Baseball Card Market Report for December 1-7, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- How big did 1980s cards BOOM during the pandemic?

Dec 10, 2022

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Soft-Serve Christmas?

So I’m working on a rundown of the top 100 most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay during 2022 for the year-end issue of the paid version of this Market Report, and I’ll tip my hand a bit … the cutoff for inclusion on that list is going to be around $20K.

If you scroll to the bottom of this post, though, you’ll see that the very top of the eBay market from last week couldn’t even crack the $18K mark. Still god-awful expensive, you understand, but not among the top that 2022 had to offer.

So …

Does this mean the market is “crashing” or at least softening as the year wraps up?

That would be a hasty judgement to make, I think. But the truth is, only a handful of cards have cleared our imaginary bar since the beginning of November, and that’s long enough to at least start looking like a trend.

Maybe we really are seeing prices start to cool off after three years or blow-your-mind numbers coming down the pipe, one after another.

Maybe.

Or maybe we’re just taking a collective breather to soak in the holidays and gird our loins as dicey economic news continues to bubble.

Whatever the case, the market bears watching for further signs that we might be transitioning out of (or already done with) the Pandemic Boom.

Speaking of which …

How Big Was the 1980s Pandemic Boom?

So, a couple of weeks ago, I set about updating our article over on Wax Pack Gods that runs through the most valuable baseball cards of the 1980s. You can read that piece right here if you want.

That post had been chirping at the back of my brain for awhile, because I *knew* the card values had changed since I wrote the original, back in July of 2019.

In case that doesn’t ring a bell, July of 2019 fell during the last summer before the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world and instigated the latest hobby boom.

But, as I worked through the updates, I was struck by just how much all of those card had increased in value over the last three-plus years, and I thought it might be worthwhile to run through them here.

Indeed, these big-value 1980s baseball cards provide a ready roadmap for where we’ve been since all hell broke loose.

So, what follows are those ten cards, along with their typical selling prices from both July of 2019 and November of 2022. The final line in each case is the value multiplier, using 2019 values as the denominator and 2022 values as the numerator in each case.

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

1980 Topps Rickey Henderson (#482) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $350
November 2022 Value: $2500
Multiplier: 7.1

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1980 Topps Nolan Ryan (#580) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $75
November 2022 Value: $300
Multiplier: 4

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1982 Topps Cal Ripken, Jr. (#21) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $50
November 2022 Value: $135
Multiplier: 2.7

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken, Jr. (#98T) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $150
November 2022 Value: $500
Multiplier: 3.3

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1984 Donruss Don Mattingly (#248) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $50
November 2022 Value: $100
Multiplier: 2

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1984 Fleer Update Roger Clemens (#U-27) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $150
November 2022 Value: $400
Multiplier: 2.7

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1984 Fleer Update Dwight Gooden (#U-43) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $60
November 2022 Value: $150
Multiplier: 2.5

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1984 Fleer Update Kirby Puckett (#U-93) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $140
November 2022 Value: $200
Multiplier: 1.4

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1985 Topps Mark McGwire (#401) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $50
November 2022 Value: $75
Multiplier: 1.5

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. (#1) - PSA 9

July 2019 Value: $50
November 2022 Value: $250
Multiplier: 5

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

Wow!

Multipliers of between 1.4 and 7.1 means these cards are 1.4 to 7.1 as valuable now as they were just three years ago. And these were already the priciest cards from the 1980s (modulo some Tiffany and oddball considerations).

Aside from the mindblowing overkill here, are there any useful tidbits we can take from these results?

Well, the lowest multipliers belong to Mark McGwire, Kirby Puckett, and Don Mattingly — two guys with little hope of making the Hall of Fame and one who DID make the Cooperstown cut but who actually falls short of the HOF standard for his position (centerfield).

In other words, the top of the top blue-chippers saw their cards perform really well during the pandemic, while the more marginal superstars performed more, well, marginally.

Year after year, and decade after decade, the top cards of the top players in top grade have paced the market.

The pandemic, apparently, was no different in that regard.

And, speaking of the top of the market, how about a look at the …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for December 1-7, 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

Discussion about this post

Baseball Card Market Report for December 1-7, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- How big did 1980s cards *BOOM* during the pandemic?

Soft-Serve Christmas?

How Big Was the 1980s Pandemic Boom?

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for December 1-7, 2022

Discussion about this post

PLUS -- How big did 1980s cards BOOM during the pandemic?