Baseball Card Market Report for August 24-30, 2023 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- What happens to star cards when a career is cut short?

Sep 01, 2023

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Give Us Your Old, Your Torn Elbows, Your…

If you’ve been longing to see some really vintage cards make their presence felt in the baseball card marketplace, then last week was your week.

As you can see from our list of the top-selling cards on eBay last week (bottom of post), the hit parade starts off with a cherry 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth and then fills out the top ten with a Lou Gehrig from the same set and another Iron Horse entry from the 1932 U.S. Caramel issue.

And, though it’s not quite as vintage, a 1974 Topps Carlton Fisk checks in at slot #2. When was the last time you saw one of those babies bring big, big bucks?

There’s even another Pudge card further down the list.

Certainly an interesting week for the most interesting ~~man~~ market in the world, huh?

Of course, there was also the requisite boatload of Shohei Ohtani cards that sold big, despite the terrible news about his arm. Will this injury ultimately cut short his otherworldly career production?

Only time will tell, but the market doesn’t seem to care right now.

And, speaking of careers cut short …

How Does a Career Cut Short Affect Card Values?

If you’ve been following baseball news over the last few weeks, you know that one of baseball’s brightest young stars is on the shelf as MLB investigates some allegations against him.

It’s ugly stuff.

And over in Anaheim, both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani have had their historical runs put on hold, again, by injury.

All of which begs the question (here, at least) — what happens to card values over time when a star player’s career is cut short?

Does the shine they built up in their short time on the diamond carry over to the hobby market for years to come? Even if they don’t make the Hall of Fame?

To get at some evidence, I picked out five players from the past who started off like gangbusters and became some of the biggest stars in the sport before petering out.

A couple ended up playing to a respectable baseball age, but there’s no doubt that their primes were gutted in one way or another.

For each of those five, I then found a player with comparable career numbers but a more “normal” career shape — played into their late 30s, no catastrophic injury, no scandal, etc.

From there, I found the card value multiplier for each guy’s rookie card, then took the ratio of those multipliers for each pair — the Multiplier of Multipliers. In this case, I put the short-career guy in the numerator and the long-career guy in the denominator.

That gives us a rough idea of how much farther from (or closer to) common values our short-career guys are than their long-career counterparts.

Here is what I found …

(Note: This section contains affiliate links to eBay listings for the cards being discussed.)

Dwight Gooden v. Mark Langston

1985 Topps Dwight Gooden (#620) - PSA 9

WAR: 53
Value: $40
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 8

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1985 Topps Mark Langston (#625) - PSA 9

WAR: 50.1
Value: $10
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 2

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 4

Darryl Strawberry v. Dave Parker

1983 Topps Traded Darryl Strawberry (#108T) - PSA 9

WAR: 42.2
Value: $65
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 13

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1974 Topps Dave Parker (#252) - PSA 8

WAR: 40.1
Value: $120
Common Value: $4
Multiplier: 30

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 0.4

Tony Conigliaro v. Don Demeter

1965 Topps Tony Conigliaro (#55) - PSA 8

WAR: 12.4
Value: $100
Common Value: $14
Multiplier: 7.1

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1958 Topps Don Demeter (#244) - PSA 8

WAR: 12.8
Value: $40
Common Value: $30
Multiplier: 1.3

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 5.5

Don Mattingly v. Mark Grace

1984 Topps Don Mattingly (#8) - PSA 9

WAR: 42.4
Value: $75
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 15

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1988 Donruss Mark Grace (#40) - PSA 10

WAR: 46.4
Value: $40
Common Value: $3
Multiplier: 13.3

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 1.1

J.R. Richard v. Mike Flanagan

1972 Topps J.R. Richard (#101) - PSA 8

WAR: 22.2
Value: $35
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 7

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1976 Topps Mike Flanagan (#589) - PSA 8

WAR: 22.1
Value: $30
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 6

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Multiplier of Multipliers (MoM): 1.2

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So, what do we see here?

Well, we have two clear “wins” for the short-career guys — Gooden and Conigliaro.

On the other hand, Parker handles Strawberry with ease. That’s probably due to the grassroots rumblings that Cobra belongs in the Hall of Fame, support Strawberry hardly ever gets.

The other two races are pretty much a wash.

So the verdict? Maybe the short-career guys have a slight edge. I suspect the magnitude of that edge is related to the distance in peak seasons (Gooden v. Langston) and recency (Conigliaro v. Demeter).

There are probably some other nuggets to nibble on here, so maybe we’ll expand our feast on this topic down the line.

For now, it’s time to feast your eyes on …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for August 24-30, 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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