It’s hard to turn down $25,000, but Andy Zonneveld and his 8-year-old son, Andrew, did exactly that.
And it paid off.
Less than a month after the father-son duo acquired the card, their LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant Topps NOW Gold 1/1 sold for $53,680 at Goldin Auctions on Saturday, a record for any Topps NOW card sold publicly.
Among the collectors who purchased a then-record 588,030 orders of the James, Curry, Durant Olympics Topps NOW card chasing the 1/1 triple autograph, Zonneveld and his son didn’t pull the top chase, but they did come very close.
After posting the card for sale in a Facebook group, the Zonnevelds received an offer of $25,000 and a trip to Atlanta’s CardsHQ from Sports Card Investor founder Geoff Wilson. The two declined the offer and instead consigned the card with Goldin.
"I told my son, we're going to flip this and make money to invest in your future schooling," Andy Zonneveld told cllct earlier this month. “I told him we could take $20,000 of it and find some special cards, as we’re really just novices at this point.”
According to data tool Card Ladder, the previous high sale for any Topps NOW card is the $39,050 paid for a 2017 Aaron Judge Rookie of the Year BGS 10 Black Label in Jan. 2023.
Considered one of the most important cards to release in 2024, the Gold 1/1 was included in what has become a massive chase for the triple autograph 1/1. That autograph card, which still has yet to surface, is the first signature from James under the Topps brand and the first to feature autographs from James and Curry on the same card.
Those Topps NOW cards have also become the targets for a number of high-dollar bounties, with as much as $1 million currently offered for the triple autograph from Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.