PHOENIX – For most collectors, a Josh Rosen trading card would not normally draw much attention. But when a rare Kaboom card of the former Arizona Cardinals quarterback sold for a five-figure price earlier this year, it revealed something important about today’s sports card market.
For some collectors, the most valuable card isn’t always the one depicting the most famous player. Sometimes, it’s simply the last one a collector needs to complete a set. And some collectors are willing to overpay to get it.
Jim Delgado from Scottsdale knows that feeling well. As a set collector, he has spent years tracking down cards to complete collections, and he said the chase can become all-consuming near the end.
“It definitely becomes a little bit of an obsession,” Delgado said. “When you’re down to one card, it’s all you think about. You’ve already spent the time and money to get the rest of the set, so stopping one card short almost feels worse than not starting at all. The last card almost becomes more important than the entire set because it means you actually finished.”
That feeling is what drives many set collectors to spend years tracking down specific cards, often searching online marketplaces, card shows and private collector groups to locate cards that may only surface for sale occasionally. By the time a collector is missing just one card, the search often becomes less about shopping and more about negotiating with the one person who might own it.
That mindset helps explain a recent headline-grabbing sale involving Rosen, whose NFL career fell far short of expectations and ended in 2022. A rare Josh Rosen Green Kaboom card sold for $26,400, according to a report by The Athletic, a sale that surprised many outside the hobby but made more sense to collectors chasing set completion.
Kaboom cards are rare insert cards found in Panini’s Absolute Football product and are known as “case hits,” meaning typically only one is found per case. Because of that rarity, combined with colorful artwork, Kaboom cards have become some of the most sought-after modern inserts in the hobby.
That is especially true for collectors attempting to complete full sets.
Neil Thomasson, a live lead breaker at RIP Valley card shop in Phoenix who also collects Kaboom cards, said rarity and design drive the demand.
“So the reason that Kabooms are so sought after is just the case-hit aspect, there’s only one per case and then the fact of, I would say, the art on the card,” Thomasson said.
He said the hobby has shifted in recent years toward high-end inserts like Kabooms and Downtown cards.
“(It’s)The biggest card from those expensive sets, so it comes down to the supply and demand,” Thomasson said.
Because only one Kaboom is typically found per case, collectors often spend thousands opening boxes just for a chance to pull one, which helps set the secondary market value before the card is ever resold.
That demand is part of why the Rosen sale made headlines, but Thomasson said the sale represents a larger trend in the market.
“I mean, it speaks for itself with that sale, just Downtowns and Kabooms in general right now, it’s crazy that it’s become more about the card than the player,” Thomasson said.
Thomasson said certain inserts have become so recognizable that collectors now chase the design and rarity of the card itself, rather than the name printed on it.
For set collectors, the player on the card sometimes becomes secondary to the goal of finishing a collection.
“Absolutely. At that point, you’re not really paying for the card anymore, you’re paying to finish the set,” Delgado said. “That’s why you see sales like the Josh Rosen Kaboom – it’s not really about Josh Rosen the player, it’s about the guy who needed that card to complete something that maybe took years to build. The value becomes personal, not just what a price guide says.”
At RIP Valley, operations manager James Torres said he wasn’t shocked by the Rosen sale because it showed how strong the Kaboom market has become.
“Beyond that, it showed the power of the case hit,” Torres said.
Torres explained that the cost of chasing Kaboom cards begins long before a collector ever finds the card they want.
“I think what people don’t understand is how hard it is to pull that card,” Torres said. “I’ll use Absolute Football as an example, hitting that card with the price of the box is going to be a thousand-plus. So, you know, just to get even, hitting the card just shows you how that sets the market, like you got to recoup what you spend,” Torres said.
Hobby configurations of Panini Absolute Football have varied by year, but typically contain between 10 and 12 boxes per case, meaning the odds of pulling a Kaboom card are still extremely low and often require buying an entire case.
Because of those odds, collectors often spend thousands of dollars chasing a single card, which can drive up resale prices when one finally appears on the market. Many of those cards end up in personal collections and rarely return to the market, which can make certain players in a set even harder to find over time.
“With them numbering the case hits with this one obviously being green, yeah, I mean it’s like holding a piece of art,” Torres said.
Torres said he regularly sees collectors chasing full sets, even when the cost climbs.
“I see it often. It’s fun because I mean it’s going to take them to places they never expected they would have gone looking for a card,” Torres said.
But the most difficult part of collecting often comes down to the final card.
“It makes it tough, especially when someone knows you’re looking for it because you can kind of gauge the pricing if you will, it all goes down to how much the card is worth to you,” Torres said.
That situation can lead to unusual deals and long-distance negotiations. Torres recalled one collector who went to extreme lengths just to secure the final card for a set.
“Someone agreed to a deal, they paid $15,000 for a card, and they ended up booking a flight for both them and the person who owned the card to meet in person because they didn’t want to have it shipped,” Torres said. “So they met in Atlanta, and then exchanged the card in person.”
Stories like that are not uncommon in the hobby, where private deals and personal connections often matter just as much as the money involved. In some cases, collectors spend months or even years building relationships with other collectors just for a chance to acquire a specific card.
For collectors like Delgado, those stories make sense. Completing a set is about more than just money.
“Buying one big card just takes money. Completing a set takes time, patience and sometimes relationships with other collectors,” Delgado said. “It’s more like finishing a puzzle. Anyone can go buy a big card if they have the money, but finishing a set feels like an accomplishment. It feels like you built something.”
And that is why, collectors say, a card like Josh Rosen can become one of the most valuable cards in a set — not because of the player, but because of what it represents.
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