- Macklin Celebrini’s 1-of-1 Young Guns Gold rookie card sold for $1,281,000 at Goldin
- It is the highest public sale for any hockey card that isn’t a Wayne Gretzky rookie
- Read below for how a Chicago-area collector pulled the card out of one hobby box
A hockey card just sold for $1.281 million, and Wayne Gretzky’s name is nowhere on it.
Goldin announced late Saturday night that the one-of-one 2024-25 Upper Deck Young Guns Outburst Gold rookie card of Macklin Celebrini closed at $1,281,000 in its Monthly Sports Elite Auction. Per the auction house, that is the highest public sale for any non-Gretzky hockey card ever.
Only one hockey card has ever gone for more. Gretzky’s O-Pee-Chee rookie in a PSA 10 sold for $3.75 million in a private deal in 2021, and everything else in the sport now sits behind a 20-year-old with two NHL seasons on his resume.
It came out of a single hobby box in the Chicago area a few weeks ago. The collector, James, opened the box hoping for a regular Celebrini Young Guns after watching the Sharks center at the Olympics, and pulled the 1/1 instead.
Watch the moment he realized what was in his hands:
The card nearly never reached an auction block. Canadian eBay consignor Slab Sharks put a $600,000 CAD bounty on it once word got around, and the owner turned that down to consign with Goldin. Bidding opened at $15,000 and cleared $200,000 inside the first 40 hours.
Rarity did most of the work here. Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and Connor McDavid all have Young Guns rookies, and not one of them has a 1/1 Gold parallel. Celebrini does, and there is exactly one of it on the planet.
Saturday’s number also blew past the old modern-era ceiling. A PSA 10 McDavid rookie patch auto out of The Cup, numbered to 99, sold for $571,000 CAD in December 2025.
Celebrini’s season explains the appetite. He piled up 45 goals and 115 points as a 19-year-old, a teenage total only Gretzky (137) and Crosby (120) have ever beaten, then finished as a Ted Lindsay Award finalist and was named the IIHF male player of the year.
San Jose has already paid him accordingly. Celebrini’s five-year, $94 million extension reset the top of the NHL market this summer, though he still skates through 2026-27 on a $975,000 base salary before bonuses.
Celebrini has played two NHL seasons. His rookie card already outranks everything in hockey except a Gretzky.
