I blinked and got priced out of my personal collection.
My experience as a WNBA card collector for 28 years has been a steady stream of “nobody cares about WNBA cards” when I ask most dealers. Then hobby boxes of 2024 WNBA Select sold out in about three minutes on Panini’s website at the bargain price of $874 — more than a 500 percent increase from what boxes of WNBA cards were sold for last year.
I guess somebody cares now.
Or a lot of somebodies who aren’t the folks like me who showed up for WNBA releases all those years we only had one option. These new somebodies certainly are showing up in droves on live-selling platforms like Whatnot to spend thousands on Select FOTL (first off the line) breaks, where participants buy the rights to every card of a certain team or player pulled out of the packs being opened. Yet they seem especially disappointed when they don’t hit one of the chaser spots with one-word titles like “Brink” or “Angel.” Breakers who can’t pronounce WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson’s name correctly or toss a Napheesa Collier autograph aside with the heap of other veteran players are looking for a specific somebody.
Everyone is looking for a specific somebody. Maybe at the expense of those of us who still, foolishly, collect everybody.
