Baseball Card Market Report for September 22-28, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Are Cal Ripken cards really exploding?

Sep 30, 2022

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Too Much Hype? You Be the ahem Judge

As I write this in late September of 2022, Aaron Judge remains “stuck” on 60 home runs for the season after drawing four walks in the Yankees’ division-clinching victory over the Blue Jays.

“Stuck” is relative, of course — I remain stuck at zero big league homers, for example. I’m a lifetime ofer.

But, when you’re chasing history like Judge is, and when the guy in front of you on the single-season home run list is just one dinger in front of you … well, I’ll bet the wait can seem interminable.

The card market doesn’t care about “stuck,” though.

Nope — Judge appears 11 times on our list of most expensive cards sold on eBay over the last week (see bottom of post).

So, even if Judge is not exactly exploding past Roger Maris for the American League record, his cards are still doing a pretty good TNT impression.

And, speaking of exploding baseball cards …

Are Cal Ripken Cards Really Exploding?

In recent weeks, we’ve looked at which cards from the 1987 Topps and 1990 Topps sets have increased in value the most (by measure of actual sales) over the last three years or so — i.e., The Pandemic Era.

One interesting potential trend that popped out was that Cal Ripken, Jr.’s cards were big winners in both sets.

Which naturally prompts the question, “What is going on with Ripken cards?”.

Or, put another way, “Is anything really going on with Ripken cards?”.

To find out, I decided to compare the price performance of those two cards (1987 Topps Ripken and 1990 Topps Ripken) to the cards of a somewhat similar player to Ripken, who appeared in the same sets.

Problem was, who can you compare to Cal Ripken?

Here we have a guy who did things with the bat that 1980s shortstops weren’t supposed to do, won a couple of MVP awards, collected more than 3000 hits, finished his career at a different position, and sailed into the Hall of Fame.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds an awful lot like Robin Yount to me.

It’s not a perfect comp (there’s only one Streakman in this two-person group, after all), but it’s pretty solid for these purposes.

So …

To carry out our little study, I did something familiar. In particular, I found selling prices for each of the 1983 Topps and 1987 Topps cards for each guy (Ripken and Yount), both before (January 2020) and “after” the pandemic (July 2022).

Then, in each case, I divided Ripken’s value by Yount’s to get a more relative measure of one’s marketplace status to the other. By comparing these multipliers for the two players from both timeframes, we can see whose cards have performed better.

Oh, and for good measure, I threw in a comparison of Ripken’s and Yount’s 1983 Topps cards, too, since both guys appear in that set, and since neither is a rookie card (which could skew the results). For that one, I used PSA 8 values, since “8” is the most common graded condition for 1983 Topps.

Here are the results …

1983 Topps

1983 Topps Cal Ripken (#163) - PSA 8

January 2020 Value: $7.50

July 2022 Value: $15.00

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1983 Topps Robin Yount (#350) - PSA 8

January 2020 Value: $5.00

July 2022 Value: $9.00

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

January 2022 multiplier: 1.5

July 2022 multiplier: 1.67

—

1987 Topps

1987 Topps Cal Ripken (#784) - PSA 9

January 2020 Value: $4.10

July 2022 Value: $11.36

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1987 Topps Robin Yount (#773) - PSA 9

January 2020 Value: $4.50

July 2022 Value: $13.00

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

January 2022 multiplier: 0.91

July 2022 multiplier: 0.87

—

1990 Topps

1990 Topps Cal Ripken (#570) - PSA 9

January 2020 Value: $2.50

July 2022: Value: $14.50

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

1990 Topps Robin Yount (#290) - PSA 9

January 2020 Value: $2.00

July 2022 Value: $11.00

Check prices on eBay (affiliate link)

—

January 2022 multiplier: 1.25

July 2022 multiplier: 1.32

—
So, what does all this mean? Well …

Ripken barely outpaced Yount for both 1983 Topps and 1990 Topps sales over the pandemic, nudging up his multipliers slightly.

And Cal actually lost ground to Yount in the 1987 Topps set, where Yount was already selling for slightly higher prices in January 2020.

Not resounding, huh?

But, if Yount hung so tight with Ripken, pricewise, over the last three years, why didn’t the Brewer show up on our list of “winners” for 1987 Topps and 1990 Topps alongside the Oriole.

Simple — in those lists, I cut off the eligible cards at something like 100 total sales as tracked through the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool, and Yount fell short.

So, small sample sizes and all the caveats that come along with them.

Still, the Yount and Ripken cards that did sell increased in value in near lockstep. And that shifts our questions …

Is there something special going on with those two?

Do they represent a certain class of player who was due for a market correction?

How can we identify those same sorts of gaps going forward, before they’re corrected?

All fun, exciting questions to ponder, and all questions we may ponder another day. For today, though, time grows short, and we still need to dive into our …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for September 22-28, 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

Discussion about this post

Baseball Card Values Newsletter

Baseball Card Market Report for September 22-28, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Are Cal Ripken cards *really* exploding?

Too Much Hype? You Be the *ahem* Judge

Are Cal Ripken Cards Really Exploding?

1983 Topps

1983 Topps Cal Ripken (#163) - PSA 8

1983 Topps Robin Yount (#350) - PSA 8

1987 Topps

1987 Topps Cal Ripken (#784) - PSA 9

1987 Topps Robin Yount (#773) - PSA 9

1990 Topps

1990 Topps Cal Ripken (#570) - PSA 9

1990 Topps Robin Yount (#290) - PSA 9

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for September 22-28, 2022

Discussion about this post

PLUS -- Are Cal Ripken cards really exploding?

Too Much Hype? You Be the ahem Judge