{"id":869682,"date":"2026-08-27T01:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869682\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T01:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T01:24:14","slug":"teenager-finds-lucrative-trading-card-worth-160000-in-spur-of-the-moment-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869682\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenager finds lucrative trading card worth $160,000 in spur of the moment purchase"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 18-year-old trainee pilot is the envy of the sports trading card community after plucking a one-of-a-kind NBA collectible<\/a> in South Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Johnny Li walked into Adelaide<\/a>\u2019s Sport\u2019s Card World immediately after completing a training flight, he could never have known his life was about to take off.<\/p>\n

\"Johnny<\/p>\n

An 18-year-old trainee pilot is the envy of the sports trading card community after plucking a one-of-a-kind NBA collectible in South Australia.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Already, he\u2019s been inundated with offers so lucrative, he could pay off his tuition in one swoop – but he\u2019s not yet certain whether to sell it or keep it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard decision, it\u2019s 1 of 1 only 1 copy of this card in the world,\u201d Li told 9News.<\/p>\n

It started with the teenager\u2019s idolisation of NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama, who at 7\u20324\u2033 already transcends the sport.<\/p>\n

In search of Wemby, as he\u2019s also known, Li purchased a pack of NBA trading cards on the spur of the moment.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a winning lottery ticket, scoring a unique card collectors the world over would dream of plucking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was tripping at the time, shocked,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

In search of Wemby, as he\u2019s also known, Li purchased a pack of NBA trading cards on the spur of the moment.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

Nick Dimasi was the one who picked out the specific pack for the 18-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an instant, screaming, hands on head moment, couldn\u2019t breath for about five seconds, then remembered I\u2019ve got a job to do, and that was to get the card safe,\u201d the Sports Card World employee told 9News.<\/p>\n

Once word spread of his prize, the offers flooded in – one of $US115,000 ($160,000)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty big, we\u2019ve been in business for 32 years, we\u2019ve had some pretty good cards pulled over the years – Michael Jordan autographs, Lebron James, but this would be up there with one of the biggest and most expensive cards for sure,\u201d Sports Card World Owner Matt Maloney told 9News.<\/p>\n

\"Johnny<\/p>\n

The global hobby has exploded further since COVID, with many traders believing Australia misses out on the best cards. This slice of luck bucks that trend.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

The global hobby has exploded further since COVID, with many traders believing Australia misses out on the best cards. This slice of luck bucks that trend.<\/p>\n

For someone to actually walk into Australia and pull a card like that, it gives everyone hope that they\u2019re going to be the lucky ones next time,\u201d Maloney said.<\/p>\n

And as much as he loves Wemby, Li is on the verge of sealing the sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt changes his life so I would say sell it, personally,\u201d Dimasi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 18-year-old trainee pilot is the envy of the sports trading card community after plucking a one-of-a-kind NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-869682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}