Baseball Card Market Report for December 15-21, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Are "Christmas" sets worth more?

Dec 23, 2022

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Up, But Also Down

As you can see from our list of the top-selling baseball cards on eBay last week, we’re back in the $20,000 Club this time around, thanks to Willie Mays.

It’s been three weeks since we cracked that barrier, so that’s at least something.

And 20K is a bunch to spend on cardboard, no matter how you look at it.

But the LAST time a 1951 Bowman Mays rookie card sold in PSA 5.5 condition was back in May of 2022, when it brought $23,400.

And before that? A 5.5 brought $31,200 all the way back in March of 2021.

So it’s not all wine and roses at the top of the market. And, as you’re telling me in our weekly poll, you don’t necessarily expect 2023 to be wine and roses, either, card-wise.

With all that as backdrop and with a New Year playing chicken with us on the other side, though, I think it’s time to ask a more timely question …

Are “Christmas” Sets Worth More?

If you were a card-collecting kid growing up in the 1980s, one of your yearly rituals was almost surely putting together the list of baseball cards you wanted Santa to bring you.

And, for thousands — millions? — of us, that list usually included a complete set or two.

After all, even if you managed to put together a complete run of cards during your summer-long wax pack binge, chances are some of those pasteboards ended up a bit worse for the wear thanks to bike spokes, sweaty little hands, dugout dirt, bubble gum juice, and the like.

So it was always cool to see that long, slender box under the tree because you knew what it was, even if you didn’t know exactly what it was.

And, as the decade wore on, Topps (and Fleer and Donruss and Score and Upper Deck) even made things easier for ol’ Santa by issuing factory sets.

Heck, Topps eventually went whole-hog on the idea and put out dedicated “Christmas” factory sets that not only included the whole shebang but also were more colorful than their “normal” factory sets AND were available in places that (also) “normal” people shopped — J.C. Penney, for example.

Being one of those self-same card-collecting 1980s kids and with Christmas now two days away, I thought it might be fun to use this space this week to look at those old Christmas sets … but in our usual questioning sort of way.

So …

Are Topps Christmas sets worth more than plain old Topps complete sets from the same year?

To find out, I scoured recent eBay “sold” listings for both versions of Topps sets from 1985 through 1990. I’ll get to the results in a minute, but first, a couple of caveats:

I broadened the definition of “Christmas” sets to include any sealed Topps factory set from the year in question, because either a) the actual Christmas sets were few and far between or b) there was no discernible price difference between the two factory version.
Though Topps did issue factory sets before 1985, not many have sold on eBay recently. And the stuff after 1990 doesn’t resonate as much with me. So … 1985 through 1990.

Alright, background in place, here’s what I found …

1985 Topps

Factory Set Value: $100
Non-Factory Set Value: $45
Multiplier: 2.22

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1986 Topps

Factory Set Value: $70
Non-Factory Set Value: $25
Multiplier: 2.8

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1987 Topps

Factory Set Value: $30
Non-Factory Set Value: $15
Multiplier: 2

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1988 Topps

Factory Set Value: $15
Non-Factory Set Value: $10
Multiplier: 1.5

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1989 Topps

Factory Set Value: $15
Non-Factory Set Value: $15
Multiplier: 1

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1990 Topps

Factory Set Value: $20
Non-Factory Set Value: $10
Multiplier: 2

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—

The multiplier here is our typical value multiplier, in this case using the factory set in the numerator and the non-factory set in the denominator.

In every case except the 1989s, the factory set is selling more than its hand-collated counterpart. What’s more, aside from the 1988s (1.5X), the rest of the factory sets sell for at least twice the hand-sorted versions.

Now, I’ll admit to doing a bit of eyeballing and on-the-fly decision-making here — throwing out one-bid sales, for example — so this is not a super-rigorous study.

Still, I think the general trend we see here plays right alongside the general value prefernce for graded cards. To wit, a sealed factory set has a much higher chance of yielding truly high-grade cards than a set that’s been assembled by hand.

After all, “hands” have a way of damaging cards, and, especially when you’re buying 800 cards at a pop online, it’s tough to know exactly what you’re buying into.

One other takeaway from all this?

Those 1980s cards we loved so much are still basically worthless from a cosmic perspective unless they’re in tip-top grade.

You know, like some of entries in the list of …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for December 15-21, 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 …

Baseball Card Values Newsletter

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