SI

Victor Wembanyama's Rookie Season Being Commemorated With High-End Trading Card From Topps

Each set will cost $8,000 and include eight cards.

Josh Wilson

James and Wembanyama won Rookie of the Year 20 years apart
James and Wembanyama won Rookie of the Year 20 years apart / Topps
In this story:

How do you commemorate a runaway Rookie of the Year season? You give it a luxury trading card.

Topps is set to debut a new product—Mercury—focused solely on Victor Wembanyama, the brand told Sports Illustrated. Topps said that the product is the most "widely distributed" single-athlete set it has ever created.

The distinction is not a run-of-the-mill hanger pack or even a more sought-after hobby box. This is a high-end premium product for the most intense collectors. It will retail for $8,000. Each pack will feature eight cards individually foil-wrapped in a branded magnet case.

Victor Wembanyama rookie card
Wembanyama also led the league in blocks in his rookie sesaon / Topps

Here are more details about what will be in circulation in this product:

  • 20 base cards
  • Base card short prints (limited to 45 copies each)
  • 45 cards in French, numbered
  • 10 autograph card designs, some with inscriptions (numbered inserts). All on-card autos
  • Jersey relics
  • 10 copies or less dual on-card autos with David Robinson, LeBron James, and C.J. Stroud

The product is called Mercury in part because it's the first planet from the sun, and will commemorate debut seasons from athletes moving forward, with plans to feature rookies from other sports as well. The motif holds for another meaning of the word: Liquid silver, which inspires the color of the cards.

2023-24 Mercury is available from Topps on Oct. 9. Fanatics Live, a breaking platform, will have it Oct. 8.

https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1725044148/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si/01j6ja9h572abnb6k87r.jpg. Topps. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1725044151/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si/01j6ja9h609kjtvcf7x6.jpg. Topps. Topps. https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/v1725044152/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/si/01j6ja9h5qnb552eem2m.jpg. Topps

More of the Latest Around the NBA

feed

Published
Josh Wilson

JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

Home/NBA