Shanks OP01-120 Is Quietly Climbing — Here's Why It Matters
The Card in Focus
Shanks (OP01-120) — the Secret Rare Leader from Romance Dawn, the set that launched the English One Piece Card Game in late 2022 — is one of the most recognizable cards in the entire game. As the face of the very first booster set, it has carried both sentimental and competitive weight since day one. Right now, that weight is translating into real price movement.
Top Mover Spotlight: Shanks OP01-120
Ungraded copies of Shanks OP01-120 are currently sitting at $9.50 on Cardbrd, while a PSA 10 commands $91.00 — a nearly 10x multiplier for a gem-mint slab. That spread is the story.
How Far Has It Moved, and Over What Window?
Romance Dawn debuted in English in December 2022. In those early months, Shanks OP01-120 traded at elevated prices driven purely by launch hype and supply constraints, then pulled back through 2023 as the game expanded, new sets diluted collector attention, and the initial wave of booster cases hit the secondary market. The card found a floor in the low single digits for raw copies through much of 2024.
The current $9.50 raw price represents a meaningful recovery from that floor. More telling is the PSA 10 figure: $91 is not where a cheap bulk rare lands — it's where a card with real long-term collector demand sits. The grading premium here reflects both the difficulty of pulling a clean 10 (the card's dark borders and full-art foiling are unforgiving to edge wear) and the market's conviction that Shanks has lasting iconic status in the game.
The Catalyst: Shanks Is Having a Moment in the Broader One Piece Universe
The timing of this move is no accident. The One Piece franchise is deep in its final manga arc, and Shanks — long one of the most plot-shrouded characters in the story — has received substantial panel time and revelations over the past year. Every time Shanks features prominently in the manga or anime, search volume and card demand follow. Collectors who track IP cycles in trading card games know this pattern well: character-driven demand spikes when the source material delivers.
Beyond the narrative, competitive play continues to drive interest in the One Piece TCG broadly. Bandai has steadily expanded the English release cadence, and organized play events — regional championships and the World Championship circuit — keep the game in front of a growing player base. Even if Shanks OP01-120 is not currently a top competitive piece, high-profile tournament weekends pull lapsed players back into the market, and those players often go looking for nostalgia-heavy cards from the first set.
Raw vs. PSA 10: The Grade Gap Explained
For a card priced at $9.50 raw, a $91 PSA 10 is an unusually wide ratio. Here's why that gap makes sense — and why it's an important data point for collectors.
Condition risk is high. OP01-120 is a Secret Rare with a dark-bordered, full-bleed foil treatment. These cards show micro-scratches on the foil surface and edge whitening very easily right out of the pack. Industry experience with similar One Piece Secret Rares puts PSA 10 pop rates well below the 50% threshold — meaning most copies submitted do not make it to gem mint.
The PSA 10 population is finite. Romance Dawn packs are still available at some retail channels and on the secondary market, but the volume being cracked has slowed significantly compared to the set's launch window. Fewer new raw copies entering the grading pipeline means the PSA 10 census grows slowly, supporting the premium.
The math on grading. If you pay $9.50 for a raw copy, add roughly $25–30 in PSA submission fees and return shipping, and your all-in cost on a successful 10 is around $35–40. Against a $91 sale price, there is margin — but only if the card grades well. A PSA 9 on this card trades at a substantial discount to the 10, so the variance is real. This is a card best submitted in bulk with other One Piece pieces to average down per-card grading costs.
What This Means for Your Collection
If you already own raw copies of Shanks OP01-120, the current $9.50 level is worth paying attention to. The card has demonstrated it can trade both well below and well above this price depending on franchise momentum, and with the One Piece storyline approaching what many expect to be a climactic resolution, Shanks' in-universe relevance is only likely to grow.
For buyers, the case for a PSA 10 at $91 depends on your time horizon. Short-term flips are tight given grading costs and turnaround times. But as a long-term hold in a set that will never be reprinted in its original English form, the argument for gem-mint first-set iconic cards is familiar to anyone who watched Base Set Charizard or Alpha Black Lotus do their thing over decades.
| Format | Current Price |
|---|---|
| Raw (ungraded) | $9.50 |
| PSA 10 | $91.00 |
| Raw-to-PSA-10 multiplier | ~9.6x |
For collectors who want to value your collection across One Piece and other TCGs in one place, Cardbrd makes it easy to track both raw and graded prices side by side.
The Bottom Line
Shanks OP01-120 is a first-set iconic card tied to the franchise's most narratively important character right now. The raw price has recovered off its floor, the PSA 10 premium is wide for a reason, and the franchise tailwinds are real. It is not a card screaming "buy immediately" — but it is a card worth monitoring closely if you have any One Piece exposure in your collection.
Get started free on Cardbrd to track Shanks and your entire One Piece collection in one place.
Sources
- PriceCharting — Shanks OP01-120 (One Piece Romance Dawn): https://www.pricecharting.com/game/one-piece-romance-dawn/shanks-op01-120
- PriceCharting — Shanks OP01-120 Manga Alternate Art: https://www.pricecharting.com/game/one-piece-romance-dawn/shanks-manga-alternate-art-op01-120
- PriceCharting — Shanks OP01-120 (Japanese Romance Dawn): https://www.pricecharting.com/game/one-piece-japanese-romance-dawn/shanks-op01-120
Cover photo: Photo by CC PD on Unsplash.