Baseball Card Market Report for August 29-September 4, 2024 - Top eBay Sales

How do Bowman cards stand up to Topps cards in the marketplace?

Sep 06, 2024

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Judge, Jury, and Purchasers

In the past few weeks, Aaron Judge has:

hit his 300th career home run.
picked up his 1000th career hit.
topped 50 homers in a season for the third time.
won the American League Player of the Month Award for August 2024.

He’s also tops among all players, past or present, when it comes to the number of times he appears on the list of the most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay last week.

That includes nabbing the top overall spot, where one of his rookie cards landed about five grand ahead of a classic Babe Ruth card.

And if you’re counting, five of the seven Judge cards on the list below are Bowman. The other two are Topps.

That may not be important, exactly, but it’s at least relevant as we ask…

Are Topps or Bowman Cards More Valuable?

We recently put together a video over on YouTube running down the most expensive Bowman baseball cards sold on eBay during July of 2024. Here is that video if you’re interested:

Since that little study didn’t put any restrictions on the years we were looking at, I thought we could do something similar here, with a slight twist, of course.

Specifically, that vid got me wondering how Topps and Bowman cards for the same player from the same year compare to each other in terms of current market value.

To find out, I picked out one player who appeared in every year that Topps and Bowman had overlapping base sets in the 1950s, plus the first year when the “new” Bowman matched Topps in terms of card size — so, 1990.

A few other points before we dig into the numbers:

I used PSA 6 for the 1950s cards since it’s among the most common grades handed out for most sets of the era.
I picked one player to compare for each year.
The player had to appear in both Topps and Bowman base sets for the year.
I picked the most expensive cards from the Bowman sets to determine my player for each year, but subject to the rest of the “rules” in this list.
I avoided totally iconic cards, like 1952 Topps Mantle and Mays and 1953 Topps Mantle and Robinson.
I only included cards which have sold at least one or two copies in the last several months.
I didn’t repeat players

With all that said, here is what I found, with the dollar figures listed representing rough averages of recent sales for the cards listed in the condition listed, based on data reported in the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool:

(Note: each card header, like “Bowman (#1)” is an affiliate link to current eBay listings for the card in question.)

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So what do these numbers tell us?

Well, in every case except for the Mathews, we see at least a 25% price advantage for Topps. Not too surprising considering that The Real One won the cardboard wars with Bowman in the 1950s, right?

And by 1990, Topps had had another 35 years to build on their legacy. The 1990 Bowman cards look great, in my opinion, but like most other sets of the era, they were way overproduced and still couldn’t compete with the base Topps brand for most collectors.

Today, of course, Bowman has its own niche, and it’s usually the brand hobbyists turn to when they need to scratch a case of the ol’ Rookie Card Itch.

Now, here are some RCs that can scratch your itch and relieve you of that pesky cash in your wallet, along with some non-rookies that want to have their say in the market, too.

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for August 29-September 4, 2024

(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

Discussion about this post

Baseball Card Values Newsletter

Baseball Card Market Report for August 29-September 4, 2024 - Top eBay Sales

How do Bowman cards stand up to Topps cards in the marketplace?

Judge, Jury, and Purchasers

Are Topps or Bowman Cards More Valuable?

1952 Yogi Berra (PSA 6)

1953 Eddie Mathews (PSA 6)

1954 Willie Mays (PSA 6)

1955 Hank Aaron (PSA 6)

1990 Bo Jackson (PSA 10)

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for August 29-September 4, 2024

Discussion about this post