Are These the Best Holiday Parallels?!

In the spirit of Halloween today, it seemed like a fun opportunity to showcase various Halloween parallels within the hobby. I went through eBay’s completed listings of various Halloween-themed products and found five cards I felt were worth mentioning. While most of these are recent, I had to turn the clock back a few years to find one. And to stay in the spirit, I want to rank each of the cards I’m about to show off on a scale of five Jack’O’Lanterns. 

And what goes into determining how many Jack’O’Lanterns a card gets? It’s going to be a mix of how much I like the card and how Halloween themed the card really is. 

Skenes Orange and Black Lava

While the first card I want to show off is not Halloween related by the letter of the law, it certainly is by the spirit of the law.

Earlier this month, this 2024 Topps Chrome Update Paul Skenes Rookie Orange/Black Lava Lamp numbered to 15 sold for $565 on eBay. An interesting thing about this card is that it compares well to several autographed Skenes parallels from update. A Blue Skenes auto /150 from Update Chrome sold for $850 on October 10th, which shows just how coveted the Black/Orange lava is even without an auto. Again, this isn’t explicitly Halloween, but with it being both Black and Orange, it felt in the spirit enough.

Rating: 🎃🎃🎃

Holliday Mummy 

Sticking to baseball, although this is a little lower-end in price, it compensates by being more directly on theme. Every year, Topps Update blasters feature some fun Halloween parallels, including a Black and Orange Halloween foil, Jack-O’-Lantern foil, Ghost foil, and Mummy foil.

Because it is from the base version of Update Blasters, not Chrome, the scarcity of these cards is not as high as a Skenes Chrome Rookie /15. However, given that a blaster of this can be bought for $40 and pulling something like the Jackson Holliday Mummy parallel can get you a return of $130, which it sold for on September 4th, it makes it a pretty nice box to buy, with some fun, spooky upside baked in. 

The 2024 class is also stacked, including not only Holliday but the likes of Skenes, Jackson Chourio, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and many other sought-after players, giving you access to a ton of collectible holiday treats. 

Rating: 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Wemby Haunted Hoops

Panini releases Halloween-themed products every year for both Basketball and Football, including the Score-A-Treat line and the Haunted Hoops set. These packs are meant to be given out to eager trick-or-treaters, who, instead of candy, are gifted a lifelong passion for card collecting. But just because these packs are meant for the kids doesn’t mean you can’t hit some awesome stuff out of them. While this Victor Wembanyama Holo Candy Rookie as a Gem Mint 10 is incredibly difficult to hit from Haunted Hoops packs, it is a possibility that awaits. If you are lucky enough to forgo the trick and get this treat, you will be rewarded with a nice payday.

Rating: 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Skattebo Score A Treat

Meanwhile, Score-A-Treat, which takes the classic Score Football design and decorates it for the Halloween season, presents us with parallels such as the Web parallel, which can be seen on this Cam Skattebo SSP /31, which itself comes with a pretty nice price tag, having sold for $125 just 10 days ago. While this was pre-Skattebo injury, it still shows that there is a bit of hidden value in these Halloween packs, akin to the house that gives out the large candy bar. 

Rating: 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Jack O. Lantern

And finally, we are going back in time, all the way back to September 8th, 2022, when this 2021 

GPK Chrome Superfractor of Jack O. Lantern sold for a whopping $5,500. Th     is is undoubtedly the best Halloween card of the bunch. Garbage Pail Kids have an, and I say this affectionately, inherently grotesque and creepy feeling to them, and it literally being  “Jack O. Lantern” is the icing on the cake. With this being a sold listing from over three years ago, I wonder what this card would be worth if it were sold now. GPK has seen a resurgence over the past year or so, and whoever bought this card could likely flip it for a nice return. Even as it is, they certainly have a unique collection piece for this time of year.

Rating: 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

The holiday-themed products, whether Halloween- or Christmas-themed, provide a nice mix-up 

to the hobby’s routine, and the cards, being a little more niche, make them really interesting collectibles, especially given how easily accessible they are. There is room for a few more products like this, although other holidays don’t lend themselves to their own special designs like Halloween or Christmas. But if you take your kids out trick or treating and someone drops a Score-A-Treat pack into their bin, know that the treat that comes with it has a chance of being more than just the thrill of the hobby.