Everyone seems to be discussing one thing in hobby circles these days: The Paul Skenes debut patch. And now, it has finally been pulled.
As one CBS news outlet put it, “Willy Wonka had the golden tickets, and the Pirates have the one-of-one Paul Skenes card.”
Topps put a 1/1 Rookie Debut Patch Autograph card in the 2024 Topps Chrome Update. Now Skenes, who already had massive buzz surrounding him, has won the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year, further stirring the excitement around Skenes.
I think it’s fair to say that never before has a Topps Update product, traditionally a bit of an also-ran release, been this wildly anticipated.
So what is happening with this card and product, and what does it all mean for the hobby? Find out in our overview of the Paul Skenes Debut Patch Card madness.
RPAs have long been central to the hobby, especially for football and basketball. Panini, in particular, was good at placing these cards in center stage. However, patch autos lagged in baseball as collectors preferred regular autos and parallels.
Fanatics has managed to juice up the patch auto in baseball by pioneering the Debut Patch Cards. When a player makes their first appearance in the major leagues, they have a patch that reads “MLB Debut” placed on their uniform.
Topps has made the brilliant decision to make 1/1s featuring the game-worn patch. That, of course, creates the ultimate rookie card. One commemorates the first game with a legit souvenir from it. No wonder many players want to get their hands on a copy.
It also helps that the rookie class for 2024 is powerful. Just look at this list of the best among them:
Those are just the most prominent names. The 2024 Topps Chrome Update contains 251 debut patch cards. About 50 of them have been pulled, but most of the biggest names still need to be pulled. One has, and we will discuss that below.
The publicity surrounding the biggest of these cards and their obvious appeal suggest a long-lasting impact on the hobby.
When the Anthony Volpe MLB Debut Patch Card was pulled, Dave & Adams, the big sports card company, paid a bounty of $150,000 for it. After a seven-month wait for the card, one Jeff Adissi finally pulled it.
He vowed to use that significant change to take his wife on vacation. Well played, Jeff. That was when we knew these cards were for real.
It all started with the public unveiling the patch’s existence on social media. Isn’t that where everything happens nowadays?
Topps put out a Tweet (still not calling it X) that read, “𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗞: The Paul Skenes 1/1 Rookie Debut Patch Autograph is officially here… This card can be found in one lucky pack of 2024 Topps Chrome Update, releasing November 13.”
Topps Chrome Update was already a widespread release. But the availability of this patch card and the hype surrounding it.
Jeff Patton of the Baseball Card Castle in Cranberry, PA, told KDKA News, “If I had another 200 boxes today, I could get rid of them with no problem. “Every day, we get them. We pay to have them overnighted and get as many more as possible. By the next day, they are gone again. He’s our guy. So, I think our patrons buy them more quickly than elsewhere in the country.”
But the mania surrounding the Paul Skenes Debut Patch Auto isn’t just a phenomenon in western Pennsylvania. It is spreading throughout the country.
There is still a lot we need to learn about this card. For example, is it there in its glorious and proper final form? Or is this card going to be a redemption?
That matters because redemptions are primarily found in various types of hobby boxes. Meanwhile, a regular auto may be inserted into any old retail format.
Of course, the cynics find it hard to believe that you will find the Paul Skenes 1/1 Debut Patch Card in a blaster at Target. It is hard to blame them since the best cards tend to be found in the Breakers Delight format.
Regarding the pure odds, Breakers Delight offers the highest chance of getting the Paul Skenes card. The odds of hitting any Debut Patch Auto (not just the Skenes one) are as follows:
While the odds of pulling one in an individual box are highest for a Breakers Delight Box, that should not be the most likely place to draw the Skenes card.
There are more regular and jumbo hobby boxes made than Breakers Delight. I assume this will not be a redemption for PR reasons. That increases the odds of the card being found in a Breakers Delight box, where there are generally no redemptions.
It took two months until the card was finally hit. However, now it finally was.
An announcement came that the card was pulled on December 21st. The Topps Instagram account states, “An 11-year-old collector just pulled the Paul Skenes 1/1 Debut Patch card! Our offer still stands… you know where to find us 🤝😏” The child in question is reportedly from Los Angeles, California. And that is pretty far from Pittsburgh, so they are unlikely to take advantage of the Pirates offer for season tickets.
The news that this card was hit was so big that it appeared in the New York Times. We have to give Topps and Fanatics a lot of credit for making hitting a new baseball card into such a big story.
The chase after this card also saw an explosion in Topps Update prices. To purchase a hobby box of 2024 Topps Update, you would now have to spend $669. Meanwhile, a jumbo hobby box is going for $1,162. A blaster for $50 and a mega box for $120. That means that hobby boxes are up an incredible 160% from the release price point. Meanwhile, jumbo boxes are up 100% from the release price.
This stuff is expensive. It will be interesting to see if the prices are dramatically reduced by the news that this card has been pulled. The Skenes Debut Patch was by the far the biggest of the crop. And many other big cards have been pulled. But this rookie class has so much depth that we are not done yet. As far as we know, the cards for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jackson Merrill, and Evan Carter have still not been pulled. Therefore, the prices will remain high. But we can expect a gradual decrease in their value.
Will they go back to their original value or somewhere in between? That will be an interesting question to follow.
Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Pulling of the Card
We are very happy to hear that a kid got the card! It’s about time someone who isn’t a big breaker got one of the big cards. Since we are talking about a minor, they have so far remained anonymous, and it seems like a good bet that this will be the approach that their parents prefer to take. Topps claims the kid who pulled only opened one box of product.
The funny part is that there are conspiracy theories about it being “magically pulled” off-camera. These individuals suggest foul play and that Topps did not want the card pulled, that it did not exist, or that the company wants to keep it for themselves. Many people questioned how the child in question could afford to buy the very expensive wax involved. Certainly, their parents are not poor.
One commenter on Reddit wrote, “Isn’t he the son of a breaker? Has a YouTube were the father buys cases for him to open? This is not some kid the bought 1 pack at the local LGS story.”
These folks will not be satisfied no matter what happens. They complain of big breakers like Backyard Breaks get the big cards. But they also have a problem when a kid hits the card. Come on, folks. Pick a lane. However, conspiracy theories and complaining are seemingly inherent parts of human nature. There is not much that we can do about that.
Will the kid in question surface? They may have to do so if they want to take advantage of the package the Pirates offer. Meanwhile, keeping these matters anonymous will be much easier if the person in question wants to sell the card to a private buyer or even on eBay.
The second biggest card in the release, the Elly De La Cruz 1/1 Debut Patch, was pulled from a hobby box by Hobby Legends. Of course, Elly was a rookie last season. However, due to the cutoff dates for Topps, they have him as a rookie for 2024.
As for the card itself, it was not a redemption. The Paul Skenes card will likely be a non-redemption pulled from a hobby box. After all, it would not be very pleasant if people pulled a redemption after all this build-up.
I guarantee that would lower the level of excitement for the next round of Debut Patch Cards.
We would be surprised if a significant breaker did not pull the card, but you never know. The little guy could get lucky for once.
The increasing involvement of athletes in collecting cards in general and their cards, in particular, has often been remarked upon. Recently, it has become a central part of the hobby landscape.
Topps has done a fantastic job leveraging that trend for its purposes. They often post the responses and involvement of athletes on their Instagram and other social media accounts, using them to the best effect.
The case of the Skenes Debut Patch is the most effective of these. While many players understandably want to collect cards featuring them, the Debut Patch cards are particularly notable. After all, few games are more memorable for a player than their debut.
In this case, even the Pittsburgh Pirates got heavily involved in the action. On November 15, they made the following offer to anyone who gave them the card:
How much is all this worth? Scottie from Scottie B Cards tried to calculate the value of all of this. He believes the Pirate’s offer is worth about $972,000. Meanwhile, selling the card, which he estimates a $150,000 value (honestly, I think it will sell for more), and then investing it over the same period (30 years for the season tickets) would net over $3,000,000.
So sell that card! Althoiugh can you put a value on sharing a box with Livvy Dunne?
Paul was as excited as any other Pirates fan by this rich bounty. So he made a video with the Pirates of him ripping a box of Update, hoping to get the patch. But while he usually strikes people out, Paul went down swinging this time.
Afterward, Paul said with his tongue firmly in cheek, “I was distraught I didn’t find the card. It’s a cool opportunity, and hopefully, it’ll unite many people around pulling cards. It’s cool; I look forward to meeting the person who pulls the card.”
If you have been living under a rock, you probably know who Paul Skenes is dating. His girlfriend, Livvy Dunne, is an LSU Tigers women’s gymnastics team member. Due to her irrepressible personality and classic good looks, she has over 10 million followers.
She posted an offer that her many fans would find hard to resist: “Let’s raise the stakes…the person who finds the card can sit with me at a Pirates game in my suite.”
Other celebrities jumped in despite having no relation to Skenes because….well, why not? Seth Myers posted, “If you find it and just let me LOOK at it for a SECOND, 4 VIP tickets to a @LateNightSeth taping,”
The players’ interest in the cards is an absolute godsend for Fanatics. It does more to drum up interest in these cards and the products than any campaign the company could ever dream up.
While Topps certainly encouraged this trend, it did not create it. The players’ enthusiasm is genuine and heartfelt.
Notably, the breakers and every single YouTube channel out there, including ones that never seem to do baseball, are now running after Topps Chrome Update, hoping to capture the 1/1 Paul Skenes Debut Patch capture in real-time.
There are so many offers for this card. That means the person who pulls it is in for a fantastic time. But with so many options, the question becomes, how do you make the most of it?
In the unlikely event that you are the one who pulls this incredible card, the first thing you will want to do is celebrate. I mean, you earned it.
However, the host of Sports Card Madness, Nick Andrews, plans to maximize the upside from pulling this card, which he describes as “straight out of Machiavelli’s playbook.” Here is what you do:
Excellent plan and a reminder that you will always want to avoid getting on Nick Andrews’s wrong side. That guy is a stone-cold killer of the best kind.
The buzz around the Skenes card and the unique nature of the Debut Patch Card could make these items the ultimate go-to card for any baseball player. Until now, that was generally the Superfractor auto.
But can that compete in the long run with an actual souvenir of the first game played by an MLB legend? I would say no. These cards are a brilliant idea and are here to stay.
I have often been critical of Fanatics and how they run Topps. But there is no question they are excellent at pushing collectibles to the next level and integrating them with the players and teams. Some of that is their creativity.
But much of it comes back to their ties with the leagues and teams over the years. That experience and know-how are paying rich dividends now.
We will follow to see if anyone pulls that card and then to see how much it goes for. This card makes a historical number of waves, and therefore, it is worth following closely.
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