Baseball Card Market Report for April 20-26, 2023 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- How much are raw cards selling for these days?

Apr 28, 2023

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Buzz Capra Sighting

Buzz Capra was mostly a journeyman pitcher, first with the New York Mets from 1971 through 1973, then with the Atlanta Braves from 1975 through 1977.

If you have an eye for detail, you might notice that I left out a year there.

That’s because, in 1974, Buzz Capra was an amazing pitcher for the Braves after they bought his contract from the Amazin’s at the end of Spring Training.

That summer, Capra went 16-8 with an MLB-leading 2.28 ERA across 27 starts and 12 relief appearances.

Wow!

An arm injury early in 1975 (or maybe even late in 1974) relegated him to mop-up duty for the rest of his days in the majors.

So …

What does all this have to do this here Market Report?

Well, down below, amongst the rest of the top-sellers on eBay from last week, you’ll find a 1976 Topps Buzz Capra card in PSA 10 condition — Population 1.

It’s an amazing card that’s survived 47 years of this crazy world in “perfect” condition, which makes me feel all the older.

Do you like your baseball cards with a side order of nostalgia?

Then you might enjoy our free weekly Wax Pack Gods newsletter, where we dive deep into the fun, silly, and amazing joys of the hobby that keep us coming back year after year.

Here are a few examples of recent posts, just to whet your cardboard appetite:

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But not every card is perfect.

In fact, most are far from it.

Which got me thinking …

How Much Are Raw Cards Selling for These Days?

I’d wager that most collectors can look in their card cupboards and not find stacks and stacks of slabs staring back at them.

No, for most of us, most of our collections are “raw” — our cards are ungraded, in other words.

Here in the old market report, though, we tend to focus on graded cards, mostly because they give us a standard barometer to help keep tabs on the hobby from week to week, month to month, year to year.

This week, though, I thought we’d take a step back from the big prices of Slabville to see how raw cards are following along.

Now, there’s a lot of ways we could do this, but we’re going to do something simple. Specifically, we’re going to take one card that is, in itself, a sort of hobby barometer and look at what it’s doing, pricewise, both graded and ungraded.

That card? I’m going with the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie card because it’s a hobby classic, everybody loves it or at least wants it, and it’s a junk wax card that doesn’t feel all that junky.

Furthermore, I’m going to limit our research to sales made during the first week of April 2023.

To get this show on the road, I first took a look at the PSA Population Report, which shows us that the most common grade for 1989 UD cards is a “9.”

Next, I checked out the PSA Auction Prices Realized (APR) report to find that eight PSA 8 Junior RCs changed hands to start April, with an average selling price of $180.75, and ranging from $165 to $195.

Next next, I hopped over to eBay and searched for the “sold” Griffeys (eBay affiliate link) that went at auction, had more than one bid, didn’t have any overtly shady bidding history, weren’t autographed or ripped in two, and — most importantly — were NOT graded.

Most of the listings at least alluded to the cards being mint, or sublime, or some other superlative.

Among that population, I found 55 total sales, ranging from a low of $30 to a high of $107.75. The average selling price was $59.69.

This is an interesting group to dig into if you have the time and inclination because it gives you a look at which cards among a decent-size sampling were the BEST ones, at least according to the sort of crowdsourced opinion that comes from an open auction.

So, on average, “mint” raw cards on eBay sell for about a third of cards that PSA itself has graded MINT (9) — at least for Griffey, and at least for this snapshot of time.

But here’s another thing …

While the overall population of 1989 Upper Deck cards is flush with PSA 9s, the most common grade for Griffey RC specifically is PSA 8.

And, if you look back at the APR page again, you’ll see that PSA 8s are selling for about $70 a pop.

Drop down to PSA 7, and you’re looking at $50 cards.

Right in between those two?

Yeah, it’s our average auction price for raw cards.

So, right now at least, and for KGJ, we might expect that the raw cards selling on eBay are something akin to PSA 7 or PSA 8 copies, at least on average.

And at least from a pricing perspective.

Now for some prices that just might make you lose perspective …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for April 20-26, 2023

(Quick note — this list contains affiliate links to the original eBay listings.)

If you want to see updated 30-day market toppers anytime, we have a couple of resources over on WaxPackGods.com:

Most expensive baseball cards sold in the last 30 days
Most expensive football cards sold in the last 30 days
Most expensive basketball cards sold in the last 30 days

Now, on with the show …

Baseball Card Values Newsletter

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