Why is the Wembanyama #472 Relic Card a Baseball Jersey?

News

By RC Staff

26 June 2023

We saw the release of Victor Wembanyama’s first relic card on June 21, and it has some fans surprised. Encased in each purchase is a piece of the player’s jersey, but not from a basketball game. Instead, cards were embedded with a New York Yankees jersey. While this might seem like a bit of an odd choice for a player widely seen as the next big thing in basketball, there’s actually a good reason behind it. It seems like fans have little issue with the discrepancy either, because aftermarket sales of Wembanyama’s relic card have already taken off.

Victor Wembanyama #472 Relic Card

Ok first, let’s explain what a relic card is. If you’re not big into collecting cards, this term might be throwing you for a loop. It’s actually quite simple: a relic card is a special type of trading card with a small piece of material embedded in the card, typically a jersey patch. That’s the bit that makes it a “relic”.

In the case of Wembanyama’s first relic card, it’s the #472 Victor Wembanyama with event-worn jersey. These cards have a small patch of the jersey he wore on June 20, which is actually a Yankees jersey like we mentioned.

The reason Wembanyama is wearing a baseball jersey in these cards is because they come from when he threw the first pitch at a Yankees game on June 20. While the basketball star got razzed a little for missing the pitch (badly), but he still had a good time at the game.

Afterwards, Topps announced that they would be commemorating his outing with a new card, and the jersey he wore would be sliced up and sent out. Of course, that meant this new sale would have to be pretty limited. Topps only ended up selling 1,137 Victor Wembanyama #472 relic cards, and they had a fairly clever way of adding a little extra rarity to the cards.

Topps gave buyers 24 hours to to buy the Wembanyama #472 relic card, and they were priced at $200. Out of all the cards sold, there were nine different tiers, denoted by a color. Rarer colors had less cards, and cards within a color were serialized within their color. The color you get will be random, with no way of knowing until you open the pack.

The rarity tiers for the Victor Wembanyama #472 relic cards are:

• Full Color – Limited to 499
• White – Limited to 250
• Green – Limited to 199
• Black – Limited to 99
• Blue – Limited to 49
• Purple – Limited to 25
• Red – Limited to 10
• Orange – Limited to 5
• Gold – Limited to just one

This system gives collectors a little extra granularity to compare their cards to others from the sale, and make the aftermarket a little spicier.

Speaking of which, now that it’s been a few days, how are these cards doing?

Wembanyama #472 Relic Cards are reselling

While the cards won’t ship until October, there have already been a ton of sales on the aftermarket. Currently, the average price for a Wembanyama #472 relic is around $400.

There have been a few sales for even higher, but most are sticking to this range. Remember, neither the buyer nor the seller knows what color the card is that they’re buying. It puts card resellers in an interesting situation: sell the card now for an immediate guaranteed profit, or wait until October and rip the card themselves.

Pulling a rare color, or even the 1 of 1 gold Wembanyama relic card might translate to a serious profit for a patient reseller, but that also runs the risk of getting a less rare one. Additionally, waiting that long also means gambling on the market holding up. While these cards are hyped right now, that may no longer be the case in a few months.

Of course, with only 1,137 cards in circulation the Wembanyama #472 will likely always be collectible, but there’s no way of knowing what the market will look like in October. The safe move as a reseller is to simply sell these while the interest is strong.

Really this seems like win-win for resellers and collectors. Resellers get to make a quick buck now, while collectors get the opportunity to rip open a potentially rare card in a few months. If they get something good, they could turn it around and sell it for more than they paid.

That’s all for now. For more examples of profitable items to resell, check out our other articles. We actually wrote a guide on how to buy Victor Wembanyama’s Sports Illustrated rookie card, and will be keeping our eyes on the player in the future. With a star this big (figuratively and literally), there’s bound to be plenty of money around him in the future.