Paul Skenes MLB Debut Patch card sells for $1.11 million at auction

The famed Paul Skenes MLB Debut Patch autographed card sold for $1.11 million early Friday morning, ending with 64 bids in Fanatics Collects March Premier auction.

The 11-year-old boy from Los Angeles who originally landed the one-of-a-kind Skenes card from a pack of 2024 Topps Chrome Update baseball cards on Christmas morning secured more money off the sale of the card than Skenes will make from his 2025 base salary.

The boy will get $925,000 from the sale of the card.

Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Pirates All-Star pitcher and 2024 National League Rookie of Year will only make $875,000 this season, via Spotrac.

Advertisement Fanatics Collect pledged to donate their portion of the sale to the Los Angeles Fire Department and Red Cross to aid in the recovery from the forest fires from earlier this year in the southern California area.

The Skenes MLB Debut Patch card with a gem mint 10 grade for both card and autograph quality from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) carries a price tag of nearly 10 times higher than the most expensive sale of one of his other cards.

The previous high mark was set by the pitchers one-of-a-kind 2023 Bowman Draft Chrome Prospect autographed Superfractor card (PSA 7 card grade, 10 auto grade), which sold for $123,200 through Goldin Auctions last September.

But that card did not include the patch Skenes wore on his jersey sleeve during his first Major League start on May 11, 2024.

Since the beginning of 2024, there have been 10 sales of individual cards for at least $1 million documented by Card Ladders database, which tracks trading card sales across multiple platforms.

Only two cards since the beginning of this year have sold publicly for more than where the auction for the Skenes card ended Thursday night: Featured in the same auction as the Skenes MLB Debut Patch, was highly-touted Baltimore Orioles prospect Jackson Holliday s MLB Debut Patch card, which is now the second highest selling card in the two years of the series.

The ungraded Holliday card sold for $198,000, which passed the $150,000 bounty issued by card vendor Dave and Adams for the 2023 Anthony Volpe MLB Debut Patch card, the previous high sale for a Debut Patch card.

Skenes is one of the collecting hobbys darlings heading into the 2025 MLB season an unusual distinction for a pitcher in a space that usually places greater value on hitters.

He was one of the most searched athletes across all sports on eBay toward the end of 2024 and he had the second most cards graded by PSA during the offseason, behind only Shohei Ohtani.

Advertisement Skenes employer and girlfriend may have aided in driving up interest for this particular card, though.

The Pirates made the most public pitch of them all for the Skenes card at the onset of the release of 2024 Topps Chrome Update, offering two season tickets behind home plate at PNC Park for 30 years and a host of other unique experiences and items.

Livvy Dunne, Skenes girlfriend, social media influencer and LSU gymnast, offered the card holder a chance to sit with her in a suite at the stadium during a game if the person took the Pirates deal.

The boy who landed the card and his family, who are from the Los Angeles area but chose not to make their identities public given all the scrutiny the card has drawn, opted to sell it through Fanatics Collect instead.

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(Photos: Fanatics).

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