San Jose Sharks star Macklin Celebrini over stacks of hundred-dollar bills
There are times when turning down $426,000 makes you look like a visionary, and there are times when it makes your family seriously reconsider whether you should be allowed to make financial decisions without supervision. One hockey-card collector somehow landed firmly in the first category after betting on a Macklin Celebrini rookie card and walking away with a $1.281 million sale instead.
The one-of-one 2024-25 Upper Deck Young Guns Outburst Gold featuring the San Jose Sharks star sold Saturday at Goldin after its owner rejected a C$600,000 offer, roughly US$426,000, before sending it to auction. The gamble did not merely work. It basically tripled the amount of money sitting on the table.
Macklin Celebrini’s Rookie Card Became A $1.28 Million Lottery Ticket
The story starts with a Chicago-area collector named James doing something thousands of people do every year: buying a hobby box and hoping cardboard Santa Claus decides to visit.
James was specifically chasing a regular Celebrini Young Guns after watching the young star tear through the season and play for Canada at the Olympics. Instead, he opened the box around midnight while his wife and daughter were sleeping and found the only Gold Outburst version Upper Deck produced.
Young Guns cards have long been among the hobby’s signature NHL rookies, and Upper Deck began inserting one-of-one Gold Outburst parallels into its products during the 2023-24 season. Celebrini’s card was sitting unopened for months after 2024-25 Series 2 was released before James finally found it in late July.
The card quickly attracted a C$600,000 bounty from Canadian consignor SlabSharks. That was already an absurd return for buying one hobby box, but James declined and sent the card to Goldin instead.
There are much easier ways to develop an ulcer.
Turning Down $426,000 Somehow Became The Correct Decision
The auction produced 57 bids before the PSA-authenticated card finished at $1,281,000 including buyer’s premium.
That made Celebrini’s card the highest publicly reported sale ever for a hockey player not named Wayne Gretzky. It blew past modern stars including Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Alex Ovechkin, whose rare 2005-06 Upper Deck The Cup Gold Rainbow rookie patch autograph sold for $381,000 in 2025.
Celebrini has reached this territory after just two NHL seasons.
That probably helps explain why the hobby has collectively lost its mind over his cardboard. The former No. 1 overall pick exploded for 45 goals and 115 points in 2025-26, finishing fourth in NHL scoring while still a teenager. His collectibles market already had plenty of juice before somebody discovered the rarest version of his most recognizable rookie card.
Gretzky remains in another universe. A PSA 10 copy of his 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee rookie sold privately for $3.75 million in 2021, which remains the benchmark for hockey cards.
James probably will not be complaining.
He told Goldin he plans to take his family to Disney and maybe buy a slightly cheaper Celebrini rookie to replace the one he sold.
Seems reasonable.
When turning down $426,000 earns you roughly another $855,000, you can probably spring for the Lightning Lane passes too.