BEST ROOKIE CARD SUBSET

WINNER: NATIONAL TREASURES ROOKIE PATCH AUTOGRAPHS

Releasing more than two months after the Super Bowl, National Treasures brought clean, minimal design and a portrait orientation. The high mark is the Justin Herbert, which brought more than $20,000 with 42 bids on eBay in mid-April. A Tua Tagovailoa brought more than $5,000. This 2020 release certainly has the highest initial secondary market sales of any RCs in the brand’s history. There are several redemptions in this subset, including Joe Burrow, but Panini will announce as soon as the actual cards are available.

CLOSE SECOND: DONRUSS OPTIC

With such a deep rookie class, larger print run products like Donruss Optic make busting packs a lot more fun. Each hobby pack delivered one Rookie Card, but an average of just six Rated Rookies fell in each 20-pack box. Optic is one of the most popular products for basic RCs, and the Rated Rookie subset has essentially taken on a brand of its own. The design remains simple with the cool opti-chrome finish. Panini released an Optic preview earlier in the year, which can make things confusing. The preview version as a “P” before the card number on the back.