Monday was the White House Easter Egg Roll, an annual event in which children gather on the lawn and get to meet the president, first lady, and Easter Bunny. Then they all roll eggs down the lawn, I guess—I dunno, I’ve never really seen the thing. Presumably there’s a winner, someone who rolls the most eggs, or rolls them the furthest or the most accurately or just the most to the liking of the president, first lady, and Easter Bunny. I assume this year’s prize was the opportunity to join a group chat dedicated to discussing the U.S. military’s next airstrike.
But this year’s event had an extra plum for all the children in attendance, and not just because there were corrupt sponsorships. At one point Donald Trump approached a group of children, knelt down and showed them a collectible trading card with a photo of himself on it. You know the photo: the one in which he was raising his fist in the air after being shot. Hey, the children have to learn about assassination attempts at some point; why not from a man who survived one himself?
As weird as this moment was, it was also typically Trump. Think of the weirdest thing that a person could possibly do at an official White House event with the Easter Bunny, and Trump will either already have done it or be doing it at that very moment. But it was also typical Trump because of the card itself, which was not just a one-off Trump had made from a custom trading card website but a collectible trading card of the assassination attempt. That was not a one-off, either. A set of 15 Trump cards is currently on sale for $197, marked down from $297.
This is not the first time Trump has licensed his name for a set of collectibles. In 2022, Trump promised a “major announcement” that turned out to be a series of NFTs in which Trump’s head was photoshopped onto a skinny man in a tuxedo, an astronaut, a Superman ripoff, et cetera. Last year, Trump sold trading cards purported to contain a swatch of the suit he wore during a presidential debate.
This set commemorates moments such as the time Trump rode an escalator to announce his presidential run, the time he created the Space Force, and the time he signed an executive order “reforming the criminal justice system.” It has a card that says “Acquitted Twice – Made America Great Again” with a photo of the president in silhouette. There’s a card about Melania Trump’s initiative to stop bullying, which is a thing that gets funnier every time I think about it.
Again, this is all boilerplate Trump stuff; this is a man who held an event on the White House lawn where he recited the MSRP of Tesla automobiles. But there’s something fascinating about this new Trump card set. The cards come pre-slabbed in plastic, each one bearing a grade of “10 – Gem Mint” from World Class Grading.
It is about 25 years since the process of grading a card’s quality and encasing it in plastic took off. Companies like PSA and CGC will take your cards or other collectibles and assign it a value depending on its assessment of that card’s condition. Grades go from 1 to 10. The higher a card’s grade, the higher it’ll go for on the secondary market. The difference can be huge: A PSA 10 of the Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie goes for thousands; an 8 sells for under a hundred bucks.
But there’s more to it than that: The rarity of a card in such condition also determines its value. PSA says there are 4,200 Ken Griffey Jr. rookies graded a 10 by the company, and 43,030 graded an 8. That’s one of the reasons a mint Griffey is so expensive, despite there being 113,873 of those cards in the PSA database: Only 3.6 percent of the cards that PSA graded warranted a 10.
You’ll see the problem with these Trump cards immediately. If every card in the set is a 10, there are no differentiations in quality on the resale market. Every card is allegedly perfect, and so the scarcity and differentiation that drive the secondary market are off the table. The $197 set is already just $99 on eBay. And while all collectible grading is a subjective process—graders have limited time to look at a card—the company that graded this Trump set is not known for its subjectivity.
Collectors do not believe World Class Grading is all that world class. Complaints fester on message boards that the company, which is among the cheapest graders out there, grades basically everything a 10. Cards with obvious flaws get 10s. You don’t see iconic cards in WCG slabs because no one with a card that they suspected was worth anything would send it to WCG to be graded. This is, again, typical Trump.
If you’ve taken a look at the set for sale, you might notice something: Where’s the card of Trump being shot? The “Official Trump 2024 Store” offers a ton of schlock involving the president, including this bonkers five-card set with photos of Trump through various stages in his life. But there’s currently no assassination card on the site. For that, you’ll seemingly have to head to eBay, where you can get a variety of Trump assassination cards for under 25 bucks. Here’s my favorite:
Kaboom! cards are inserts put out by Panini each year, and ones with good grades can sell for a lot. They are popular enough that there are a lot of custom cards done in the Kaboom! style. There are bootleg Kaboom! cards for Pat Tillman, darts prodigy Luke Littler and a signed Chuck Liddell card where he also wrote “MAGA.” There’s also a card for Jesus Christ, the listing for which features this delightful description:
This unique sports trading card features the iconic image of Jesus Christ in the Kaboom variety. A must-have for any Christian sports fan. This card is in near-mint or better condition and remains ungraded. This is a rare opportunity to own a Holy piece of memorabilia that is sure to spark conversation among collectors and enthusiasts alike. Don’t miss your chance to add this special card to your collection today.
Finally: The iconic image of Jesus Christ, in Kaboom! format. Sorry, Mr. President: This is more of a must-have than any collectible Trump card.