Baseball Card Market Report for June 15-21, 2023 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- How much do 400 HR boost card prices?

Jun 23, 2023

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Elly and Arias

If you haven’t been paying attention to baseball the last few weeks …

… and/or if you didn’t pay attention to backstories 15-20 years ago … well, a couple of the names on our list of the top-selling baseball cards on eBay from last week(bottom of post) might look out of place.

After all, Elly De La Cruz has all of 58 major league plate appearances under his belt as I write this.

And David Arias is … who is David Arias again?

Yet, both of them have cards down below that snagged more than 6 grand apiece on the open market last week.

Of course, if you have been paying attention, you know that Elly is one of the hottest youngsters in the game and is a strong candidate to join the No Last Name Required Club.

Ichiro. Babe. Yasiel. Elly.

And David Arias is better known these days as David Ortiz. He’s also a No Last Name Required guy, though he doesn’t really need a first name, either.

Big Papi usually suffices.

And it all just goes to show that baseball and baseball cards are interesting enough to keep us guessing for as long as the bell still rings for us.

Speaking of which, here are some guys who rang plenty of bells in their day …

What Do 400 Dingers Mean in the Card Market?

I just happened to notice that Carlos Delgado has a birthday coming up Sunday (June 25).

That realization sent me down the old Rabbit Hole of Baseball Stats, naturally, where I was reminded just how good Delgado was at the plate in his prime.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, you could count on Delgado to hit around .300 with 40+ home runs and 130 or so RBI.

Even in that buffed-up era, those were pretty amazing numbers.

And he finished his career with 473 homers — another big, big number.

But, with fewer than 2100 hits and 45 WAR, Delgado has pretty much zero chance of ever getting into the Hall.

He’s not alone, either.

There are a handful of other big sluggers, all with 400-500 dingers, who will likely never stand on the Cooperstown dais.

So, of course, that got me wondering about their card prices. Specifically, how much do 400 home runs boost card values for non-Hall of Famers?

To find out, I took the top 5 of these players and then for each:

determined each player’s most popular rookie card, based on the PSA Auction Price Realized tool
found the most common graded grade for that card
found the card multiplier

Here’s what I came up with:

1992 Bowman Carlos Delgado (#127) - PSA 10

HR: 473
Value: $80
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 16

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco (#39) - PSA 9

HR: 462
Value: $50
Common Value: $3
Multiplier: 16.67

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1999 Bowman Adam Dunn (#369) - PSA 10

HR: 462
Value: $10
Common Value: $2
Multiplier: 5

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1972 Topps Dave Kingman (#147) - PSA 8

HR: 442
Value: $40
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 8

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1991 Topps Traded Jason Giambi (#45T) - PSA 9

HR: 440
Value: $5
Common Value: $2
Multiplier: 2.5

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—

That’s a fairly neat and orderly pattern overall, with more homers roughly equating to a higher multiplier.

Dunn and Kingman sort of reversed places in terms of keeping the multipliers tidy, but Kong has a few things going for him that Donkey doesn’t:

Played in bigger markets
RC is in a classic “old” set
He’s basically the poster boy for one-dimensional big-air hitters.

And, yes, some of these guys have PED ties, but the market hardly seems to care at all. To wit, Canseco’s multiplier edges with Delgado’s despite fewer long balls and Jose’s obvious steroid taint.

All in all, collectors still love home runs, and it looks like we’re willing to pay a premium for guys who can hit them.

Even if they can’t hit them all the way to Cooperstown.

Now, here are some other cards the market loves …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for June 15-21, 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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