Baseball Card Market Report for January 4-10, 2024 - Top eBay Sales post

PLUS -- Checking in on 1974 Topps baseball cards

Jan 12, 2024

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Unlikely Bookends

If you were expecting to see a Sandy Koufax rookie card atop the list of the top-selling baseball cards on eBay last week (see bottom of post for full list) AND a 1981 Topps Pete Rose at the end of that leaderboard, well, you’re some sort of cardboar Nostradamus.

Because that’s exactly what happened.

And while you can gloat in the glow of your successful prediction, the rest of us mere mortals will just have to be thankful that even the top of the market pops out suprises like this from time to time.

Fun stuff, right?

Speaking of predictions and fun stuff, remember that time Topps made a pretty safe bet on Hank Aaron?

Checking In on 1974 Topps Baseball Cards

It’s been — hold onto your socks — 50 years since 1974 Topps baseball cards hit the hobby. Even though this set debuted during the heart of Topps’ monopoly, it represented a fundamental shift in how hobbyists put together their collections.

In particular, 1974 was the first time Topps released all the cards on their checklist (660 cards in all) at once rather than in series.

We took a look at the top-selling 1974 Topps cards from last month (December 2023) over on YouTube this week:

And I’ve also been leafing through some “live” 1974s to look at baseball birthdays and other events, like in this video focusing on the late Danny Frisella:

So I thought it would be fun and fitting to also step through the most valuable 1974 Topps baseball cards to see how they’ve performed since right before the pandemic.

As usual (see previous week’s newsletters), values are based on the sales reported through PSA’s Auction Prices Realized tool. Here’s what I found:

1974 Topps Hank Aaron (#1) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $115
2024 Value: $325
Profit/loss: $210
% change: 183

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Nolan Ryan (#20) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $50
2024 Value: $200
Profit/loss: $150
% change: 300

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Dave Winfield (#456) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $100
2024 Value: $200
Profit/loss: $100
% change: 100

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1974 Topps Mike Schmidt (#283) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $50
2024 Value: $150
Profit/loss: $100
% change: 200

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Pete Rose (#300) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $50
2024 Value: $150
Profit/loss: $100
% change: 200

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Tom Seaver (#80) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $40
2024 Value: $125
Profit/loss: $85
% change: 213

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Reggie Jackson (#130) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $40
2024 Value: $100
Profit/loss: $60
% change: 150

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Johnny Bench (#10) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $50
2024 Value: $100
Profit/loss: $50
% change: 100

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Dave Parker (#252) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $40
2024 Value: $100
Profit/loss: $60
% change: 150

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1974 Topps Carlton Fisk (#105) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $30
2024 Value: $65
Profit/loss: $35
% change: 117

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1974 Topps Hank Aaron (#2) - PSA 8

2019 Value: $50
2024 Value: $100
Profit/loss: $50
% change: 100

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

Note that Hank Aaron actually has cards #1-6 in this set, as a celebration of his then-impending home run record.

Card #1 is his base card for the season, while cards #2-6 show miniature versions of his previous Topps cards. Value-wise, #2-6 are all about the same, so I’ve included #2 here as a representative of the lot.

Anyway, overall, these top-selling 1974 Topps cards increased an average of about 164% over the last four years. So they’ve more than doubled in value, but not quite tripled.

The big winner individually was the Nolan Ryan, which quadrupled, with other non-rookies also stretching into the 3X or better territory.

Maybe this is an indication that older non-rookies have done some catching up to rookie cards during the 2020? Maybe — definitely an interesting question to look into down the line.

For now, here are some cards that don’t have to catch up to anyone…

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for December January 4-11, 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

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