The hockey card market feels like it's in a sprint right now, and if you're not paying attention, you're missing some real gains. We've got playoff volume up 35% since the first round, and flagship rookie items for guys still in it are showing average value gains of 65% over the last six weeks. That's a serious acceleration.
Young Guns Really Moving
Upper Deck still holds all the licenses, so if it's official NHL stuff, it's coming from them. And what's moving? Rookies, plain and simple. Connor Bedard's Young Guns card, the #451 from 2023-24 Upper Deck Series 2, that's still the big whale. People were offering a million for the 1/1 Outburst Gold parallel, which tells you what kind of heat he's bringing. We're seeing his 2023 Upper Deck #DZ-79 Dazzlers - Green and the 2023 Upper Deck #R-47 O-Pee-Chee Glossy moving over the last seven days, too. It's kind of a whole ladder of his cards.
Then there's Macklin Celebrini. His 2024 Upper Deck #451 Young Guns Base is already the top trending card in the 2024 Upper Deck set. We just saw his 2024-25 The Cup Gold Foiled Rookie Patch Auto out of 24 hammer for $85,400 via Golden Auction between May 10-16, 2026. That pushed past the $78,000 we saw in February for him. This kid is setting records, and it’s probably pulling the whole category up with him. Other names like Matvei Michkov, Lane Hutson, and Logan Stankoven are getting real traction in the 2024 Upper Deck sets, too.
Old School Stays Strong
It's not all new money, though. We've always said the Gretzky rookie card anchors the whole market, and it still does. A raw 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Wayne Gretzky #18 sold for $693.00 just a couple of days ago on June 10th. A KSA 8.5 example of that same card went for $5197.51 on the same day. Even a PSA 7 hit $3595.00. These aren't the million-dollar modern monstrosities, but they're consistent. The pre-1975 market, it just chugs along, and cards like Bobby Orr's 1966 Topps #35, which pulls over $2,000 raw, show that the iconic names hold their ground, maybe even more reliably than the jump-and-drop modern stuff.
What to Look For (and Avoid)
The 2024-25 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey, which dropped in October, has seen strong sales. We saw a Lane Hutson 1/1 Young Guns Gold Outburst go for $1500 USD on eBay. That's a good number for a high-end parallel from a hot rookie, and it shows where the real money is landing. We're seeing raw Bedard Rookie Patch Autos from 2023 Upper Deck The Cup fetch over $19,000, and PSA 10s are pushing close to $78,000. These aren't cheap plays, but they're showing serious appreciation.
We've talked about how getting tougher to grade cards means being more selective. The market isn't a free-for-all anymore. For example, while box prices for new releases sometimes drop right after release, like we saw a 33% decline from $600 to $400 post-release on some product recently, the singles market is where the real action is. We're definitely shifting towards collecting singles over sealed product, it seems.
A Quick Grading Note
The grading situation is getting tougher to read, especially with PSA bumping their Bulk Grading minimums to 50 cards at $24.99 each, a $1,250 minimum cost. That makes grading a lot of stuff less viable, you know? You really need to be selective. For a card like the 2024 Metal Universe #BF-13 Blast Furnace - Gold /50 Matvei Michkov, if you pull one, that's probably a grade. But for a common base card of a lesser-known guy, you might be better off selling it raw. The premiums on PSA 10s are still there for the top cards, but the bar for what makes sense to grade keeps getting higher.
If you're looking for something affordable, a raw Wayne Gretzky 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee #18 can still be found for under $700, and a 1979-80 Topps Gretzky #18 raw is around $600-800. These are still accessible points of entry into an iconic card. Otherwise, we'd say focus on the high-end rookie parallels of the names we mentioned. The market is showing you where the money is landing.