--- title: "What's Trending: September 2026" description: "What collectors scanned in September: a wave of vintage Batman cards that pulled grades down, the most-scanned card of the month, and how the four condition scores moved." url: "https://crackorkeep.app/blog/whats-trending-september-2026/" date: 2026-10-01 lastmod: 2026-10-01 tags: ["monthly-trends","submission-data"] --- # What's Trending: September 2026 ![2025-26 Upper Deck Extended Series Beckett Sennecke Young Guns #701, Anaheim Ducks, in a card stand](/images/collection/sennecke-young-guns-raw.webp) *2025-26 Upper Deck Extended Series Beckett Sennecke Young Guns #701, from our collection. It was scanned 11 times in September, more than any other card.* September was quieter than August and it looked different. Fewer scans, a lot more old cardboard, and grades that came in lower across the board. Some of that is easy to explain. Some of it I can't explain yet. Because volume was down, read the percentages below as a snapshot of the month rather than a trend line. Last month's report is [here](/blog/whats-trending-august-2026/) if you want to compare. ## What People Are Scanning Sports cards were still the biggest group at roughly 6 in 10 scans. Hockey was the largest single sport at about a fifth of everything, soccer came next at around 14%, and basketball sat near 9%. Football and baseball looked small, but our category tagging misses a fair number of older cards from both, so I'd treat those two as undercounted. Pokémon held at about 16%. The surprise was vintage non-sports. Roughly 1 in 5 scans were Batman and DC Comics cards from the 1960s and 70s: 1966 Topps Batman in its Black Bat, Blue Bat and Bat Laffs variations, 1974 DC cards, even a handful of 1978 Taystee Bread cards. Those 52 scans covered 49 different cards, almost all of them scanned once. That reads like one or two collectors working through a set, not a wave of new users, and it matters for everything that follows. ## How the Grades Landed | Estimated grade | August | September | |---|---|---| | 9 | ~48% | ~25% | | 8 | ~23% | ~22% | | 7 | ~15% | ~25% | | 6 | ~7% | ~11% | | 5 or lower | ~8% | ~18% | Most of that shift is the Batman run. Those scans averaged an estimated grade a little over 5, and not one went above a 7. That's roughly what you'd expect from 50-to-60-year-old gum-era cardboard, where soft corners, rough cuts and surface wear are the starting point rather than the exception. Take them out and 9s were still about 32% of scans, against 48% in August. Part of that gap is that August's numbers included a good number of my own test scans of clean modern cards, mostly 9s. The rest I can't pin down. I'd rather say that than invent a reason. No estimated 10s again this month. If you're wondering why the top of the scale is so hard to reach, the [CGC results post](/blog/crackorkeep-cgc-submission-results/) goes through it. ## Three That Stood Out **Beckett Sennecke Young Guns #701.** Eleven scans, and the next most-scanned card had three. It came back an estimated 9 every time, but the range read 8-10 on five of those scans and 8-9 on the other six. Same card, different photos, slightly different read. Lighting and angle move the result more than most people expect. None of those scans were mine, by the way. I ran my own copy back in August. **The 1966 Topps Batman run.** The most-scanned single card in the set was #1, The Batman, at four scans. I'd like to know what's in that binder. **2006 Panini World Cup stickers.** Messi (#185) was scanned three times and came back an estimated 7 each time. Ronaldo (#298) was scanned twice and landed at an 8. Stickers are a corner of the hobby I didn't expect to see in this data, and they turned up in more than one scan. Also in the mix: a 1990-91 Hoops Michael Jordan at an estimated 8, a 1970 Topps O.J. Simpson rookie at 5, a Connor Bedard O-Pee-Chee Marquee Rookie at 9, and a 1991 Upper Deck Brett Favre Star Rookie at 8. ## Average Condition Scores Averaged across every scan with subgrades: - **Centering: 7.9** (August: 8.2) - **Corners: 7.2** (August: 7.9) - **Edges: 7.2** (August: 7.8) - **Surface: 7.1** (August: 7.8) All four fell, with corners, edges and surface dropping the most. Centering held up best again, and surface was the lowest. Old cardboard hits corners and edges hardest, so the Batman run is the likely culprit for most of that. ## Money Math About 77% of scans were eligible for the Money Math calculator, down from about 88% in August. ## What I'd Take From This A month like this shows how much the averages depend on who happens to show up. One person with a box of 1966 Batman cards can move the whole chart. I'd expect the mix to change again in October, so these numbers are worth watching for what's in the pile more than for any trend in the tool itself. If you've got something odd in your own box, [run it through CrackorKeep](https://crackorkeep.app). It might show up in the October report. --- **About the data:** This report covers completed CrackorKeep card analyses from **September 1 through September 30, 2026**, 245 in total. Failed or incomplete analyses were excluded. Repeat scans of the same card are included, and our own test scans, if any, were not filtered out. Category splits are inferred from card names, so treat them as approximate. All grades are AI-generated pre-grading estimates, not professional grading results.