Editor's Note

As an NBA fan and basketball card collector, I learned long ago that the trading card hobby is an international phenomenon. Through my participation on social media, I have met and spoken about the hobby with passionate collectors from all over the world. At this point in my hobby life, I have also added many significant cards to my collection by transacting with collectors in Europe and Asia.

The trading card hobby is growing rapidly in Asian countries in particular. There is already a long and rich history of Japanese baseball cards in place, and younger generations are very active in basketball cards and TCGs, Pokémon in particular. In late 2018, PSA introduced professional grading to Japan by opening a satellite office in Tokyo. Getting their cards graded had not been an easy process for Japanese collectors. The language barrier provided one set of challenges, while shipping raw cards internationally presented another. Having a PSA submissions drop-off office in Tokyo offered a closer location for them to ship their cards. Each month the cards are forwarded from the Tokyo office to PSA’s Southern California headquarters where they are graded and later returned.

We are now taking steps to enlarge the PSA footprint in the Asian card market. In September 2022, we signed a lease to begin building a brand new office in Tokyo. We are expanding our services from simply having a collecting and transfer site to opening our first fully operational grading facility outside the United States. Tony Aram, who successfully opened and operated our satellite office, will be running the new grading facility as well, which we expect to open within the next year.

It is exciting to see our hobby grow to the level that it makes sense for PSA to make an investment of this nature to expand operations across the world. I feel fortunate to be on this journey.

Best,

Nat Turner CEO, Collectors

Hindsight would tell us as the 2021 MLB season crept into focus, Godzilla was hiding in open water. Strewn around the aftermarket were dormant listings of cards that would grow to become monsters at radioactive rates. Rainbows, short prints, one-of-ones, graded gems, grails — all of them criminally undervalued in the mind of Peter Caikowskyi.

Such a listing pinged on Pete’s eBay radar in late March of that year. He had spent that offseason studying a Shohei Ohtani card market dragged by a familiar arc of hype and injury. Familiar to a point, because Ohtani’s twoway skillset was as foreign as they come. Among the many legends that preceded the Japanese ballplayer across the Pacific: triple-digit fastballs, vanishing sinkers, a ridiculous slugging percentage.

There were tantalizing flashes, but even Babe Ruth incarnate couldn’t dodge hobby cynicism after a three-year sample of strains and surgeries, Tommy John included. Tagged with an injury-prone label heading into spring training in the thick of a hobby boom, consensus in 2021 was that Ohtani’s two-way edge wouldn’t translate.

That was Pete’s edge. The Largo-based bar and restaurant owner was navigating three West Floridan establishments through a pandemic, but his real rabbit hole was the Ohtani dip. A Mets fan and baseball diehard, Pete came of age in the hobby heyday of the ‘90s and returned during the recent boom to dabble in breaks, collect and speculate. Instinct and intel aligned on this truth: Ohtani wasn’t just a once-in-a-generation talent, but a once-ina-lifetime investment.

In mid-March, as “Shotime” took over the news cycle, Pete armed himself with a bankroll of $50,000 and ambushed eBay. The heist began with four 2018 Bowman Chrome batting variation rookie cards graded PSA 10: a Rookie Autograph, a Blue Refractor numbered to 150, a Blue Refractor Autograph numbered to 150, and a Gold Refractor numbered to 50. All told, a $6,400 dent.

In the Cactus League, Shohei was dealing; off the Gulf, Pete was wheeling. He switched sets and continued his assault, locking in on Ohtani’s 2018 Topps Chrome rainbow and landing a Blue Wave Refractor. A Gold Wave Refractor was quick in its wake.

And then he locked in on me. Or rather, my eBay listing of a 2018 Topps Chrome Red Refractor Autograph, numbered to five, graded PSA 10/AUTO 10.

The 2021 Spring Training campaign was a wild one for this tortured Angels fan. Ohtani had arrived with all the right keywords: optimized, adjusted, and unleashed by staff for a true two-way campaign. I had picked up an ungraded lot of 2018 Topps Chrome Refractors, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted — needed — that monster. Nine days into Spring ball, I jumped on eBay and swooped the most stunning card I’d ever seen for $5,500. Too hot for these paper hands, I flipped it 13 days later to a Florida mailing address for $9,000, eBay’s top Ohtani sale for the time, and felt like a real winner for about one homestand.

“I still remember your message,” says Pete, rehashing our brief negotiation. “It’s your turn to set the market.” Now two seasons removed from the sale — perhaps the greatest two-year stretch by any athlete in history — I’ve tracked Pete down to see about the card. “That’s my retirement. I’m in for 20 years, and then it’ll be on display in a Japanese museum.”

He takes me back to the scene of the crime and the parallels are fun to surface. The Red Wave Refractor was the best low-numbered card we could find, the most we’d ever spent, the color-match nirvana we couldn’t resist. But because buying-in isn’t the same as going all-in, comps stop there. The Ohtani party wave would continue for the “Shark of Clearwater.” All told, he bagged around 30 significant Ohtani rookie cards.

“Peter showed up on my doorstep. I offered him a glass of scotch, and a relationship was born,” says Frank DiNote, Head of Private Sales at Goldin, where Peter vaults his cards for both safekeeping and transactions. Early in 2022, Frank took 18 of Pete’s Ohtani cards to auction for a $70,000 windfall. ”Pete has a great eye for long-term value — he was one of the first collectors to really buy Josh Allen — but I’d put his Ohtani collection in the top five,” he added.

Frankly, I could have used Frank’s card counsel back in 2021. Hindsight comes back into focus as I detail the sale to Frank, and he reframes the picture. “When you sold, you were happy with the price. You got good value for your asset,” he said. “I’d rather be the guy that sold a little too early than a little too late.” Even Pete can reminisce about the one he wants back: a 2018 Bowman Gold Autograph, 4x profits be damned. And although I had called Pete to catch up on the card, it’s the player we keep coming back to. To witness the ultra-modern mythology of Shohei Ohtani makes winners of us all.

Before letting Frank go, I pressed him for a favorite card in Pete’s collection. “It’s gotta be the Red Wave Refractor. It’s just a killer card! I’m a bull, because I see that color and I’m ready to run through a wall. Of all the variations, there’s just something about red.”

Thanks Frank, I’m aware. And looking forward to running through the walls of a Japanese museum for the next great Ohtani heist.

By the time he landed stateside in 2001, Ichiro Suzuki was already a one-name superstar in Japan, the Madonna or Ronaldo of the diamond.

He was simply Ichiro. But there was nothing simple about his game.

Blessed with incredible speed, tremendous focus, a world-class bat and a throwing arm that rivaled a bazooka, Ichiro came to the United States at the age of 27 and took Major League Baseball by storm, becoming just the second player in history to win American League MVP and Rookie of the Year honors in their first season.

After seven brilliant seasons in his native country, he'd play nearly two decades in the bigs, finishing his legendary career in 2019 at the age of 45 in the Emerald City, the home that embraced him all those years ago, after piling up more than 3,000 hits and more than 500 stolen bases.

He is lionized on some of the best cards in the modern game after taking the hobby by storm as a rookie in 2001, memorialized on some of the most elite multiplayer cards of the 2000s and with graded rookies — both American and Japanese — at all price points.

But before we look at Ichiro's impressive cardboard, let's look back at his legendary career.

Prior to becoming a household name in the United States, Ichiro was already a seven-time Nippon Professional Baseball League All-Star, a seven-time Pacific League batting champion, a seven-time Golden Glove Award winner and a three-time MVP.

But with his long-time squad, the Orix Blue Wave, struggling in 2000 and likely to lose him to free agency anyway, they broke long-time Japanese and Major League Baseball tradition by allowing him to negotiate with MLB teams.

The Mariners bid $13 million just for the rights to negotiate with him, and after signing a three-year, $14 million contract, Ichiro became an instant sensation. He became the first player since Jackie Robinson to lead either league in batting average (.350) and stolen bases (56) in a single season, and he broke the rookie record with 242 hits, the most by any player in MLB since New York Giants veteran Bill Terry registered 254 in 1930.

And that was just the beginning.

Three years after his smashing debut, Ichiro broke George Sisler's record for hits in a season with 257, and he'd go on to break Wee Willie Keeler's record with 10 consecutive seasons with 200+ hits. He retired in 2019 at the age of 45 after being limited to just 17 combined games in 2018 and 2019. He finished his career with a .311 lifetime batting average, 3,089 hits, 509 stolen bases, 96 triples and 362 doubles.

Simply put, he was an icon on the field. But he was also an icon in the hobby.

Collectors of a certain age will never forget the spring of 2001, when Ichiro and Albert Pujols captured America’s attention. Ichiro’s rookie cards became the hottest in sports, each subsequent release causing more and more hype.

His Bowman Chrome rookies, released in both English and Japanese, became sensations. His autographed rookie cards commanded top dollars. His first game-used relics — coming at a time when memorabilia cards still had a bit of novelty to them — were in high demand.

More than two decades after his grand debut, his cards are still coveted and his place in history is secure.