When you open a hobby box, you do something special. To count the packs, you cut the shrink wrap open and pull back the flaps. For more and more collectors in Toronto, that ritual now includes one more step: they quietly figure out how much the extra 25% Canadian tariff cost before the first card is even put down on the table.
Still, orders keep coming in. Products that cost between $1,400 and almost $4,500 CAD are still moving out of distributors and into the hands of Canadians. These include cases of 2025 Topps Chrome Football, sealed Panini Prizm boxes, and Finest hobby. Some collectors aren’t getting a single box. Cases are being bought.
If you walk into any of the hobby stores in Toronto, the staff will immediately recognize a certain type of customer. He knows exactly what he wants when he walks in. He’s already done the math: landed cost, conversion to Canadian dollars, grading fees, and the chance of selling it again. He’s not looking around. He’s giving out. It’s not just Sunday afternoons when he watches the rookies he’s after. These choices are smart bets on careers that haven’t fully formed yet.
Right now in the hobby, it’s important to know what it means to import NFL rookie cards by the case. Once the cards have been sold, a case of 2025 Topps Chrome Football Hobby costs about $1,399 per box in Canadian dollars. That’s many times bigger with a full case. When you add the tariff on top of that, you’re looking at a big bill before you even open a single pack. There is still some sense to this for collectors who have seen how well-graded Patrick Mahomes Prizm rookie cards, Tom Brady Topps Chrome refractor cards, and Joe Montana vintage pull cards have done over time. The math in the hobby isn’t always crazy.
Tariffs, on the other hand, have caused real problems that go beyond personal budgets. The 25% counter-tariff that went into effect in March 2025 is being paid for by Canadian distributors who bring these goods into the country. This is a response to trade pressure from the United States that has, unintentionally, hit hockey card shop owners in Ottawa and NFL rookie card collectors in Toronto hard. One shop owner in Ottawa with a lot of experience called his business “collateral damage.” This is likely something that anyone who ordered a case of Chrome last spring and saw the final bill arrive will understand.
It’s interesting to see who keeps ordering. Sports card collectors are more likely to see NFL rookie cards as an alternative asset than as a way to remember good times. They care about the sealed box format—the reliability of a factory-sealed case, the luck of the draw, and the chance to get a numbered auto on a first-round rookie before the rest of the market catches up. There’s now a community built around this, and some shops in Toronto hold live breaks four times a week to connect collectors who can’t or won’t wait for individual card listings.
Things are being stubborn in a quiet way. There are a lot of problems, like tariffs, exchange rates, and grade backlogs, but cases still come in. For each collector, that may mean something different. It could be a genuine belief in the hobby’s long-term value, or it could just be the kind of attachment that doesn’t easily give way to practical concerns. Still not sure if tariffs will be lowered before the next big release cycle starts to pick up speed. The cards will keep coming to the door of the Toronto collector who buys cards by the case instead of the pack, no matter what.
