2025-26 Topps Chrome Derik Queen X-Fractor (RC) IP Autograph CGC Authentic

A Glimpse in the Tunnel — Derik Queen's Topps Chrome X-Fractor Autograph

Not every signature comes with a clean shot of the moment — this one still counts.

January 11, 2026 brought the Pelicans through Orlando, and with them a rookie class worth watching from the tunnel — Jeremiah Fears drawing most of the attention, and a few feet away, Derik Queen, fresh out of Maryland and already carving out his own reputation in New Orleans' frontcourt.

The card waiting for him was a 2025-26 Topps Chrome X-Fractor, his rookie season rendered in that shifting refractor pattern the set is built around. Queen stopped, took it in hand, and signed it in blue paint pen — a full, deliberate autograph that CGC and JSA would go on to certify as authentic.

This one is filed under Presence rather than Provenance Artifact, and that's a distinction worth being honest about. The footage from that night doesn't show his face clearly as he signs, and it picks the card back up only after the pen has already moved — not the unbroken, start-to-finish record some of the Museum's other artifacts can claim. What it does show is real: Queen in the tunnel, the card in his hands, the ink already drying by the time the camera catches up. That's presence, not proof of the whole act, and the Museum would rather say so plainly than borrow a stronger claim it hasn't earned.

A rookie signature, honestly documented for what the footage actually shows.
Kia Center, Orlando, January 11, 2026.