Baseball Card Market Report for March 14-20, 2024 - Top eBay Sales

Are there any condition bargains in 1987 Topps baseball cards?

Mar 22, 2024

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Ohtani and the Kitchen Sink

As I write this, Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers have just knocked off the Padres in the first game of the season, played in Seoul, South Korea.

In the process, Ohtani recorded his first hits and first RBI in Dodger Blue, fulfilling some of the monster hype that’s surrounded his signing all season long.

The market continues to buy on Ohtani, too, as evidenced by his name being plastered all over our list of the most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay last week (bottom of post).

But as always, the top of the baseball market has something for everyone — Ohtani, Mickey Mantle, modern-retro Honus Wagner, a 1968 Topps common, a Don Mattingly rookie card.

Say, speaking of Donnie Baseball, what say we go…

Looking for 1987 Topps Condition “Bargains”

Last week, we dug into 1987 Topps baseball cards a little bit to see which ones might register as at least mild condition rarities — that is, cards with fewer high-grade specimens than you might expect given population trends for the set as a whole.

You can read that piece right here if you need/want a refresher on the ground we’ve already covered.

The upshot is, we were able to identify some cards that show up with fewer PSA 10s than expected, and some that show up in that condition more often than expected. The follow-up question — asked but not answered last week — was whether or not there are any bargains among those low-population-high-grade cards.

To find out, I decided to find recent sales for each of those cards in both PSA 10 and PSA 8 condition, then take the ratio of the two (10 on top, 8 on bottom).

I also did the same for a few of the high-population-high-grade cards — those with more PSA 10s out in the wild than we might expect. I also included the Don Mattingly base card as a sort of control since that one shows up in conditions at about the frequency you would expect.

Here’s what I found:

1987 Topps Don Mattingly (#500 - control)

PSA 10 Value: $75
PSA 8 Value: $7
Multiplier: 10.71

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1987 Topps Pete Rose (#200 - underpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $85
PSA 8 Value: $7
Multiplier: 12.14

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1987 Topps Barry Bonds (#320 - underpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $150
PSA 8 Value: $10
Multiplier: 15

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1987 Topps Mark McGwire (#366 - underpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $85
PSA 8 Value: $5
Multiplier: 17

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1987 Topps Kirby Puckett (#450 - underpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $70
PSA 8 Value: $6
Multiplier: 11.67

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1987 Topps Will Clark (#420 - overpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $45
PSA 8 Value: $7
Multiplier: 6.43

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1987 Topps Gary Carter (#20 - overpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $50
PSA 8 Value: $7
Multiplier: 7.14

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1987 Topps Pete Rose Manager (#393 - overpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $35
PSA 8 Value: $7
Multiplier: 5

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1987 Topps Wally Joyner (#80 - overpopulated )

PSA 10 Value: $35
PSA 8 Value: $8
Multiplier: 4.38

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So this actually panned out almost exactly as we might expect. That is, all of the cards with relatively few PSA 10s show up with a higher 10-to-8 value ratio than the Mattingly control.

Conversely, all of the cards with healthy PSA 10 populations have ratios lower than Mattingly’s. Another way to look at this is that the market seems to have recognized any condition scarcity with the first group, at least to some extent, and already adjusted prices upwards as a result.

Again, as with last week’s piece, there’s nothing earth-shattering here. But it’s another tool you can use to help gauge relative value of various cards — you could theoretically do this exercise with all 792 cards in the 1987 Topps set and with every card in every set you like.

Just don’t blame me when you fall down the rabbit hole and several hours have disappeared.

Now here are some cards that have caused small fortunes to disappear — or appear, depending on which side of the buy-sell perspective you’re viewing from…

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for March 14-20, 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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