Baseball Card Market Report for March 28-April 3, 2024 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Are Pete Rose cards getting an Ohtani bounce?

Apr 05, 2024

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One of a Kind? For Now, at Least?

At the top of the list of the most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay last week (see bottom of post) stands a card that may very well be a true 1:1, all things considered.

After all, how many 1989 Tiffany Bowman Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie cards have you seen — at all — out in the wild?

Probably not all that many, considering that Topps issued “just” 6000 factory sets, a tiny number by the standards of the late 1980s. Factor in that collector reaction to 1989 Bowman was lukewarm at best, and there’s a decent chance not all of those actually got sold.

What happened to any unsold copies is anyone’s guess (though you might be able to find some info if you dig deep enough).

But this card is in PSA 10 condition, and the PSA Population Report shows just 157 of those in existence.

But that’s not all! What if I told you that the card is autographed, with a PSA DNA rating of (also) 10!

According to the eBay listing, that makes this the only card of its kind — 1989 Bowman Tiffany Ken Griffey Jr. with an autograph, in PSA 10/DNA 10 condition.

NOW, what would you pay??

Well, the lucky winner, after 67 bids and before any other fees, agreed to pony up $50,100.

A lot of jack. And, just to stir the pot, what happens to the value of that card if/when the next among the 6000 or so Juniors from the same set achieves those same attributes (auto and grades)?

Does it drop by half? By some other, unknown percentage?

Does it go up? Does it do nothing?

I don’t have the answer to that, but “population 1” can be a dangerous concept when there are tens of thousands of dollars at stake.

And speaking of dangerous concepts…

Are Pete Rose Cards Getting an Ohtani Bounce?

As the story around Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter and betting stirred up the baseball world at the end of Spring Training, an unexpected oldster came back into the limelight: Pete Rose.

For us other oldsters, it was sort of surreal to see a familiar sort of timeline and storyline roll out almost exactly 35 years after Charlie Hustle fell from grace: rumors of betting, changing stories, denials, dismissals, investigations.

So far, Ohtani himself remains clean in this mess, and hopefully it stays that way.

But Rose himself had a comment on the situation, and his name has been bandied about more often than usual outside of the annual Hall of Fame election cycle.

So, has that extra attention translated into increased hobby activity on Rose’s cards? To find out, I sat down the night before Opening Day (3/27) and picked through the PSA Auction Prices realized tool, which tracks sales of cards graded by (obviously) PSA.

Specifically, I checked in on Rose’s first four Topps cards, and then a few others spaced throughout his career. For each card I looked at, I found either the number of cards sold in March before the Ohtani scandal broke, or the last time the card sold before March, and also how many cards sold between the Ohtani news and 3/27.

My “pre-Ohtani” cutoff here is 3/19, since we really started to hear the tale on 3/20.

Here’s what I found out:

1963 Topps Pete Rose (#537)

pre-Ohtani: 3 March sales

post-Ohtani: 1 sale

1964 Topps Pete Rose (#125)

pre-Ohtani: 2 March sales

post-Ohtani: 6 sales

1965 Topps Pete Rose (#207)

pre-Ohtani: 1 March sale

post-Ohtani: 0 sales

1966 Topps Pete Rose (#30)

pre-Ohtani: 1 March sale

post-Ohtani: 2 sales

1973 Topps Pete Rose (#130)

pre-Ohtani: last sale on 2/2/2024

post-Ohtani: 3 sales

1978 Topps Pete Rose (#20)

pre-Ohtani: last sale on 2/2/2024

post-Ohtani: 3 sales

1983 Topps Pete Rose (#100)

pre-Ohtani: 1 March sale

post-Ohtani: 3 sales

1985 Topps Pete Rose (#600)

pre-Ohtani: last sale on 1/17/2024

post-Ohtani: 1 sale

—

These numbers aren’t hugely dramatic, but they do show a slight acceleration in the number of 1964, 1966, and all the later Rose cards. In fact, most of those 1973-and-later cards hadn’t seen even one sale since early February until the Ohtani news broke.

In case you were wondering about the prices realized for these cards, here are a few examples:

1964 Topps - PSA 5 sold for $375 on 3/25; previous sale was for $415.55 on 2/1
1973 Topps - PSA 6 sold for 32 on 3/25; previous sales were for $45 on 3/26, and $40.93 on 7/6/2023
1983 Topps - PSA 10 sold for $193.50 on 3/25; previous sale was for $197.50 on 1/17

All of the later sales represent a step backwards in terms of selling price. That’s certainly an interesting bit of information given the overall higher sales volume for Rose cards during this period (at least in this small sample).

So what does it all mean?

Hard to say for sure, but it seems like Ohtani’s mess sort of nudged people into remembering that Rose was still out there and prompting them to buy his cards, but fell short of inciting a feeding-frenzy price war.

At any rate, this is a reminder that there are tons of factors that can affect demand for a card or player, and that you never know when one of them is going to break.

This will be a fun one to keep an eye on as Ohtani’s story continues to unfold.

Now, for some stories that unfolded last week…

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for March 28-April 3, 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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