ROOKIE CARD HAUL | JULY 2025

A couple of months ago, when Donald Trump surprised the world by imposing tariffs on other countries, I went on COMC and decided to buy some rookie cards I thought would eventually sell.

I gave myself a $160 spending limit because I remembered what happened during the pandemic when I had to go to the Philippine Postal Office under heavy rain just to claim my COMC packages. I didn’t have a car at the time, and on top of that, I had to pay a steep import tax. That was when I learned the hard way that buying around 10,000 pesos worth of cards meant paying an additional 3,000 pesos or so in taxes.

I’m not exactly a hardcore collector of these particular players, but I know they’re either future Hall of Famers or were considered the face of their era. I also had to grab the cheapest Giannis Antetokounmpo rookie card I could find after selling my Giannis rookie auto.

This package arrived a few days ago, and since both the PBA and NBA are in their offseasons, I figured I’d show you the collectibles I managed to find—just for fun. That said, I doubt I’ll be able to get cards of LeBron James, Steph Curry, or Nikola Jokic anytime soon. I already have a cheap LeBron rookie card, and the rest of his cards are ridiculously expensive. As for Curry, his rookie year was just before Panini got the exclusive NBA license, which makes his cards even more costly. Jokic, being a second-round pick, didn’t have that many card variations back then. His rookie cards are also surprisingly hard to find.

Now that I have these new cards, I’m probably going to hit that buy button again to kick off my next round of purchases.