Baseball Card Market Report for September 1-7, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Which 1990 Topps cards are the best investments?

Sep 09, 2022

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Could You Be a Bit More Vague?

I mean, your specificity is blinding me with detail: “Old Babe Ruth Sports Card”

That’s the title of the listing that tops our rundown of the top-selling baseball cards on eBay last week (bottom of post).

The card could have been anything from a Ruth rookie card to some insert issued ten years ago, varied enough is our collective definition of “old,” particularly when it comes to baseball cards.

But the opaqueness of the listing’s heading didn’t stop untold numbers from clicking through to see what was up for the offing … which just so happened to be a nifty 1933 Uncle Jack’s Candy Ruth dandy.

Enough folks figured that out pronto that the card garnered something like 130 bids and sold for nearly fifty grand despite not being graded and not being anywhere near pristine and having sprung from — apparently — a backroom trashcan in some old junk shop or abandoned school.

The ambience of the listing definitely makes it worth the time to check out, which you can do right here (even if you can’t still buy the card).

The rest of our list is pretty fascinating this week, too, ranging from the most modern of the modern to a vintage complete set to some “perfect” graded cards we don’t see all that often.

You can see the high-end of the market in all its glory toward the bottom of this post, but for now, we’ll move on to some stuff we see plenty often.

Which 1990 Topps Cards Are Best Investments?

That question may seem to embody quite an oxymoron, and it’s only slightly snarky to answer with, “none.”

Still, the fact is that people DO make money on Junk Wax Era cards all the time, and they will continue to do so as long as no cardboard black holes open up between here and the e-bank.

Our question has some validity, then. But even so, it’s one that doesn’t have an easy answer.

So let’s cheat a little bit and answer an easier question …

Which 1990 Topps card have been the the best investments?

This one, we can tackle, courtesy of tools like the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool.

That’s what I’ve done below, but first some bullet points on my process and motivation — here’s what I did:

Found the top 20 or so cards in terms of total number sold (per that PSA tool).
Decided on a time period to look at — I picked the pandemic as a convenient (if icky) time box, focusing on two periods: January of 2020 (right before all heck broke loose) and July of 2022.
For each card on my list, I found the average selling price for PSA 9 (the most common graded condition for the set) in or around those two months (1/2020 and 7/2022, that is).
Also for each card, found the change in selling prices, as well as the the percentage change — this is our profit/loss statement for each one.

After I had compiled all that info, I sorted the cards by the percentage gained (or lost) in selling prices over the duration of the pandemic (through July 2022).

Here is that full list, starting with the biggest losers and working our way up to the biggest gainers:

(Note: Card titles below are affiliate links to eBay listings for the cards being discussed.)

1990 Topps Larry Walker (#757)

January 2020: $16.64
July 2022: $7.6
profit/loss: -$9.04 (-54%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Sammy Sosa (#692)

January 2020: $5.92
July 2022: $3.6
profit/loss: -$2.32 (-39%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Deion Sanders (#61)

January 2020: $7.25
July 2022: $5
profit/loss: -$2.25 (-31%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Juan Gonzalez (#331)

January 2020: $5.75
July 2022: $6.23
profit/loss: $0.48 (8%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Bo Jackson (#300)

January 2020: $10
July 2022: $11.06
profit/loss: $1.06 (11%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Frank Thomas No Name on Front (#414)

January 2020: $14500
July 2022: $17200
profit/loss: $2,700.00 (19%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps George Brett (#60)

January 2020: $10
July 2022: $12.5
profit/loss: $2.50 (25%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Don Mattingly (#200)

January 2020: $10
July 2022: $14.5
profit/loss: $4.50 (45%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Nolan Ryan Mets (#2)

January 2020: $9
July 2022: $14.1
profit/loss: $5.10 (57%)

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1990 Topps Bernie Williams (#701)

January 2020: $5.83
July 2022: $10
profit/loss: $4.17 (72%)

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1990 Topps Ryne Sandberg (#210)

January 2020: $8
July 2022: $13.75
profit/loss: $5.75 (72%)

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1990 Topps Frank Thomas (#414)

January 2020: $9.91
July 2022: $17.97
profit/loss: $8.06 (81%)

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1990 Topps Nolan Ryan Astros (#4)

January 2020: $7
July 2022: $16.75
profit/loss: $9.75 (139%)

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1990 Topps Ken Griffey, Jr. (#336)

January 2020: $7.24
July 2022: $17.86
profit/loss: $10.62 (147%)

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1990 Topps Nolan Ryan Rangers (#5)

January 2020: $5.5
July 2022: $14.06
profit/loss: $8.56 (156%)

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1990 Topps Nolan Ryan (#1)

January 2020: $7
July 2022: $19.75
profit/loss: $12.75 (182%)

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1990 Topps Rickey Henderson (#450)

January 2020: $4
July 2022: $15.5
profit/loss: $11.50 (288%)

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1990 Topps Nolan Ryan Angels (#3)

January 2020: $3.25
July 2022: $12.67
profit/loss: $9.42 (290%)

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1990 Topps Barry Bonds (#220)

January 2020: $2
July 2022: $8.25
profit/loss: $6.25 (313%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Cal Ripken Jr. (#570)

January 2020: $2.5
July 2022: $14.5
profit/loss: $12.00 (480%)

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

Are there any lessons we can learn here to help us answer our original question? That is, which 1990 Topps baseball cards are the best investments?

Well, one thing we see right off the bat is that the Larry Walker rookie card tumbled — not all that surprising considering that the bloom was still on the rose of his newly-minted Hall of Fame election early in 2020.

Since then, he’s been inducted and then mostly slid from the limelight.

Lesson: Don’t buy at the peak of they hype cycle if you want to turn a profit on your card purchases.

OK, what else?

Well, Sosa’s prices fell as it became (even more) obvious that he wasn’t getting into Cooperstown any century soon. That was hammered home for good when Bonds and Roger Clemens fell off the ballot.

Lesson: Don’t buy cards of marginal Hall of Famers with black marks on their reputations if you expect to make money.

Speaking of Bonds, his card did just swell in this context, thank you very much.

The reason? Probably that he got a lot of HOF support over the last couple of years and because there is plenty of sentiment that he was just so great that he’ll get in, eventually.

Lesson: Baseball cards of all-timers don’t often underperform relative to the market at large over a sufficiently long period of time.

And speaking of Nolan Ryan, he’s been a hobby blue-chipper among hobby blue-chippers for well over 30 years now, and you can pretty much bank on his cards going up in value to some degree over time (again, relative to the market).

Henderson, Junior, and Ripken all fit that same basic mode, though it is a bit surprising to see Cal so far out in front. Small sample size and all that (probably the same for the Deion tumble).

Lesson: Nolan Ryan rulz.

One more note: the legendary Frank Thomas NNOF error outpaces every other card on this list (of course) when it comes to sheer “profit,” but it’s a low-volume trader — and it also increased “only” by about 20% during the pandemic.

The non-error Thomas performed better, from a percentage standpoint.

Lesson: Very high-end cards bring the most money (duh), but they generally also trade at lower volumes and have a much smaller potential buyer base than the more “common” cards.

What’s the bottom line, then?

Well, if you’re hellbent on “investing” in 1990 Topps baseball cards, you probably won’t lose money on the likes Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds, and Frank Thomas, at least relative to the other cards in the set.

If you’re thinking about diverting that college fund away from, say, college and toward Sammy Sosa rookie cards, though, you might want to reconsider.

After all, it won’t be any time soon that Sammy climbs back onto a list like the …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for September 1-7, 2022

(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 …

Baseball Card Values Newsletter

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