Fanatics September Premier Auction Recap: Cooper Flagg, Rare Pokémon Cards Sell for Millions

The Fanatics Collect September Premier Auction has concluded, and the closing prices from the high-profile listings have left a lot of collectors shocked at the numbers. Cooper Flagg’s Rookie Debut Patch autograph card from 2025-26 Topps Chrome Update led the way with a closing price of $8.04 million, followed by Dylan Harper’s version of the card for $2.88 million and Kon Knueppel’s for $2.34 million.

The fourth and final card to approach seven figures was a 2015 Pokémon promo card of Mudkip that went for $3.72 million. As for the other cards in the auction, one-of-ones, key autographed rookies, and other rare parallels of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Tom Brady, and Shohei Ohtani comprised the majority of cards that went in the six-figure range.

Jason Williams (no relation to the late 90s and early 2000s NBA point guard), the lucky collector who pulled the redemption for the Cooper Flagg card, made the trip from South Carolina to Maine to meet Flagg during the opening of Cooper’s first trading card shop, Flagg Trading Co, two days after the card went up for auction and had already approached the $2.8 million mark. Needless to say, Williams was very thankful to Flagg for being one of the most hyped rookies of recent memory right when Topps reacquired the NBA license.

Flagg’s card joins elite company as only a handful of cards have sold for such unfathomable amounts. According to Fanatics Collect, only Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s one-of-one Upper Deck Exquisite Dual Logoman Autograph card ($12.93 million), a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie card graded SGC 9.5 ($12.6 million), and a Michael Jordan and LeBron James’ one-of-one Upper Deck Exquisite Dual Logoman Autograph card ($10 million) have sold for more. Harper and Knueppel’s cards also broke records as they surpassed the previous high for a Rookie Debut Patch autograph card set by Paul Skenes, whose own Rookie Debut Patch autograph card went for $1.1 million.

While most people might be able to make sense of one-of-a-kind cards featuring Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or LeBron James going for millions of dollars, a Pokémon card of a 2015 vintage that has 100 copies in existence might be a bit of a head scratcher. The Mudkip promo card features art by Daisuke Ochiai from the 2015 Pokémon Art Academy Competition. Using the Nintendo 3DS educational game Pokémon Art Academy, users were able to submit their drawings to the contest held by The Pokémon Company.

The winners from Japan, North America, and Europe received 100 unnumbered Pokémon Trading Card Game cards with their artwork featured on the cards, free to do with them as they pleased. Stories of these cards being sold or given away or found in private collections have spread throughout the years, but the common theme appears to be that finding a copy that could get a high grade is not easy. Despite having 100 cards each in existence, non-Japanese winners were sent their prize by The Pokémon Company in less-than-secure boxes. Only three of Ochiai-san’s Mudkip cards have been graded 10 by PSA, and now one of them just sold for $3.72 million.

A recent addition to the stars that typically make up these auctions is Shaquille O’Neal. Despite being one of the greatest players of all-time and a multimedia superstar who has been in the public consciousness since the early 1990s, his trading cards were always underpriced when compared to Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron. Part of the reason his rookie cards do not approach the levels of his peers is that they came out during the height of the junk wax era, when each card was being produced in the hundreds of thousands. As collectors and investors are being priced out of the Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron class, there is an added focus now on Hall of Fame players like O’Neal, Allen Iverson, and Tim Duncan.

Juan Martinez

From video game journalism to veteran of the sneaker blog era to podcasting about well, everything, Juan is smiling through it all and can't believe this is his life. His current hot take is that people are really underrating the Psyduck trading card market. Email: juan@soleretriever.com Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Threads : @ezyville