San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama will get a ultra high-end trading card set from Topps next month.
Scheduled to release Oct. 9, the all-new 2023-24 Topps Mercury: Victor Wembanyama set will retail for $8,000 per box, with just eight cards in each box. All cards will be encased and foil wrapped with one Chrome autograph and one relic autograph included in every box.
Among the chases are game-worn jersey cards, including jerseys worn during Wembanyama’s NBA debut and when he scored his 1,000th career point.
Mercury will also include dual autographs with Wembanyama and stars such as David Robinson, LeBron James and C.J. Stroud, numbered to just 10.
Topps Mercury will have 10 autograph card designs in total, with some including inscriptions such as “Alien,” “Rookie of the Year” and “#1 Pick.” Among the relic cards are a 1/1 Jordan logo patch.
Inserts include “Cote to Coast,” inspired by the Cote d’ Azur, as well as “1971 Topps Chrome” and “Wingspan.”
In addition to the autographs and relics, Topps Mercury features 20 base cards that showcase important moments from Wembanyama’s rookie season. Short-printed variations include French cards, limited to just 45 copies, and image variation “Specimen” cards, limited to just 15. The “Specimen” cards reference themes such as space and Wembanyama’s “Alien” nickname.
According to Topps, the chromium Mercury set name is inspired by a liquid mercury design that features a dripping logo “M” on each card. Topps Mercury will exclusively focus on a single athlete during his or her first season.
Since NBA Rookie of the Year campaign in 2023-24, Wembanyama has been one of the most important and popular athletes in sports collectibles. According to GemRate, a third-party card grading tracker, Wembanyama is already one of the most graded athletes of all time and could be among the top-10 most graded players before the end of 2024.
According to data tool Card Ladder, the highest public sale for a Wembanyama card is the $516,000 paid for his 2023 Prizm Black Shimmer FOTL 1/1 PSA 9 in April at PWCC.
Extreme interest for Wembanyama has stretched into the game-used memorabilia market as well, with his NBA debut jersey selling for $762,000 last year at Sotheby’s, a record for any NBA debut jersey.
This is not Topps’ first single-athlete set, but it is the brand’s most widely distributed single-athlete set. Other single-athlete offerings have included Topps x J-Rod (Julio Rodriguez) in 2023.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct.