Highlights
- $118.4M in Q3 tracked sales — modest sequentially but breadth was the story.
- All eight tracked categories posted positive YoY growth for the first time since Q2 2022.
- Heritage Sports Signature August cleared $33.4M, the strongest Sports Signature since 2021.
- 1933 Goudey #181 Ruth PSA 8 sale ($264K, November carry-over) confirmed vintage-card stability.
- Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype follow-on activity at Hake's reinforced toy-category recovery.
What Q3 2024 actually looked like
Q3 2024 produced $118.4M in tracked sales — sequentially modest, with no headline-grabbing record-setter. But the operative number was 8: the number of tracked categories that posted positive YoY growth in the quarter, which was the first quarter since Q2 2022 with positive growth across the full category set.
Breadth is what matters in mid-cycle recovery. The 2023 correction was characterized by category concentration (modern cards drove most of the down-side). The 2024 recovery's breadth signaled that buyer demand had rebuilt across the full memorabilia category, not just bounced back in the categories that fell hardest. That distinction matters for forecasting: a broad recovery is more durable than a single-category bounce.
The Q3 sales that mattered were not the largest:
Heritage Sports Signature August 2024 cleared $33.4M across approximately 1,200 lots. The depth of bidding — multiple lots above $100K with 5+ bidders in the closing minute — was the strongest indication since 2021 that mid-tier collector demand had returned. Heritage's specialist Chris Ivy described the sale as "the most genuine demand we've seen at the working-collector tier in three years."
The 1933 Goudey #181 Babe Ruth PSA 8 sale ($264K, November carry-over from Q3 cataloging). Confirmed pre-war card stability at the upper-PSA 8 tier. The price was within the conservative estimate range, signaling that the market had found a new equilibrium price band for canonical pre-war issues.
Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype follow-on activity at Hake's August 2024. A J-Slot variant adjacent to the 2019 record-setter cleared $112K, well above the 2023 comparable of $87K. Vintage-toy prototypes are a leading indicator for the broader toy category — they trade thinly but the price points anchor everything below them.
Numbers we tracked
| Category | Q3 2024 tracked | YoY change | Median sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trading cards | $47.8M | +2% | $24,800 |
| Sports memorabilia | $20.4M | +5% | $40,300 |
| Movie/TV memorabilia | $15.6M | +19% | $48,000 |
| Comics | $16.7M | +7% | $20,400 |
| Music memorabilia | $9.8M | +3% | $28,700 |
| Political/historical | $6.4M | +9% | $30,200 |
| Autographs | $2.4M | +1% | $10,400 |
| Toys | $1.3M | +6% | $7,200 |
What we learned in Q3 about the market structure
Three structural readings from the quarter:
The 2023 correction was a category correction, not a market correction. What looked in late 2023 like a broader memorabilia category re-rating was actually a modern-cards-specific re-pricing event. Vintage cards, comics, sports memorabilia, and the other categories held more value through 2023 than was visible at the time. The 2024 recovery did not have to rebuild from a deep base — it had to absorb a modern-cards normalization and move past it.
The grading-service backlog has not contracted, only narrowed. PSA's standard turnaround was 65 days at the end of Q3, down from 75 days in Q2 but still significantly above the 30–45 day historical baseline. We expect the bottleneck to remain a structural feature into 2026 — supply has caught up with demand, but the post-pandemic submission overhang is large enough that even normalized capacity will take 18–24 months to clear.
Cross-category demand is real and growing. Heritage's August Sports Signature sale saw 22% of its buyer accounts also bid in the August Comics Signature sale, which was a leading indicator of the cross-category modern buyer cohort. By Q3, the share had grown to 28% across Heritage's three monthly signature auctions (Sports, Comics, Entertainment).
What we are watching into Q4 2024
The Q4 setup heading into the close of the year is healthy. Major fall sales — Heritage November, Heritage December, Goldin Pinnacle in October, Hake's Fall — all had strong consignment pipelines. The Mahomes RPA at Goldin Pinnacle (October) was the early-Q4 anchor; the Ruby Slippers at Heritage in December was the closing piece. Neither was visible in Q3 catalogs but both were being assembled.
Methodology note
Tracked sales above the Field Index threshold are sourced from public auction-house catalogs, trade-press reporting, and grading-service population data.