Which hobby box gets you an autograph for the least money?

Bowman U Best Football costs $74.75 per autograph at today’s lowest eBay ask. The most expensive box we checked costs $3,000 per autograph. That’s a 40x gap for the same line on the box: an auto.

Which hobby box gets you an autograph for the least money? The short answer

Next cheapest at the ask (same source and time):

• 2026 Topps Midnight Football: $225 per auto ($675, 3 autos)
• 2026 Bowman Chrome Baseball: $275 per auto ($549.99, 2 autos)
• 2025-26 Topps Stadium Club Basketball: $285 per auto ($285, 1 auto)

The pattern is simple. At the ask, boxes with 2 or more autos came in at a median of $250 per auto. Boxes with 1 came in at $550. The two Cosmic Chrome boxes, which only have an auto in some boxes, cost the most.

How did we do the math?

For each box we took three numbers:

• Expected autographs per box, from Cardsmiths Breaks. Its box contents are “calculated from the manufacturer’s published odds sheet.” Example: Topps Update gives 4 autos per 12-box case, so that’s 0.333 per box.
• The lowest eBay ask, from the eBay widget on the same Cardsmiths page.
• Topps’ list price, from Topps’ weekly “Releasing this week” posts on X.

Cost per auto is the price divided by expected autos per box. Cost per numbered card works the same way. Markup is the ask divided by the list price, minus 1.

We did this for 21 products from 2024 to 2026. 18 had a price and autograph odds we could use. The full method and its limits are at the bottom.

Cost per autograph: every box ranked

Source: Cardsmiths Breaks, lowest eBay ask, 8:13 AM ET. List prices: Topps on X, Oct 28, 2026. Cost per auto is the price divided by expected autos per box.

The median of those 14 is $492.99 per auto.

Four more boxes have a Topps list price but no eBay ask yet, so they rank at list price only (Topps on X, Aug 24 to Oct 26, 2026):

Source: Topps on X (posts from Aug 24 to Oct 26), Oct 26, 2026.

How much over list price are boxes selling right now?

12 boxes had both a Topps list price and an eBay ask. The median ask was 54.6% over list (Topps on X, Jul 6 to Oct 26, 2026, and Cardsmiths Breaks, Oct 28, 2026, 8:13 AM ET).

Source: Cardsmiths Breaks, 8:13 AM ET, and Topps on X, Oct 28, 2026. Markup is the ask divided by the list price, minus 1.

The newest boxes had the smallest markups. The 7 boxes Topps listed in October had a median markup of 25.0%. The 5 listed from July to September had a median of 98.8%. That’s 12 boxes on one day, so treat it as what we saw, not a rule.

The cheapest autos weren’t the most marked up, either. U Best had the lowest cost per auto and the lowest markup.

Asks vary by source. HobbyMonitor listed the Chrome Football hobby box at $620 on Oct 26, which is 41% over list.

Topps’ own price moved on 6 boxes between the pre-order post and the release post. Bowman U Best went from $239.99 (Oct 5) to $259.99 (Oct 26). We used the later price.

Cost per numbered card: a different winner

If you rip for numbered parallels and not autos, the order changes. Here are the 5 cheapest per numbered card, out of the 9 boxes with numbered-card odds and an ask (Cardsmiths Breaks, Oct 28, 2026, 8:13 AM ET):

Source: Cardsmiths Breaks, lowest eBay ask, 8:13 AM ET, Oct 28, 2026. Cost per numbered card is the ask divided by expected numbered cards per box.

Bowman Chrome Baseball ranks in the top 3 on both lists. U Best and 2026 Chrome Football don’t show numbered-card odds on Cardsmiths yet.

Where do Five Star and Bowman U Best land?

Both drop this week. Five Star Baseball goes live Oct 28 at 12 PM ET, and Bowman U Best Football on Oct 30 at 12 PM ET (Topps on X, Oct 26, 2026).

Five Star

• $1,199.99 for 6 encased cards, 5 of them autos (Topps on X, Oct 26, 2026)
• $240.00 per auto at list, which would rank 3rd on the ask list
• Numbered cards come about 2 in 3 boxes (Cardsmiths Breaks, Oct 28, 2026)

Bowman U Best

• $259.99 for 4 packs of 10 cards and 4 autos (Topps on X, Oct 26, 2026)
• $65.00 per auto at list and $74.75 at the ask, cheapest on both

My opinion: I personally like Five Star and Bowman U Best Football for return on money spent. That’s my view, not something this data proves. The data only shows what each auto costs you.

What doesn’t cost per auto tell you?

• It ranks cost, not value. A Five Star auto and a sticker auto of a backup prospect both count as 1. This can’t tell you what your autos will sell for.
• Odds are averages. Cardsmiths’ own note says “Odds are not guarantees.” A box rated 1 auto in 3 can go several boxes without one.
• The ask is one listing at one moment, and it doesn’t include shipping. A lower ask can show up an hour from now.

Method note

• Data source: Cardsmiths Breaks product checklist pages for box contents and the lowest eBay ask. Topps’ weekly release posts on X for list prices.
• Date pulled: first pull Oct 27, 2026, about 4:08 PM ET, refreshed Oct 28, 2026, 8:13 AM ET. Four asks changed overnight, and every number here uses the Oct 28 pull. Cardsmiths’ widget showed each ask as last updated between 21 minutes and 87 hours earlier.
• Sample: 21 products from 2024 to 2026. 20 had box contents we could read. 18 had a price: 12 with an ask and a list price, 2 with an ask only, and 4 with a list price only.
• Calculation: price divided by expected autos per box. Same for numbered cards. Markup is ask divided by list price, minus 1. Where Topps posted a pre-order price and a later release price, we used the release price. 5 list prices are pre-order prices only.
• Caveats: this ranks cost per auto, not what the autos are worth. eBay asks move by the hour. Only 16 of the 21 boxes have a list price we could find from Topps. Odds are averages, not guarantees. Numbered-card odds for U Best and 2026 Chrome Football aren’t posted yet.