Baseball Card Market Report for May 16-22, 2024 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Do early-career home runs make for valuable baseball cards?

May 24, 2024

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Crossover Lightning in a Bottle

So, who would you rather have on your *baseball* team — Ben Franklin or Victor Wembanyama?

Right, I know neither of them is/was a big league baseball player, but that doesn’t mean they can’t crash the diamond hobby boards from time to time. Case in point, the list of the most expensive baseball cards sold on eBay last week (see bottom of post).

Both big names made the list — Franklin with his 2023 Topps Transcendent cut signature, and Wembayama with a partner. At least Aaron Judge makes Wemby’s entry a real baseball card, right?

Anyway, these two cards scored big, nestled there among the usual suspects like Shohei Ohtani, Babe Ruth, and Mickey Mantle, and a breakout cardboard performance from Paul Skenes.

For the record, the Wemby/Judge combo bested ol’ Ben by about two grand in terms of final selling price, but the revolutionary kite-flyer garnered nearly twice as many bids.

And, hey, speaking of records…

Baseball Card Values for Home Run Fast-Starters

Back in late April, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso hit the 200th home run of his career in just his 710th big league game. That made him the fourth-fastest to the 200-homer plateau, by measure of games played.

That made me wonder how the men ahead of him on the list, and those just behind him, fared on the field and in the hobby over the long haul.

To find out, I picked out the most popular rookie card for each slugger, by measure of the number of sales tracked in PSA’s Auction Prices Realized tool. Then I found the card value multiplier for each of those.

Here is what I found, along with how fast each man reached 200 home runs and how many he ended up with for his career:

2003 Bowman Draft Picks Ryan Howard (#138) - PSA 10

Games to 200 HR: 658
Career HR: 382
Value: $40
Common Value: $2
Multiplier: 20

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

2013 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Aaron Judge (#BDPP19) - PSA 10

Games to 200 HR: 671
Career HR: 263
Value: $90
Common Value: $2
Multiplier: 45

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1948 Leaf Ralph Kiner (#91) - PSA 4

Games to 200 HR: 706
Career HR: 369
Value: $225
Common Value: $30
Multiplier: 7.5

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2016 Bowman Draft Pete Alonso (#BD92) - PSA 10

Games to 200 HR: 710
Career HR: 200
Value: $25
Common Value: $2
Multiplier: 12.5

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1990 Upper Deck Juan Gonzalez (#72) - PSA 10

Games to 200 HR: 766
Career HR: 434
Value: $15
Common Value: $3
Multiplier: 5

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1990 Leaf Albert Belle (#180) - PSA 10

Games to 200 HR: 769
Career HR: 381
Value: $25
Common Value: $5
Multiplier: 5

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1955 Topps Harmon Killebrew (#124) - PSA 6

Games to 200 HR: 769
Career HR: 573
Value: $700
Common Value: $40
Multiplier: 17.5

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—

Obviously, Alonso and Judge are still active, so the career HR listed for them are as of April 27,when Polar Bear joined the 200 Club.

Aside from that, though, what do these numbers tell us?

Well, they’re a bit of an odd bunch, as these multipliers go. Remember, the purpose of the multiplier is to give us a very rough idea how far a player’s cards are from being commons, as judged by collector dollars.

With that said, it’s not too surprising that Judge leads the pack here, given that he’s still mashing, and given the record-setting nature of his career to this point.

I suspect that Alonso gets a recency boost here, too, not to mention sharing the New York visibility advantage with Judge.

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s been nearly 69 years since Kiner last swung a bat in the majors — though he did stay in the spotlight to some degree thanks to his long broadcasting career.

Belle and Gonzalez have all sorts of perception problems, and their chances of making the Hall of Fame are essentially nil — not a great combo for card values.

Killer has more than twice as many home runs as Judge to this point, but it’ll be 50 years since he last connected next time you take a long blink. His multiplier feels a bit low, at least compared to Judge’s, but second place in this group wouldn’t seem so bad.

But Killebrew isn’t second here — he’s third. Behind both Judge and Howard. The Phils phormer slugger had a great run and was one of the most feared hitters in the game for a while, but his Cooperstown case is the weakest of any guy on this list (except for maybe Alonso’s).

Howard’s 2003 Bowman card seems a *bit* outside, in other words.

Now for some cards with price tags a *bit* outside the budget of most mere mortal collectors…

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for May 16-22, 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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