“This Is So Stupid” + The $1.28 Million Celebrini Debate + Does Player Greatness Even Matter Anymore?

A hockey card just sold for $1.281 million, and the Sports Cards Live panel has some very different opinions about it.

Chris McGill and Joshua Adams join Jeremy and Clark Kim just after the Macklin Celebrini Gold Outburst 1/1 Young Guns becomes one of the most expensive hockey cards ever sold.

Chris sees a potentially defining trophy card of a young superstar whose collector now gets to follow his career while owning one of his very best cards.

Josh has a slightly different reaction:

“This is so stupid.”

And that is where the fun begins.

We compare Celebrini’s sale with the biggest cards of Wayne Gretzky, Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and other established hockey legends. Then we pose a fascinating question: for roughly the same $1.3 million, would you rather own the Celebrini 1/1 or the heavily restored T206 Honus Wagner that recently sold for almost exactly the same amount?

But the conversation quickly becomes about something much larger than one hockey card.

There appears to be a different level of wealth entering the hobby. Whatnot has raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a massive valuation. CardVault by Tom Brady is planning major expansion with a high-profile group of investors. And individual collectors with extraordinary financial resources can potentially pay prices that would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.

So does Macklin Celebrini actually need to become Sidney Crosby for today's price to make sense? Does Cooper Flagg need to become LeBron James? Does Victor Wembanyama need to become one of the greatest players ever?

Or has the hobby grown enough, and attracted enough new money, that the old rules for valuing cards and players are beginning to change?

We get into speculation versus proven greatness, the experience of owning the ultimate card of a young superstar, generational prospects, cultural relevance, Wemby and Cooper Flagg, and whether today's collectors will ultimately care as much about the legends of previous generations as they do about the athletes they actually grew up watching.

Check out The Hobby Spectrum at thehobbyspectrum.com and take the assessment to discover where you fit in the hobby.

Try AuctionWire at auctionwire.ai and use promo code SCL to receive two free months.

Check out Card Ladder and use promo code SCL.

Buy Pops and Comps: Truths, Insights, and Psychology Behind the Numbers That Drive the Sports Card Market, available now on Amazon.

And, as always, subscribe to Sports Cards Live on YouTube, turn on notifications, and if you enjoy the podcast, follow, rate and review Sports Cards Live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices