DALLAS — The one-of-one Cooper Flagg Topps Rookie Debut Patch Autograph card sold for $8.04 million early Friday morning in Fanatics Collect’s September Premier Auction. The card drew 83 bids in an auction that opened Sept. 10 and ran through Sept. 24. A bidding war ran into the early hours of Friday, Fanatics Collect said. The card was at $3.5 million at 8 p.m. CT on Thursday and at $8.04 million by 1 a.m. CT.
Fanatics Collect announced Friday that the sale set five records. The card is the most expensive basketball card featuring a single player ever sold. It is also the third-highest NBA card sale ever. No Dallas Mavericks card has sold for more, and no card has sold for more at auction through Fanatics Collect.
The Debut Patch record had belonged to Paul Skenes, whose MLB Rookie Debut Patch Autograph sold for $1.11 million in March 2025. In its post on X announcing the sale, Fanatics Collect put the old high for any Flagg card at $366,000.
Two NBA cards have sold for more, and both are Upper Deck Exquisite Collection dual Logoman cards. A 2007-08 card signed by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant holds the record at $12,932,000. A 2006-07 card pairing Jordan with LeBron James cleared $10 million in a private sale, according to Bleacher Report.
Jason Williams’ Path From A $515 Break To Fanatics Collect
On Aug. 10, RhodyBreakers, the break division of Baseball Cards of Rhode Island in North Kingstown, pulled the card’s redemption during a livestream break of 2025-26 Topps Chrome Update Basketball. Jason Williams, a collector from Clover, South Carolina, had paid $515 for the Mavericks slot in the three-box break.
Williams told CNN’s Andy Scholes he was watching on his phone from the living room while his 12-year-old got ready for bed. As the breaker got closer to the card, he moved the stream off his phone.
“I was like, ‘Hey, we need to put this on the big screen,’ and my wife was like, ‘OK, whatever, do what you need to do,’” Williams said. “So I put it on.”
He knew he had a big team in that break. He also knew the card that was coming was going to be a pretty big one.
“When it happened, I mean, I went to the floor like a baby in the fetal position,” Williams explained. “I mean, it was just emotional because I knew. I knew what had happened. It took me a few seconds for it to register in my mind, but it was just emotions took over me.”
Flagg signed the card on July 17 at Fanatics Fest in New York. The patch came from the jersey he wore in the first half of his NBA debut on Oct. 22, 2025, against the San Antonio Spurs. Flagg finished that game with 10 points and 10 rebounds in a 125-92 loss. The jersey sold for $1 million at auction in February.
Before the card reached auction, the Mavericks offered a package titled “1 of 1 for 32,” headlined by two lower-level season tickets for 32 years. Goldin Auctions founder Ken Goldin offered a $1.5 million cash advance to consign the card with his company. Williams instead consigned it to Fanatics Collect in August. PSA graded the card a Gem Mint 10, and the autograph also received a 10.
Williams, 55, attended the Sept. 12 opening of Flagg Trading Co., the card shop Flagg co-owns with his cousin Tyler Flagg in Bangor, Maine. The shop opened two days after the auction went live.
Dylan Harper, Kon Knueppel Debut Patch Cards Also Top $2 Million
Fanatics Collect sold the Rookie Debut Patch cards of Dylan Harper and Kon Knueppel in the same auction. Harper’s card sold for $2.88 million, and Knueppel’s card sold for $2.34 million. Each sale is the highest for any card of that player.
The Flagg, Harper, and Knueppel cards are now the three highest-selling Debut Patch cards since the concept was introduced in MLB in 2021. The format has since expanded to other sports, and the 2025-26 rookies are the first NBA class with Debut Patch cards.
Each rookie wore a patch on his jersey sleeve in his first NBA game. After the game, the patch was removed, placed into a trading card, and signed. Topps put the patches from all 99 players who made NBA debuts in 2025-26 into the set, and 93 of those cards carry autographs.
San Antonio took Harper second overall in the 2025 NBA Draft, one pick after Dallas took Flagg. Harper made his debut in the same Oct. 22 game as Flagg. He averaged 11.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 3.9 assists in 69 games and made the All-Rookie First Team.
The Charlotte Hornets drafted Knueppel fourth overall. He and Flagg were teammates at Duke in 2024-25. He averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists in 81 games while shooting 47.5% from the field. He also made the All-Rookie First Team.
Flagg was the NBA’s Rookie of the Year last season. He started all 70 games he played for Dallas and averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. He earned $13,825,920 in 2026 under his rookie-scale contract, which includes a $15.21 million team option for 2027-28.
