A rookie card of San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama continues to soar in popularity -- and value.
The sale of the San Antonio Spurs center’s 2023-24 Panini Prizm 1-of-1 Black parallel rookie card, which has an assigned gem mint grade of 10 by grading service Professional Sport Authenticator, sold for $5.11 million in a private sale brokered by Fanatics Collect, The Athletic reported.
The sale makes the card, produced by Panini America, the most expensive known sale of a non-autographed NBA card, according to the sports news website.
Victor Wembanyama rookie card sells for record $5.11 million (Free to read) https://t.co/4M8SMy9rEj
— Larry Holder (@LarryHolder) May 26, 2026
It is also the fourth-highest publicly known sale of an NBA card, according to Card Ladder, an online card sales database. It is also the 11th-highest price fetched for a card in any sport, ESPN reported.
The Wembanyama card is also the third sports card this year to sell for more than $5 million, according to the cable sports news outlet.
An Aaron Judge 2013 Bowman Chrome Superfractor autographed 1-of-1 card with a Beckett 9.5 card/10 autograph grade sold for $5.2 million in March in a private sale, which was also handled by Fanatics Collect, The Athletic reported.
A month earlier, the card known as the Holy Grail of sports cards -- a Honus Wagner 1909 T206 Sweet Caporal back that held a PSA 1 grade -- fetched $5.12 million in a sale by Goldin Auctions.
The buyer of the Wembanyama card, who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity to protect their privacy because of the card’s high value, said he paid the staggering amount because he believes it will be the center’s best card.
According to ESPN, the previous high spent for a Wembanyama card was $860,100 during a February 2025 Goldin Auctions sale. That was from a different 1-of-1 parallel from the same Prizm set, the sports website reported.
Wembanyama has no officially licensed autographed rookie cards because he is under an exclusive contract with Fanatics and Panini held the exclusive NBA trading card license during the player’s rookie season, The Athletic reported.
The card has had its share of controversy since it was pulled during a live break by NorCal Sports Cards, according to ESPN.
Cavelle McDonald pulled the card and sent it to PSA, which gave it the PSA 10 grade, The Athletic reported. After the card was given the gem-mint grade, NorCal Sports Cards owner Thomas Lindenthal recognized Kurt’s Card Care, a company that makes products that clean and restore trading cards.
“Your product is phenomenal,” Lindenthal said, prompting talk that the Wembanyama card may have been “cleaned up” before it was submitted for grading.
PSA does not accept cards that are cleaned up for gradikng.
“I had no clue he was going to say anything about Kurt’s Card Care,” McDonald told The Athletic. “It felt like it was a sponsored video for his channel. Kurt’s Card Care has nothing to do with me or the card.”
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