Dan Marino will have a new record for a public sports card sale when the Fanatics Premier auction ends next week.
Bidding for Marino's 1998 Skybox E-X2001 Essential Credentials Now /8 PSA 7 card already has reached $85,000 as of Wednesday morning — three times his current record.
Previously, the most expensive Marino card ever sold publicly was his 1997 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems Green /15 (PSA 7) which sold for $27,600 in December 2023. His next highest belongs to the same copy of the same card, which sold for $27,600 just a few months prior. Third place is held by his most recognizable card — the 1984 Topps rookie — which sold for $20,000 in a BGS PRISTINE 10 in November 2020.
But one has to look far down the list to find a card from the 1998 Skybox E-X2001 represented, with the top Marino sale from the set coming for a PSA 9 copy of the Future parallel /53 which sold for $7,500 in 2022.
Comparable sales for the Now parallel up for bid at Fanatics? Nowhere to be found.
This marks the first time any of the eight cards from the print-run have surfaced publicly, and at a current bid of $85,000, it’s clear collectors have been waiting for some time.
The 1998 Skybox E-X2001 Essential Credentials set, which marked the second football release for the set and followed successful products in basketball and baseball, included two limited-edition parallels: Future and Now. The Future parallel was limited to 54 copies, and the Now parallel had a scarce production of just eight.
PSA has graded just seven total copies of both parallels combined (three of the Now and four of the Future). The set, particularly its rare parallels, have seen recent headline sales, with the Future parallel of Peyton Manning’s rookie card selling for $125,000 in July (the highest price ever paid for a Manning card).
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.