Topps designed the MLB Rookie Debut Patch Autographs with the hopes it could create the single most coveted rookie card for every player featured.
Now in their second season as part of Topps Chrome Update, the RDPAs have delivered on the hype — at least in terms of social media buzz and appeal beyond the hobby.
The set’s biggest test to date came on the secondary market Thursday, and it appears to have passed, as Junior Caminero’s RDPA sold for $66,000 in Fanatics Collect’s latest Premier auction. The sale set a public record for any debut patch and any Caminero card in the process.
According to data tool Card Ladder, the sale of Caminero’s RDPA easily tops the previous public record for any debut patch set by Kodai Senga’s SGC 10/10, which sold for $17,080 at Goldin in March.
How the debut patches would stack up against other highly coveted rookies on the secondary market, such as 1st Bowman variations and flagship Topps rookies, has been a major question since they first debuted in 2023.
Camineo’s debut patch again reigned supreme.
The previous public record for any Caminero card was the $34,200 paid for the 2023 1st Bowman Chrome Superfractor Autograph BGS 9.5 at PWCC in December 2023. Prior to the RDPA program, that card was widely considered Caminero’s most important — the debut patch nearly doubled it in price.
Caminero’s RDPA is far from the first to sell at public auction, but it’s the most significant to date.
Beyond Senga’s sale, the top sales for RDPAs have been the $11,169 paid for Bobby Miller, the $9,000 for Masataka Yoshida and $4,600 for AJ Smith Shawver.
Those prices lag far behind Caminero’s sale, but the comparison isn’t that simple. Though those sales are tied to players for popular franchises, Caminero boasts the reputation as a top prospect — following Jackson Holliday’s promotion to Baltimore, Caminero was elevated to the No. 1 ranking in baseball by MLB.com.
Of the known sales for RDPAs, Caminero’s is matched only by the $150,000 bounty offered by retailer Dave and Ada’s Card World for Anthony Volpe’s. That bounty was accepted earlier this year, and it’s hard to know how the card would have performed at public auction.
Additional data points, which will provide even more clarity, should arrive in the coming months. To date, debut patches for stars including Holliday, Elly Da La Cruz and Jackson Chourio have all been pulled, according to a crowdsourced debut patch tracker, while RDPAs for Paul Skenes and Jasson Dominguez remain unfound.
Once pulled, graded and sold, the debut patches for Skenes and Cruz will almost certainly provide the necessary data to know if the RDPA has legitimately overtaken other coveted rookies.
To date, the highest public sale for a Skenes card is the $123,220 paid for the 2023 1st Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Autographs Superfractor PSA 7/10 at Goldin in September.
The public record for any De La Cruz card is the $360,000 paid for his 2022 1st Bowman Chrome Prospect Autograph Superfractor PSA 10/10 at the Holy Grails auction in September.
Those cards are likely weeks or months away from selling publicly, but the perfect comparisons will be there when they do.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.