Baseball Card Market Report for August 4-10, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- How does the modern market like "old" oddball cards?

Aug 12, 2022

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A Cobb, A Trout, or a RAV4?

Which would you rather have — a T206 Ty Cobb or a 2009 Bowman Chrome Refractor Mike Trout autographed rookie card?

I ask because a pair (or maybe the same?) of lucky buyers had to make that choice, unwittingly or not, at the eBay checkout counter last week.

So, imagine you have an extra $30K burning a hole in your nine-pocket — do you go with the Cobb or the Trout?

Or, maybe, you’d rather have some wheels? Because that same 30 grand gets you right in the vicinity of the MSRP for a new RAV4.

Yeah, yeah, supply chain and all that.

But that shipload of transmissions stranded in San Diego Bay aside, one thing we can take hold of in this currently-funky world of ours is perspective.

So, does it make sense for a Cobb, a Trout, and a RAV4 to be equivalent things?

That’s in the eye of the beholder, of course, and for each individual to work out for himself.

You know, sort of like how you feel about oddball baseball cards. I mean, if you’re the one who bought up all the leftover Topps Kids boxes back in 1992, more power to you.

If you love them you love them.

Now, if you ever want to sell them, though, then you might be asking yourself some other questions. Questions like …

Does the Modern Market Like Old Oddball Cards?

This hobby never stands still, which is great because otherwise, our baseball cards would be covered with moss in no time at all.

It’s also pretty cool because card companies are always trying new things. In the past — think 1980s and 1990s — there were also always new players entering the field, trying to make some hay at the expense of Topps, Fleer, and Donruss.

Every year, it seems, brings/brought at least one new “innovation” to our little corner of the world, and it’s always cause for excitement.

Sure, some of us old-timers occasionally pooh-pooh so-called advancements that move us further from our hobby roots, and we still mourn the death of the 30-cent (or 25-cent or nickel) wax pack.

By and large, though, collectors are eager for new material and new slants on old ideas.

Sometimes, though … well, let’s just say that sometimes our enthusiasm is soon tempered by harsh reality.

Who would have thought, for example, that Magic Motion really meant “can’t see jack squat”?

Or that an extra quarter-inch of card height would make a classic reboot such an outcast?

If those thoughts crossed our collective minds in 1986 and 1989 when Sportflics and the resurrected Bowman debuted, respectively,, they were washed away by our giddiness over just how cool the concepts were.

The problems became evident soon enough, though, and both issues sort of got pushed aside and have spent much of their existence as afterthoughts. Unlovables.

At the very least, they’re oddballs.

Or are they?

I mean, have these fatally flawed tragic heroes of the hobby fared any better over the years than our lingering perception of them? In particular, how does the market at large view them, value-wise?

To find out, I first dug up five of these hyped-then-hated (or just sort of forgotten) issues from the now-distant past:

1976 Hostess
1986 Sportflics
1987 Classic
1989 Bowman
1991 Donruss Studio

From there, I identified one key card in each set, typically a rookie card.

Then, I identified a card of the same player from the same year, but from a mainstream set.

For each of those two cards, I found the Card Value Multiplier and then finished up with the Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM) for the two cards, with the oddball card in the numerator and the mainstream card in the denominator.

The result was a handy-dandy way to compare the relative value of start cards from oddball and evenball sets to see which, if either, seems to be more desirable, using commons as our baseline.

Here are our matchups …

(The below sections contains affiliate links to eBay and Amazon listings for the card being discussed. Stats culled from Baseball-Reference.com. Values represent actual recent sales as listed in the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool.)

1989 Bowman v. 1989 Upper Deck

Collectors were pretty excited for both of these sets in 1989, with Bowman representing the good ol’ days of the 1950s hobby, and UD representing all that was new and shiny.

Though beautiful overall, the oversize, uh, size of the Bowman cards made them hard to store, and it’s a problem that’s only sort of gotten a smidge better over the years.

Upper Deck?

Yeah, it did OK for itself.

1989 Bowman Ken Griffey, Jr. (#220) - PSA 10

Value: $285
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 57

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1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. (#1) - PSA 10

Value: $1750
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 350

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 0.16

1986 Sportflics Rookies v. 1986 Topps Traded

Truthfully, but the time Sportflics Rookies was issued during update season in the fall of 1986, we already knew that Magic Motion was cardboard carsickness. But 1986 was a big year for rookie performances, and we wanted all the rookie cards we could get.

1986 Sportflics Rookies Barry Bonds (#13) - PSA 10

Value: $70
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 14

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1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds (#11T) - PSA 10

Value: $315
Common Value: $15
Multiplier: 21

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 0.67

1991 Studio v. 1991 Upper Deck

Studio was one of those innovations that was so outside the batter’s box, most collectors weren’t quite sure what to make of it. They were very artful, though, and they debuted as a set of test inserts, so we were all in … until gimmick wore thin.

1991 Studio Jeff Bagwell (#172) - PSA 10

Value: $600
Common Value: $10
Multiplier: 60

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1991 Upper Deck Jeff Bagwell (#755) - PSA 10

Value: $40
Common Value: $8
Multiplier: 5

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 12.0

1987 Classic v. 1987 Topps

Classic was a (ahem) classic example of everybody trying to get in on the card boom of of the 1980s, and of baseball cards appearing everywhere. You want baseball cards in a board game? Sure!! Why the heck not?? They were pretty nice looking cards, too, and there was awhile where the relative scarcity really pumped them up the hype ladder.

Come to think of it, the original 1987 Classic cards are still pretty scarce today, relative to the rest of the field.

1987 Classic Barry Larkin (#18) - PSA 10

Value: $275
Common Value: $15
Multiplier: 18

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1987 Topps Barry Larkin (#648) - PSA 10

Value: $50
Common Value: $10
Multiplier: 5

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 3.6

1976 Hostess v. 1976 Topps

Food issues were all the rage in the 1970s and 1980s, and Hostess was one of the most popular among them. I mean, you can’t really sneeze at the chance to eat a Ding Dong and pull a Kong Kingman at the same time.

The problems with the Hostess cards are easy to see, though: odd size, thin cardstock, typewriter-level card backs, hand-cut most of the time, terrible condition a lot of the time.

Still, we loved them once upon a time, and these probably still hold more sway than most on our list.

1976 Hostess Dennis Eckersley (#137) - PSA 10

Value: $300
Common Value: $20
Multiplier: 15

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1976 Topps Dennis Eckersley (#98) - PSA 10

Value: $42000
Common Value: $40
Multiplier: 1050

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 0.014
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So how did our tragic heroes make out here?

Well, three of the five finished with a MoM of less than one, meaning the more conventional rookie cards won those battles.

It’s interesting to note that the two oddballs who “won” were 1987 Classic and 1991 Studio, cards that share quite a bit from a design standpoint — simple borders, little garnishment, strong photography.

Meanwhile, the “losers” were more out there — weird size, weird card design.

In other words, the cards that were closer to what we normally think of when we say “baseball cards” have performed better in the market.

Hmmm.

We just may be a sort of stodgy bunch after all, huh?

Maybe, but would true stodges be able to pony up for the …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for August 4-10, 2022

(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
Most expensive hockey cards sold in the last 30 days

Now, on with the show …

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