Baseball Card Market Report for July 3-9, 2025 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Checking in on Dave Parker baseball cards

Jul 11, 2025

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The Kid in Summer

Take a look at the list of the most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay last week (bottom of post), and you’ll see several names from the past mixed in with current stars like Shohei Ohtani and Paul Skenes.

Chief among the oldsters, and not really mixed in as much as set apart, is one Ken Griffey, Jr., who not only claims the top spot but also shows up a total of four times…just one fewer than Ohtani.

Feels like old times have Junior on the “hot list,” doesn’t it? Especially as we rocket toward the All-Star break.

There are plenty of other nostalgia-stoking names down there, too. And, of course, we’re always free to stoke some nostalgia on our own, so let’s do that right now…

Checking in on Dave Parker Baseball Cards

In May, we took a look at recent top-selling Dave Parker baseball cards on eBay over on our YouTube channel:

It was a good time to look at Parker cards since the baseball season was just really heating up and Cobra was back in the limelight thanks to his upcoming Hall of Fame induction. In case you didn’t hear (is that even possible?) Parker was elected to Cooperstown by the current incarnation of the Veterans Committee back in December 2024, along with the late Dick Allen.

Everybody was locked in, focused on seeing Parker step to the podium and put the crowning achievement on his career.

Boy, what a difference a couple of months can make.

Now, Parker will still be inducted in a couple of weeks. And he’ll still get his plaque. But induction weekend won’t be the happy celebration for old-time Pirates and Reds fans (and A’s, Brewers, and Blue Jays fans) that we’d hoped for.

That’s because Dave Parker passed away on June 28, 2025, just about a month before his date with Cooperstown.

It was just about the saddest possible timing for the man who could change a game in a hurry and carry his team on his shoulders for weeks during his prime in the 1970s, and during his second peak with Cincinnati in the 1980s.

But even though Cobra is gone, his fans and collectors will still celebrate him on his big day…and long afterwards.

With all the attention building toward induction weekend, and with so much sentiment swirling around Parker and all of his fellow electees (Allen, Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner), this seems like as good a time as any to take another pass at some of Cobra’s most iconic baseball cards.

What follows, then, is a rundown of ten early Parker cards, spanning most of his Pittsburgh year. For each card, I found the approximate selling price for copies in PSA 8 condition (PSA 9 for some later years) from both summer 2024 and summer 2025 (per PSA’s Auction Prices Realized tool), then looked at the difference.

Here’s the tale of the tape…

1974 Topps Dave Parker (#252) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $100
2025 Value: $300
Profit/loss: $200
% change: 200

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1975 Topps Dave Parker (#29) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $45
2025 Value: $55
Profit/loss: $10
% change: 22

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1976 Topps Dave Parker (#185) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $20
2025 Value: $60
Profit/loss: $40
% change: 200

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1977 Topps Dave Parker (#270) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $30
2025 Value: $50
Profit/loss: $20
% change: 67

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1978 Topps Dave Parker (#560) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $40
2025 Value: $55
Profit/loss: $15
% change: 38

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1979 Topps Dave Parker (#430) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $15
2025 Value: $25
Profit/loss: $10
% change: 67

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1980 Topps Dave Parker (#310) - PSA 9

2024 Value: $45
2025 Value: $90
Profit/loss: $45
% change: 100

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1981 Donruss Dave Parker (#136) - PSA 8

2024 Value: $7
2025 Value: $12
Profit/loss: $5
% change: 71

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1981 Fleer Dave Parker (#360) - PSA 9

2024 Value: $15
2025 Value: $25
Profit/loss: $10
% change: 67

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1981 Topps Dave Parker (#640) - PSA 9

2024 Value: $40
2025 Value: $30
Profit/loss: -$10
% change: -25

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—

Overall, these ten Parker cards increased in selling price (based on our limited sample sizes) by about 97% over the last year — they’ve almost doubled! And the “2025” sales mostly landed before his untimely death.

So, why the value spike?

This one’s about as obvious as Cobra standing in the on-deck circle swinging a sledgehammer (a trick he reportedly picked up from Willie Stargell) — it’s all about the Hall of Fame.

The only card among these ten that went down was Parker’s 1981 Topps card, though all of these results, and especially the newer-card results, come with a grain of salt. Specifically, most/many of these don’t trade at a very high volume these days, so the selling prices are at the whim of in-the-moment buying decisions for the small sample sizes we have here. Indeed, the main reason I report PSA 8 prices above for the 1981 Donruss card is because sales volume for 9s and 10s is about nonexistent.

Overall, though, Parker’s cards are doing what you’d expect “surprise” Hall of Famers to do: jump to the moon in the months leading up to enshrinement. We saw a similar trend with Ted Simmons a few years back. Of course, hobby hype tends to recede, and with it, card prices.

Will Parker’s cards slide backwards a bit in the coming months? Could be — Simmons’ pasteboards saw some early softening after his enshrinement, but have generally continued an upward trend.

Time will tell for Parker.

Now, here are some cards whose new owners certainly hope their new cards follow an upward trend in the months and years…

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for July 3-9, 2025

(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 …

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