KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- At Sports Treasures in Knoxville, it's not difficult to find a Steve McNair trading card. There are even figurines of McNair from his playing days in both Tennessee and Baltimore. But the expectation is that merchandise and memorabilia will quickly become harder to get.

"Usually you get one week, you know that's real heavy and then as more and more time goes on it kind of fades away," Eddie Barkley of Sports Treasures told WVLT.

While several local sports collectible shops have a fairly good amount of McNair cards, the higher priced merchandise is all on the internet. If you can find it, expect to pay a premium.

"a lot of collectors get a little greedy when something like this happens and they'll try everything and jack up the price on Ebay and everybody's kind of panics and says hey I got to get it now," Barkley said.

After our story airs, Eddie Barkley expects to get a lot of calls from collectors saying they've got Steve McNair merchandise to sell, and anything with an autograph is now a lot more valuable."

"The autographed items tend to be the main item that really goes up in value when a player dies, especially like McNair he died so young so there's not as many autographs of a guy that might end passing away say at 60."

"That's when their stuff is hot and sellable."

It's a known fact in the collectibles business that when an athlete passes away, merchandise value goes up.

"He won't be signing anything else so it'll be popular for someone to look for an autographed football of Steve McNair," Bill Webb of Webb's Cards, said.

"I'm sure there's quite a bit out there but at the same time when you get something like this that happens and you get a lot of demand they do dry up," said Barkley.