Redemption of Juan Soto
Hobby Story Time
Note: This was originally posted on my blog on 12/9/2023
With news of Juan Soto completing his destined move to the New York Yankees (a move rumored since he was called up by the Nationals) this week, I thought back to one of my favorite stories of my recent time in the hobby.
I’m a huge fan of Soto and at one time had a very sizable rookie collection focused on 2018 Topps Update, Topps Chrome, and Topps Heritage (his rookie is in the High Number series or HHN). I sold most of it in 2019 and 2020 when his values reached a crazy level.
My biggest “COVID bubble” flip was also a Juan Soto rookie–I had a PSA 10 Update Xfractor auto /125 (center in the image below) that I bought for $5.5k on 12/19/2020 and sold for $11.5k on 3/8/2021. That was a crazy time in the hobby.
I’ll do another post down the road going into some of the special Soto cards I had at one time, but this one is about a specific card.
One of my all-time favorite years of product to rip was 2018 baseball and even in 2021 I was still ripping it. Such a huge rookie class at the time with Soto, Ohtani, Acuna, Gleyber Torres, and many others. At one point, even base rookies of those guys for cards in decent condition were selling big raw. I was selling 2018 Update Soto raw base for as much as $75 at one point. So even as wax got very expensive over time, you still had a decent floor to work with. Much different situation these days.
I really enjoyed HHN that year as well. The 1969 design had great eye appeal and the parallels and variations weren’t too out of control yet. But there was a big negative to ripping in 2021: one of the redemptions that year was for Soto’s rookie autograph card and they expired in August of 2020.
I was very active on Blowout’s forums at the time and whenever people asked about ripping HHN after the expiration, I’d bring up the status of Soto’s autos along with others who were aware of that issue. It’s something the less familiar wax rippers might not be aware of and we thought they should know. One guy on the forum gave us a hard time about it eventually, suggesting it was “arrogant” to avoid ripping HHN because of the expired redemptions since it was such slim odds you’d ever pull one.
In March of 2021 I was not into the current products and decided to splurge on a couple of boxes of 2018 HHN, which ran me $260 a box. On the last pack of the break, I pulled this and had to laugh:
I got some offers when I shared the news on Blowout that I pulled the expired redemption, but I decided to hang onto it as a funny piece of how the hobby can be and since I was a Soto fan it had some additional meaning.
After a couple of months, I decided to at least ask Topps to see if there was anything I could get for it. So, this is what I sent:
I just pulled an autograph redemption for Juan Soto from a box of 2018 Heritage High Number. The redemption expired last August, but due to the value of the card I wanted to at least check if there was any chance to redeem it.
Topps had a reputation for never fulfilling expired redemptions, so I was quite surprised to get this reply 4 months later:
Thank you for contacting Topps Consumer Relations about the expired redemption card you have.
Topps redemption cards are valid for two to three years depending on specific product release. Any redemption request must be submitted prior to the expiration date to be honored.
We are happy to make an exception to this policy. If we have the card in stock, we will redeem the redemption code to have the card ship to you. If we do not have your expired redemption in stock, a care package will be sent to you.
And at that point, the best I was hoping for was the care package mentioned. I certainly did not expect the update I got a few more months later in the Topps redemption center that they had assigned a Soto autograph to me.
And few months after that, this showed up at my house:
Considering what a Hail Mary it was to even get that fulfilled, I vowed that I’d keep this one in my collection as long as I had cards. And I’ve kept that promise so far.
I need to get it slabbed–especially if Soto begins to really shine in his time in New York (which is what I expect–he’s made for that stage), but I was extremely lucky that Topps hooked me up on this one.
In terms of the card itself, this is a pretty rare rookie auto but still affordable given the rarity. The red ink variation is hand numbered to /69 that year, but even this base auto only has a total population of 77 over at PSA and 33 over at Beckett (may be some crossovers counted as well that inflate that). I think this one is probably a 9 at best due to centering, but the PSA 10 population is only 39 as of this writing. A PSA 10 last sold on eBay for a little over $1k, but that was back in October. I would guess you’re looking at least $1.5k now for one.
If you do look into picking one for yourself, be aware that many “after-market” autographed base versions are floating around raw and in slabs. If it doesn’t say “Topps Certified Autograph Issue” at the bottom, it’s not a packed out auto and has a much lower value. The card number for the base version is #502 and for the auto version it is #ROA-JSO (or #JSO on the PSA flip), so that’s another way to tell the difference.