Baseball Card Market Report for September 15-21, 2022 - Top eBay Sales

PLUS -- Which 1987 Topps cards are the best investments?

Sep 23, 2022

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Historic Homers Heal

Or at least, they make things feel more like normal.

Case in point? Try Aaron Judge and our list of the top selling baseball cards on eBay over the last week.

As I write this, the Yankees’ gargantuan slugger has just tapped his 60th home run of 2022 and seems an almost lock (jinx alert) to top Roger Maris’ American League record of 61 set in 1961 (you knew that).

And, wouldn’t you know it?

Judge appears five times in our honor roll below, along with six appearances for Mickey Mantle, four for Barry Bonds, a couple for Albert Pujols, and even one for old standby Babe Ruth.

As you might remember, all of those dudes know a thing or two about historic home runs.

And, so too does a certain other gargantuan slugger who, a generation ago, captivated the baseball world like few others have ever done.

Funny how baseball fortunes flop around, huh?

Speaking of that Big Strapping Lad from our collective past …

Which 1987 Topps Cards Are Best Investments?

A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at which 1990 Topps baseball cards performed the best, pricewise, during the pandemic and tried to figure out what that meant going forward.

Did we learn anything?

Well, not a lot that we didn’t already know, but the main takeaways were that 1) blue-chip cards and cards of Hall of Famers will likely do just fine over the long haul and 2) chasing marginal Hall of Famers — especially if they have reputational issues — in the hopes of a big payoff is mostly a fools game.

Those are the same sorts of lessons we’d probably learn looking at most any set, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have another go at it. It’s a fun game, after all.

So this week, we’re going to try and answer this question:

Which 1987 Topps card have been the the best investments during the pandemic years?

As with the 1990s, I used the PSA Auction Prices Realized tool to help me carry out the following scheme:

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.

From there, 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.)

1987 Topps Rafael Palmeiro Future Stars (#634)

January 2020: $6.63
July 2022: $2.49
profit/loss: -$4.14 (-62%)

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1987 Topps Roger Clemens (#340)

January 2020: $8.8
July 2022: $8.38
profit/loss: -$0.42 (-5%)

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1987 Topps Rickey Henderson (#735)

January 2020: $10
July 2022: $9.97
profit/loss: -$0.03 (0%)

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1987 Topps Jose Canseco (#620)

January 2020: $8.36
July 2022: $10.74
profit/loss: $2.38 (28%)

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1987 Topps Barry Bonds (#320)

January 2020: $13.75
July 2022: $18.53
profit/loss: $4.78 (35%)

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1987 Topps Barry Larkin (#648)

January 2020: $4.62
July 2022: $6.66
profit/loss: $2.04 (44%)

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1987 Topps Mark McGwire (#366)

January 2020: $5.55
July 2022: $8.38
profit/loss: $2.83 (51%)

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1987 Topps Reggie Jackson (#300)

January 2020: $6.75
July 2022: $10.31
profit/loss: $3.56 (53%)

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1987 Topps Nolan Ryan (#757)

January 2020: $11.77
July 2022: $20
profit/loss: $8.23 (70%)

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1987 Topps George Brett (#400)

January 2020: $6.9
July 2022: $13.69
profit/loss: $6.79 (98%)

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1987 Topps Bo Jackson Future Stars (#170)

January 2020: $9.04
July 2022: $21.44
profit/loss: $12.40 (137%)

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1987 Topps Cal Ripken Jr. (#784)

January 2020: $4.10
July 2022: $11.36
profit/loss: $7.26 (177%)

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1987 Topps Don Mattingly (#500)

January 2020: $6.98
July 2022: $19.78
profit/loss: $12.80 (183%)

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1987 Topps Will Clark (#420)

January 2020: $4.23
July 2022: $16.36
profit/loss: $12.13 (287%)

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1987 Topps Pete Rose (#200)

January 2020: $4.88
July 2022: $24.15
profit/loss: $19.27 (395%)

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—

What do we see here? Are there other lessons we can learn?

I think there are, or at least ones we could use a refresher on.

For instance, right up front, we see that the Steroid Guys had the same trouble here among the 1987 Topps elite as they did with 1990 Topps.

That is, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Jose Canseco all languish at the bottom of our rankings, with Rickey Henderson thrown in for some head-scratching good measure.

We’ll just call Rickey’s presence here a fluke for now, but feel free to speculate on what else that might mean if you like.

I’m still mildly bullish on Clemens and Bonds, but Palmeiro and Canseco definitely reinforce …

Lesson: As before, don’t bet the farm on marginal Hall of Famers with “issues” and hope to make big money.

On the other hand, Pete Rose and Will Clark showed really well in these rankings.

Both just happen to have a pretty strong grassroots base of supporters who are adamant they belong in Cooperstown. It could be the the collectors among those groups, or observant collectors watching the relative groundswells, felt/feel cards of Charlie Hustle and The Natural are still undervalued.

Lesson: Cards of players with marginal Hall of Fame cases but with solid reputations, or of guys with stellar resumes whose crimes may have found some shelter from the modern spotlight may hold some hidden value.

And, finally, we see a familiar name right there near the top of our list again: Cal Ripken, Jr., whose 1987 Topps card nearly doubled in price during the pandemic.

You might remember that Iron Cal was our stone-cold champ among 1990 Topps cards, witnessing an almost five-folding of his prices there.

Lesson: Spotting trends is a key to trying to figure out a bit about where the market is heading AND to having fun by coming up with new questions to answer.

You know, questions like, “Is something big or funky happening with Cal Ripken baseball cards?”.

Sounds like a query we need to dig into, don’t you think?

Could be. Could definitely be.

But for now, let’s dig into the …

Top Baseball Card Sales on eBay for September 15-21, 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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