Cale Makar Rookie Card: Top 10 by Value, Young Guns to Exquisite Collection

Cale Makar's value concentrates in his 2019-20 signed and patch rookie cards rather than his base rookies. The scarcest of them, the one-of-one Upper Deck Exquisite Collection NHL shield patch autograph, holds his highest recorded public sale, while the cards that actually trade at the top are The Cup Rookie Patch Autograph, card number 62 and numbered to 99, and the SP Authentic Future Watch autograph, card number 149 and numbered to 999. Our own ranking of the ten, priced at each grade, sits in the Top 10 list above. Makar is a Norris Trophy-winning defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche, drafted fourth overall in 2017, who won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's best rookie and then the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP while lifting the Stanley Cup in 2022. That resume is what separates his cards from most young players: he is already a proven, award-winning star, so the demand behind his early cards is durable rather than pure hype.

Before you shop, it helps to know what counts as a Cale Makar rookie card. In hockey the hobby treats a player's first widely distributed, licensed cards with the RC designation as the rookies, and for Makar those all arrived in 2019-20 Upper Deck products after his NHL debut. You can see how his cards are actually trading on the Cale Makar card price guide, open his Cale Makar player hub for a full breakdown, or browse the wider card database to compare copies side by side.

Which Cale Makar cards are his true rookies

Upper Deck holds the exclusive NHL trading-card license, so every genuine Makar rookie lives inside a 2019-20 Upper Deck release. The card most collectors mean when they say rookie is the 2019-20 Upper Deck Young Guns, card number 493, the classic hockey rookie format that anchors his affordable market. From that same product family come the tougher parallels: the Young Guns Canvas version, card number C94, plus High Gloss and Exclusives short prints that are far scarcer than the base Young Guns.

Above the base rookies sit his autographed first-year cards. The 2019-20 SP Authentic Future Watch autograph is his key mid-tier signed rookie, while premium products like Ultimate Collection, SP Game Used, and The Cup carry his rarest patch autographs. Watch out for pre-rookie cards: Makar appeared in earlier Team Canada and junior-focused sets before 2019-20, and while those are collectible, they are not his true NHL rookies. If the line between a rookie card, a first-year card, and a prospect card is new to you, read how to tell if a sports card is valuable before spending on anything scarce.

The most valuable Cale Makar cards, ranked by tier

At the entry level sit the base rookies, led by the Young Guns number 493. A clean raw copy is the affordable way to own a Makar rookie, and a high-grade Gem Mint example carries a real premium over an ungraded card because condition sensitivity is high on modern rookies. The next tier up is the parallels and inserts: the Young Guns Canvas C94, High Gloss and Exclusives short prints, and Young Guns from premium sets, where a printed serial number or a low print run starts to drive the price.

The top tier is where the money concentrates. Numbered rookie autographs and patch autographs from SP Authentic Future Watch, Ultimate Collection and The Cup, plus the one-of-one Exquisite shield patch, are the cards that set records, alongside printing plates and short-printed color parallels. Which of them is worth the most on any given day depends on what is actually listed, so read the ranked Top 10 above rather than fixing on one card. Their print runs are fixed while demand keeps rising with his awards and playoff runs, which is why the gap between a base Young Guns and a numbered patch auto is enormous. Rather than trust a single headline number, browse graded Cale Makar listings and compare the exact product, parallel, and grade, and check our monthly invest reports to see which players the market is chasing right now.

What to check before you buy

Confirm the season, the set, and the parallel on any Makar card, because those three things decide almost all of the value. A 2019-20 Young Guns base and a numbered Canvas or patch auto can be worlds apart in price, and some listings photograph a rare parallel or a high-grade slab next to a base-card price to blur the line. Read the card number and any serial number, not just the headline, and match the card in hand to the exact card in the recent sold listings you compare against.

Condition is the other lever, and it matters most on Young Guns cards, which show corner and edge wear easily on their darker borders. For anything you plan to hold, favor a professionally graded copy or grade a sharp raw one yourself, since a single grade can double or halve the price of the same card. To understand how the grading companies differ, see PSA vs BGS vs SGC, and if you own a clean raw rookie, how to grade sports cards walks through submitting it. Makar is an established star rather than an unproven prospect, but card prices still swing with playoff results and awards, so match every purchase to real recent sales.