Jackson Holliday is one of the faces of the baseball card hobby. What does he make of it?

SARASOTA, Fla. — If Jackson Holliday approaches the netting that separates the fans from the field, the arms outstretched will almost certainly be holding one object: a baseball card with his face on it.

Holliday has become a major figure in the sports card hobby. He’s only 21, with just 60 major league games under his belt, and yet Holliday’s status among collectors is immense. Topps created a “Fun Face” rookie card for Holliday that played off the infamous Billy Ripken “F--- Face” error card. He was on the packaging for 2024 Topps Chrome Update. And Holliday’s MLB Debut Patch card, which includes a patch from the uniform he wore on his sleeve during his first big league game, recently fetched $198,000 at auction.

They’re pieces of cardstock, with photos and names and stats. And yet the industry boomed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has kept skyrocketing in the time since Holliday became the first overall pick in 2022.

Holliday estimates that he has signed tens of thousands of cards since he was drafted, and another box with a few thousand arrived just the other day for him to autograph. It all comes with the territory of being Holliday — the son of a major league All-Star, a former top prospect, a future star in the majors.

“Ever since I got drafted, it has been kind of crazy with collectors and card guys,” Holliday said. “It’s wild to kind of be in that top circle, I guess, that people like to collect. That’s obviously pretty cool to be a part of. Crazy.”

Holliday has spent time at two card shops in the past few months, first at Bel Air Sports Cards in Maryland and again at Blue Breaks in Sarasota, Florida. At the former, Holliday witnessed a kid rip a pack and uncover a Holliday card right in front of him. And at the latter, Holliday was joined by reigning National League Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes, as well as Orioles players Adley Rutschman and Coby Mayo, to rip packs.

In conversations with representatives from Topps and those who run card shops, Holliday has been told that the pandemic boom gave a rebirth to an industry that had teetered, and that the fresh wave of talent entering the majors has been a driver in the renewed interest in collecting.

“I think I just hit it at the high point,” Holliday said. “I get to go to these card places and I’m on the cover of them, it’s pretty cool. Very lucky.”

Holliday continued: “It’s almost like buying stocks and stuff. It’s interesting to see it from a different point of view. Kids just like to collect them because it’s who they watch on TV, and it gets a little more depth the older you get, but it’s a really cool industry. And it’s cool to be able to have your own baseball card, for sure.”

Holliday isn’t much of a collector himself. He has some of his base cards, but he said he hasn’t taken to direct messaging folks in an attempt to acquire the rarer cards with his likeness, as some players have with their own cards.

Still, he was well aware of the Ripken card error, when “F--- Face” was visible on the handle of Ripken’s bat on his card in the 1989 Fleer set. All these years later, Topps paid homage to that card by asking Holliday if he’d participate — with a slight tweak.

“Fun Face,” the end of Holliday’s bat handle read.

“I think it’s been a pretty big success, and I know card people really like it,” Holliday said. “It was fun to do.”

It’s only in the last year or so that Holliday has actually mastered — or at least has grown comfortable — with how to sign cards. Holliday was a high school senior, at a Perfect Game USA event, the first time he sat down to sign a stack of cards. Officials handed him a thousand or more tabs (stickers that can be added to cards later) and told him he could leave once he signed them all.

“So it was very simple, just a J and an H,” Holliday said of his autograph, “because I wanted to get out of there.”

He looks back now feeling slightly guilty at whoever received his rushed autograph.

“I feel bad sometimes but I’m like, ‘Hey, whatever, I was 18 years old,’” Holliday said.

Holliday has changed his autograph “multiple times” in the years since, and he has now settled on a fuller version of Jackson Holliday.

“I knew once I made it to the big leagues, I’d have to stick to a pretty similar signature,” Holliday said. “It’s slowly evolved to what it is now: kind of a full name now that you can kind of read as Jackson Holliday vs. a J and an H. I think everyone kind of goes through it. I know there’s a funny Jackson Merrill thing where it’s like four cards people got and they’re all different signatures. So, I’m probably right up there with him. It takes a lot of practice, but you have to kind of home in on a professional sort of look.”

Back at the Topps event in Sarasota, fans pressed in on Holliday, Skenes, Mayo and Rutschman. There were more than just cards for them to sign, so Holliday had ample practice of his signature.

It’s much the same scene every time Holliday walks by the netting inside the stadium. Have a Sharpie ready? He might just sign his name and make your card a collector’s item.