The 5 Greatest Card Collections in the World
Five collectors and five very different ways to build a museum out of cardboard.
What makes a card collection great? Not just one enormous purchase. The best collections have depth, historical importance, impossible condition, and cards that could take decades to assemble even with unlimited money.
These are five of the greatest publicly known card collections in the world, ranked by the collections themselves.
No. 1: Ken Kendrick
Arizona Diamondbacks managing general partner · The Diamondbacks Collection
If one collection has the strongest claim to No. 1, it is Kendrick's.
The reason is not simply that he owns the famous PSA 8 T206 Honus Wagner. It is what sits next to it.
Kendrick's Diamondbacks Collection includes the only PSA 10 1951 Bowman Mickey Mantle, one of the three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles, a PSA 9 1948 Leaf Jackie Robinson, a PSA 8 1948 Bowman George Mikan and elite examples of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Joe Jackson, Lou Gehrig, Satchel Paige, Roberto Clemente and Michael Jordan.1 A 2025 tour of the collection showed Kendrick still holding the Wagner, both Gem Mint Mantles and a group of cards that is essentially a greatest-hits album of the hobby.2
The Wagner is still the centerpiece. PSA certifies it as NM-MT 8 and identifies the McNall/Gretzky pedigree. No other T206 Wagner has ever been graded as high by PSA.3 But the card I find almost as extraordinary is the 1951 Bowman Mantle. There is only one PSA 10. Kendrick owns it.
Certification No. 00000001, the McNall/Gretzky copy. No other T206 Wagner has ever been graded as high by PSA.
Population one: a single Gem Mint copy exists, and Kendrick owns it.
The highest-grade version of cards everybody already agrees are important.
That is why Kendrick gets No. 1. His collection does not need a complicated explanation. Wagner. Ruth. Mantle. Robinson. Cobb. Gehrig. Jordan.
Trying to rebuild it would not merely be expensive, but nearly impossible. In case after case, the best copy is already his.
No. 2: Marshall Fogel
Attorney · Vintage collector · Private baseball museum
Fogel is the hardest person on this list to classify because calling him a card collector undersells what he built. His collection has included cards, game-used bats, uniforms, gloves, signed baseballs and original photography on a scale that Sports Collectors Digest has compared with the Baseball Hall of Fame.4
But the cards alone are enough to put him here.
Fogel owns one of the three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles.5 He also acquired roughly 50 cards from the famous 1952 Topps "find," including high-grade material that emerged essentially untouched from decades of storage. He has said that he sold two PSA 9 Mantles from that find to help fund the purchase of his PSA 10.6
His old PSA Set Registry entries show how deep the card side went. A set project means owning every card in a set, in top condition, with the registry ranking the results; Fogel had several running at once, on Willie Mays, T206 Ty Cobbs, the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and Hall of Fame managers.7
One of three Gem Mint copies. Fogel sold two PSA 9 Mantles from the famous 1952 find to help fund it.
Vintage baseball, condition rarity, original photography and game-used history on a museum scale.
Cooperstown, if Cooperstown had one obsessive private buyer.
Kendrick's card collection is cleaner to rank because it is so concentrated around universally recognized trophy cards. Fogel's overall baseball collection may actually be more astonishing. If this were a ranking of all sports memorabilia rather than cards, there is a very good argument for moving him to No. 1.
No. 3: Nat Turner
Chairman & CEO, Collectors · Set builder · 1990s basketball obsessive
Turner's collection is probably the one serious modern collectors would most enjoy spending a week inside.
In 2023, Turner estimated that he owned between 15,000 and 20,000 PSA-graded cards, another roughly 5,000 BGS slabs and thousands of unopened boxes and packs. He was simultaneously building 60 to 70 sets, including a 1952 Topps set in PSA 9 or better, 1997 Metal Universe Precious Metal Gems sets and multiple gold-parallel basketball runs.8
The collection is not just big. It is weirdly specific in the way great collections usually are.
Turner grew up on Jordan, Kobe and 1990s basketball, then became an aggressive early collector of LeBron James. His publicly documented holdings include multiple 1997 Upper Deck Michael Jordan Game Jersey autographs /23, rare Jordan and Kobe inserts, major LeBron rookies and 1/1s, vintage Mantle and Aaron runs, high-grade vintage sets and extraordinary unopened material.8
The best single card may be the 2003-04 Exquisite LeBron James/Michael Jordan Dual Logoman 1/1, which sold privately to Turner for $900,000 in February 2020 after he said he had searched for it for roughly 15 years.9 But the collection's real strength is that the Logoman is not remotely the whole story.
The 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite LeBron James/Michael Jordan All-NBA Access Dual Logoman, sold privately to Turner for $900,000 in February 2020.
Precious Metal Gems sets, chased alongside 60 to 70 other set projects at once.
Enough capital to chase cards that almost never surface, pointed at projects instead of trophies.
Turner ranks below Kendrick and Fogel because their very best vintage cards occupy a different level of historical scarcity. But in breadth, modern basketball depth, unopened material and sheer number of impossible projects being attempted at once, Turner may have the most interesting collection on this list.
The best collections are not piles of expensive cards. They are collections where you can tell who built them without seeing the owner's name.
No. 4: Rob Gough
Entrepreneur · Actor · Trophy-card collector
Gough is what happens when a collector decides to skip the middle and buy the best card he can find.
His defining acquisition was a PSA 9 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, sold to him privately for $5.2 million in January 2021. At the time, only six PSA 9 examples and three PSA 10s existed. Gough had already bought lower-grade Mantles while hunting for a top example, including PSA 4, 5 and 8 copies. He sold his PSA 6 to Steve Aoki.10
Then he kept going. His publicly discussed card purchases have included a 1916 M101-5 Sporting News Babe Ruth graded SGC 4, a high-grade 1917 Collins-McCarthy "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, multiple 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan PSA 10s, major Tom Brady rookies, several PSA 10 Bird/Magic rookies and a 1996 E-X2000 Credentials Kobe Bryant PSA 10, one of only four in that grade when Sports Collectors Digest profiled the collection.1011
Sold to him privately for $5.2 million in January 2021, when only six PSA 9s and three PSA 10s existed.
Concentrated trophy assets across vintage and modern icons.
Then buy one of the best copies in existence.
Gough does not have the documented set-building depth of Turner or the museum-level vintage breadth of Kendrick and Fogel. But if the question is whose card case would be most intimidating to open, he belongs in the conversation.
No. 5: Steve Aoki
DJ & producer · Cross-category collector · 35,000-card vault
Aoki has the collection on this list that looks most like the modern hobby itself.
In 2025, he moved more than 35,000 cards to the PSA Vault. PSA described the shipment as nearly 400 boxes, five pallets and roughly 7,000 pounds of slabs. The collection included a PSA 10 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle PSA 6, Pokémon and other TCG grails, vintage Marvel, UFC 1/1s, complete rainbows and a major Stephen Curry collection.12
More recent reporting on Aoki's collection highlights high-grade 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth cards, a 1961 Fleer Wilt Chamberlain rookie, an Upper Deck Black triple autograph of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, and a complete 2009-10 Panini Threads Stephen Curry nameplate set.13
The Mantle is a good symbol for how he collects. Gough bought the PSA 6 while climbing the grade ladder toward his PSA 9, then sold it to Aoki. For Gough, the card was a step. For Aoki, it became a grail.
Bought from Rob Gough, for whom it was one Mantle among several on the way to his PSA 9. For Aoki it became a grail.
Moved to the PSA Vault in 2025, in a shipment PSA described as five pallets.
Sports, TCG, entertainment and culture treated as a single category.
Aoki is fifth because the top of his collection is not as concentrated in irreplaceable trophy cards as the four above him. But in volume, category breadth and cultural reach, almost nobody publicly collecting today has built anything quite like it.
Who just missed?
Any list like this will make serious collectors angry, which is part of the fun.
There are historic collections whose best cards have already been dispersed, anonymous Set Registry collections that cannot be meaningfully profiled, and collectors with extraordinary single-category holdings who reveal almost nothing publicly. There are also people such as Ken Goldin or major dealers who routinely possess astonishing cards but should not automatically be treated as personal collectors of everything passing through their businesses.
The ranking would also change if we counted memorabilia equally. Fogel gets stronger immediately. Gough's game-worn collection becomes much more important. If we limited the exercise to cards alone, Kendrick's argument for No. 1 becomes even cleaner.
What all five have in common
Not one of these collections is great for its size.
Kendrick built around the accepted canon. Fogel built around baseball history. Turner built sets and obsessions. Gough built a trophy portfolio. Aoki built a cultural archive.
The best collection is not necessarily the one with the highest appraised value. It is the one that would be hardest to reproduce even if you had the money.
On that test, Kendrick's Diamondbacks Collection is the collection to beat.
Ranking reflects publicly documented holdings and reporting available through August 2026. Private transactions, undisclosed collections and later sales can change the picture.
Notes
- PSA Set Registry, "The Diamondbacks Collection," describing 50 of the highest-graded and most sought-after cards in the hobby, including the Wagner, Mantle, Robinson and Mikan. psacard.com ↩
- Sports Card Investor via Yahoo Sports, 2025 video tour of Ken Kendrick's collection, including his PSA 10 1951 Bowman and 1952 Topps Mantles and PSA 8 T206 Wagner. sports.yahoo.com ↩
- PSA Certification Verification No. 00000001, 1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner, McNall/Gretzky pedigree, NM-MT 8. psacard.com ↩
- PSA, "Big League Collecting: An Interview with Marshall Fogel," and Sports Collectors Digest, "The Marshall Fogel Collection." psacard.com · sportscollectorsdigest.com ↩
- PSA CardFacts, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle #311 condition census, listing Marshall Fogel and Ken Kendrick among the three PSA 10 examples. psacard.com ↩
- PSA, "Pulp Non-Fiction: The Famous 1952 Topps Baseball Find," including Fogel's account of owning two PSA 9 Mantles from the find and selling them to help buy his PSA 10. psacard.com ↩
- PSA Set Registry, 2002 Award Winners, documenting multiple Marshall Fogel registry collections. psacard.com ↩
- Sports Collectors Digest, June 15, 2023, detailed profile of Nat Turner's collection, including his estimated slab count, unopened holdings, PMG projects and major Jordan, Kobe and LeBron cards. sportscollectorsdigest.com ↩
- Sports Collectors Daily, Feb. 2020, reporting Turner's purchase of the 2003-04 Exquisite LeBron James/Michael Jordan Dual Logoman 1/1 for $900,000. sportscollectorsdaily.com ↩
- Sports Collectors Digest, Feb. 3, 2021, on Rob Gough's $5.2 million PSA 9 1952 Topps Mantle and other major card holdings. sportscollectorsdigest.com ↩
- Sports Collectors Digest, 2023, on Gough's later additions including the PSA 10 Kobe Credentials and multiple Bird/Magic rookies. sportscollectorsdigest.com ↩
- PSA, May 6, 2025, "World Famous DJ Steve Aoki Sends 35,000 Cards to PSA Vault," detailing the scale and breadth of Aoki's collection. psacard.com ↩
- Sports Illustrated, 2026, "Inside Steve Aoki's Collection," describing Aoki's Mantle, Ruth, Chamberlain, Jordan/Kobe/LeBron and Curry holdings. sportsillustrated.com ↩