5 days ago
How friendship and $27 turned into a $274,500 Caitlin Clark rookie card
Friendship and a 'pity' buy for less than the price of a full tank of gas turned into the second most expensive women's sports trading card in the history of the hobby.
A Caitlin Clark one-of-a-kind rookie card sold for $274,500 on Saturday night through Goldin Auctions, three months after Phoenix resident Valerie Coleman landed the card for only $27 during a WNBA card box break from streamers 'Mrs. Flip' on Whatnot.
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The card — Clark's 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA Black Finite one-of-one rookie card with a mint 9 grade from PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) — became the most expensive public sale for a non-autographed Clark card, as well as the second-highest price for any Clark card of any kind. Only the Indiana Fever guard's 2024 Prizm WNBA Signatures Gold Vinyl one-of-one autographed rookie card sold for more at $366,000 on March 29.
Coleman hopes Clark will learn about the sale of this card… but only to spread the word about the good Coleman hopes to bring with the lucrative boon.
Coleman started collecting cards as a child with her siblings and family members in West Virginia in the 1990s and maintained interest in the hobby simply for her love of sports and collecting. She ventured over to collecting WNBA cards essentially to pick up keepsakes of the players on her fantasy team.
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She discovered 'Mrs. Flip,' a WNBA box breaker stream run by Mandy Stalmack and Matt Oomen of Ludington, Mich. and quickly developed a friendship with the energetic 'Flips.'
It was always less about landing lucrative cards for Coleman with 'The Flips,' rather she just wanted to help her new friends who loved cards as much as she did make a living.
'I'm really just committed to going to their show to support them from a financial standpoint,' Coleman said. 'I love what they're doing with their lives (Stalmack and Oomen are openly in recovery from substance abuse) and what they're doing. Whatever came out of the break was always fine with me. The supporting part, that was important.'
How Stalmack and Oomen decided to start their WNBA card channel spawned from their own stroke of luck.
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The couple landed a Bo Nix 2024 Panini Gold Standard one-of-one Nike Swoosh jersey patch card in an online box break in September. They took a gamble by holding on to the card rather than cashing in instantly. Their patience paid off with Nix improving during the season, meaning his card values jumped along the way.
Two months later, their Nix card sold for $3,800 on eBay while on their way to visit family in Missouri during Thanksgiving. On the same trip, Stalmack said she stumbled across a Whatnot channel selling WNBA cards.
'As soon as I saw them pull the first Caitlin (Clark card) and everybody was going crazy, I said (to Oomen), 'Babe, hear me out,'' Stalmack said. 'And so we took that money from the Bo Nix (card), and we started the Mrs. Flip channel, and so we started that in December.'
'Off one card,' Oomen chimed in, almost still astonished as the origin of the stream.
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'The Flips' were off and running with their WNBA channel, buying sealed cases of cards leading up to when the 2024 Panini Prizm WNBA blaster boxes (six packs per box, four cards per pack sold in retail stores) went on sale. With no direct allocation of products from any card manufacturers, Oomen said the couple drives across Michigan and neighboring states every day trying to scoop up as many WNBA blaster boxes as possible from retailers.
During a random team break (where paying participants are assigned a random WNBA team and get all the cards opened that are associated with it) on the afternoon of March 15, Coleman wanted to close out the slow-moving process of filling all the available spots to allow The Flips to rip open the packs in the boxes. One of the two spots remaining was a 'chaser' team. 'Chaser' teams are a handful of the top teams that buyers would hope to land in a break. If the buyer of the spot lands a 'chaser' team, those handful of buyers will then be put into another random draw for those top teams.
'Nobody wanted to do it (buy the spots),' Oomen said. 'But Val, she's been with us from the beginning. … She pretty much did this out of pity just to help us out.'
Coleman won the final 'chaser' slot for $27 and then secured the Fever by another random chance.
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Stalmack sifted through the cards from the Prizm packs with her thumbnails splashed with bright red polish and three jewel stickers on each nail. She was casually speaking to someone messaging her from the live chat during the break as she moved the top card from the pack when the Clark card caught her and Oomen by surprise.
'Oh my God!' Stalmack shouted. Oomen chimed in asking, 'Is that a one of one?' She turned the card over to reveal it was indeed the most sought-after non-autographed card in the set. The Flips lost their minds, screaming 'Holy! and 'Oh my God!' Meanwhile in Phoenix, Coleman said she shrieked so loud that security cameras from her home caught her joy in real time.
The $274,500 Clark card came from a box bought at Walmart in Indiana, Oomen said. The retailer originally sold 2024 Prizm WNBA blaster boxes for about $40 each.
'I remember waking up, and I told him (Oomen), 'There's something big in this room.' And we had no clue what we were about to pull,' Stalmack said.
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No one felt comfortable having the Clark card shipped. So Coleman flew to Grand Rapids, Mich., which is about two hours from The Flips' home, not long after hitting the card in the break. Coleman, Stalmack, and Oomen met at the airport to exchange hugs and the card. And as a thank you, Coleman will treat 'The Flips' to a Phoenix vacation in August where the trio will attend a Fever-Phoenix Mercury game.
Her good fortune will benefit more than just herself and The Flips, though.
Coleman volunteers with animal rescues in Phoenix, and now she hopes her willingness to donate a sizable portion of the profits from the card will spur more support. Three animal rescue centers — Sky Sanctuary Rescue, Handover Rover, Miri's Haven — will hold fundraisers in the hopes to raise $50,000 from the public. Coleman will match all donations to the animal rescue centers up to $50,000 with the goal to raise $100,000.
'That was my first thought when I pulled the card. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I can help so many people and animals with this,' Coleman said.
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And why does Coleman hope the word spreads to Clark about her aspirations for the money received from the card?
Coleman wrote on a pinned post on her Instagram page, 'If Caitlin Clark herself somehow sees this, I'll add $10,000 to the donation. She changed my life, so now let's change some more lives.'
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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