that Panini was taking over, the connotations among this group were almost entirely negative. For decades, WWE cards were a dark niche corner of collecting, populated by a community of people who loved the cheap thrills that wrestling cards were all about. As someone who had joined this small community in 2017 for that reason, I get the sentiment. Panini would mean more cost, less focus on what many WWE collectors loved, and being at the back of the line if your budget was dollars instead of stacks of cash.
In addition to this general bitterness and anger, there was also a vacuum of information that prevented the excitement over the new license from permeating the walls put up by the most vocal groups within the community. For collectors in the stick and ball hobbies, crossover between the sports was exceptionally common. In Wrestling cards, that wasn’t the case at all. Many WWE collectors existed as fans of wrestling who collected cards, not fans of cards in general. Seeing modern WWE cards sell for $15,000 like we saw in late 2021 was a foreign concept to most of the community, and very few could fathom an unsigned parallel with 10 copies selling for almost triple that cost.
Leading up to the first sale of the Rock’s gold prizm card, I was beyond excited that we could finally see WWE cards in the spotlight. Unlike most WWE collectors, I was looking forward to seeing the hobby standards I had covered for years on my site finally come to my new collecting home. Even though things were about to get exponentially more expensive for my PC, I saw this as a time to shine. Like finally getting to show off your house to a new group of visitors. I also wanted WWE Prizm to live up to the hype for a number of reasons, especially because everyone wants to see their horse win. My collection had always been focused around chrome cards, going back to the early 90s when Finest and Chrome first became a focus for Topps. Prizm was going to be my new jam, and I was hoping it would be as popular as I had predicted.
This launch wasn’t without anxiety for a number of ‘Prizm-aware’ WWE fans out there, because we knew how much was riding on this release. I remember telling a friend that I hope the first Rock gold would be pulled by someone who knew what they had, because most WWE collectors wouldn’t know that it could be a mid five figure card.
Funny enough, this is where the controversy starts. This is where the real fighting began, because that’s exactly what happened. Because 50% (maybe more) of all product is ripped by breakers, people no longer needed to support the gigantic wax cost by themselves anymore. Prizm was a breaker friendly product, and with the wax price at such a speculative astronomic height, many WWE collectors went that route to get a taste of this new hotness. Sure enough, the first Rock gold was pulled in this way, and the person that pulled it didnt really have the kind of familiarity with the hype train to know they would be holding a card worth the price of a mid range sedan. In addition to this, this new golden owner did something no one should ever do: ask their breaker for advice. Despite facebook groups with posts offering bounties on leads, premium offers for anyone with one to sell, and lots of talk about high dollar buyers on social media, the breaker gave some very low estimates of what it could be worth.
Within a short period of time, the card was listed by the owner on eBay for around $7000, and sold in seconds. For context, most collectors familiar with the modern mainstream hobby had thought the value of this card was closer to $25,000 based on their experience with other Prizm brand launches. Because the hobby is well embedded in the FOMO lifestyle, the fear of missing out on this collection centerpiece pushed a number of people to send messages to the seller detailing their mistake. Within a few days, the original sale was cancelled, and the card was sold to a new owner for $20k. Personally, I didnt take much offense to this. I felt bad for the guy for listening to the wrong voice of reason in picking an original listing price, and knew how many times this had happened for other cards in the hobby. It was a daily occurrence. It had happened to me before. I had won cards for prices that were well below their cost, and sellers cancel the sale citing their mistake. I would chalk it up to “welp, that was worth the risk!” and not take it personally.
Unlike those situation, the difference in cost here wasnt a couple hundred or even a couple thousand dollars. It was 13 grand. We have all made mistakes in our life, but very few of us have ever made one that big. Immediately, the hundreds of white knights of the hobby launched their crusade.
“FUCK THIS GUY!”
“HONOR THE PRICE!”
“OWN YOUR MISTAKE!”
“WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE DOES THIS?”
People often cite hobby positivity as their mantra, but I saw some nasty things said about the way this went down. Nothing gets people in this hobby fired up like a collector they dont know scorned. I vocalized forcefully that not everyone is part of the Hobby’s version of hammurabi’s code, and the seller shouldnt be skewered for making this call. I probably would have done the same thing – especially if I was acting on information that wasnt credible. If I have learned anything in my decades of collecting, there is only one person you ever need to look out for – yourself. Too much money is at stake to think of it any other way. To be fair, almost a year later, the seller and buyer have faded from memory, and rarely come up in the discussion of this card. Its clear that 13k loss wasnt an ideal situation, but like most hobby scandals, they burn out quickly.
Unfortunately, the scope of the sale wasn’t the only issue with this. Many of the wrestling hobby’s most visible voices refused to believe the card was worth what the speculation said the value was. Most investment grade Prizm cards in the NBA and NFL can reach high five to low six figures. The cheapest card in this segment of the hobby would still be above most (if not all) wrestling cards. It creates a lack of believability that a non-autograph card out of 10 could be special enough to reach this level.
Ill give them their due for the reasons mentioned above, sometimes the context of why the Golds are what they are just isn’t there. Reasons like the drop in wax cost that followed the enormous height at Prizm release, the previous modern sales records, and historical WWE card values all factored into what was discussed. The problem was that none of these data points were based outside of Wrestling cards. This was a card that transcended this corner of the hobby.
The private sale of three Rock golds that followed all reinforced that the card was dramatically undersold. The aforementioned original sold for 20k, a subsequent one sold for 22k, and the final one sold for 18k. These prices were all confirmed via conversations with both parties involved, though weren’t available for the general public to consume. These sales all dwarfed the original sale on eBay, but that was the only comparative value available to the public, until recently.
What most dont know is that the original Rock gold was sent to PSA Immediately and graded a 10, much to the shock of everyone when the pop report was made public. Although I despise grading, its a part of the process for Prizm, and was a catalyst for modern WWE collectors to shed their own hatred of slabs. The shock of the grade stemmed from issues with this release of Prizm, plagued with issues, leading to the “gem rate,” or the frequency a card was graded a PSA 10 vs other grades, to be much lower than expected.
The second one was sent to BGS and graded a 9.5. The final one was sent to PSA and graded an 8. This third copy was the one recently listed with Goldin for their summer auction. The second the listing went live, I knew this whole debate would bubble to the surface again. Because it wasn’t a highly publicized lot, the card moved slowly at first. It was also listed incorrectly in the MMA category, so many auction hawks didn’t see it originally. By the time the ticker crawled to its conclusion the PSA 8 had sold for $11,400 with buyer’s premium. It wasn’t the 18k it was sold for raw, but a vastly respectable number for a card that wasn’t in the gem category the hobby was built on.
As expected, both sides went to war over the price on social media. The story told above was retold, the price was flaunted in the faces of the Prizm fans, and a lot of ice cold takes were shared about the state of the WWE market. In discussing the sale with more experienced people than I, the common sentiment was that a PSA 8 selling for that cost was VERY healthy. It also reinforced that the original valuation was likely correct, as a PSA 9 would likely be valued around 20k based on this price. Similarly the PSA 10 would be multiples of X in its multiplier, especially being the only one on the market. For the general wrestling card community outside of twitter, I dont think many were disappointed at all.
One thing the detractors of the ultra-modern Panini era are right about, this market has gone down. Sadly, WWE cards arent worth what they were at the beginning of 2022, following in the footsteps of just about every other area of the hobby. Prizm wax has reached all time lows, close to MSRP. With the end of lockdown restrictions, a pending recession, and overall economic downturn, trading cards have come down significantly in value. Comparing a sale in late 2022 with a sale from before this dropoff, probably isnt apples to apples. Even so, seeing the card reach the price it did, continues to show there is a gigantic market for Golds.
One thing that hasnt been mentioned much in collector circles is the sale of the Black 1/1 Rock Prizm, which was purchased through ThatsTheOldPrice on Instagram. Rumors of the sale reaching WWE records have been rampant, with my own research putting the sale likely above $75k.
After changing hands a few times, the original PSA 10 now resides with Drake McGruder (who WASNT the person in that controversial story – just to reinforce). Drake has publicly said multiple times that he valued the card at $30k and used that valuation to acquire the card in Q4 of 2022. Seeing a public verification of a RECENT large sale should put the argument to rest, but we all know that’s not how wrestling fans are. I fall into that category as well – tribalism runs rampant in most places on social media.
Prizm is about to be back for the sequel, likely coming up around Wrestlemania in April. This new version will likely be approached with a vastly different plan by collectors, and I assume that the age old argument of its place in the hobby will kick off another war on social media. Panini is likely going to bring back this product a number of times before they give the license back to Fanatics. There will be many more Rock golds to go around. Historically, the first one is always the card to have, but with this never ending controversy swirling, who knows?