News Briefs

⚽ Are Tobacco Soccer Cards Worth the Hype?

⚾ The Joys (and Regrets) of Reviewing a Baseball Card Price Guide From 1978

🏈 Rocky Bleier: Steelers Legend and Purple Heart Recipient

🏀 1986-87 Fleer Autographed Rarities Hitting the Auction Block

⚾ A T206 John Titus Is Valuable for a Fascinating Reason

Auction Highlights

Currently Available (Note Closing Date):

⚾ 1887 N172 Old Judge Mickey Welch Right Arm Extended Forward Rookie PSA Authentic - $605 (Hake’s Auctions - ends November 19)

⚽ 1970 Anglo Confectionary World Cup #38 Pele PSA 7 - $100 (SCP Auctions - ends November 22)

🏀 1961 Fleer Basketball Wilt Chamberlain Rookie #8 PSA 9 (OC) - $1,675 (Fanatics Weekly Auction - ends November 23)

Contemporary Era HOF Nominees: Positive Rookie Card Movement?

The “why” behind card price movement always intrigues me, especially for the cards of athletes who are no longer playing, because I assume there aren’t many reasons for those types of cards to make any obvious moves.

Two weeks ago, one of those reasons popped up: the naming of the Contemporary Era Hall of Fame nominees. Dedicated to honoring players whose “primary contribution to the game came since 1980,” this year’s nominees are:

Barry Bonds

Roger Clemens

Carlos Delgado

Jeff Kent

Don Mattingly

Dale Murphy

Gary Sheffield

Fernando Valenzuela

I wanted to see how much movement, if any, these ex-players’ rookie cards made based on the news of their nomination. If there was movement, I also wondered if the percentage of change would have anything to say about the likelihood of each player being chosen for the Hall.

Of the eight nominees, five of them had rookie cards that I don’t consider part of the Junk Wax era, so I decided to focus on those nominees.

I picked one rookie card for each, and picked a PSA grade for each that I thought provided enough recent examples to make a decent assessment, and I determined an average price based on the same number of cards before and after the announcement, courtesy of Card Ladder.

So my natural next question is, does this mean that collectors think Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy have the best chance of getting into the Hall of Fame (taking into account this is one card with one grade)?

Well, to give some context, based on the previous Contemporary Era ballot in 2022 (when Fred McGriff was chosen to be enshrined into the Hall in 2023), guess who the next highest vote-getter was.

None other than Don Mattingly, who got eight out of 16 votes. He was followed by Curt Schilling with seven votes (who didn’t make the cut this time), and then, yes, Dale Murphy with six votes.

Point being, the order makes some sense based on the previous ballot and how collectors could be extrapolating those results to this ballot. Meanwhile, both Bonds and Clemens got fewer than four votes apiece last time, and Valenzuela didn’t make that cut.

I should add that, when I initially saw the list (taking into account my obvious ‘80s bias), I thought Mattingly and Murphy had the best shot, while the sentimentalist in me thought Valenzuela might make it.

What I think it’ll really come down to, though, is who is on the voting committee, especially the former players and if they played with/against the nominees, because I’m convinced that plays a part in how they vote. We’ll find out on December 7.

Who do you think will get inducted?

Hobby Thoughts: Football Card Collector Grade Affordability

I decided to continue my look at collector grade cards (for new subscribers, collector grade being a grade that matches the decade - a 7 for the ‘70s, 6 for the ‘60s, etc.) and see how affordable football cards are.

I’ll again look at PSA graded cards and continue to focus on Hall of Fame rookie cards from the 1970s. After defining “affordable” as $100 or less for baseball cards (with prices based on the average of the last three sales), I figured I should lower the average for football and settled on $75.

Before tabulating, my guess is that more than 75% of the cards would fall into the “affordable” category.

Here are the results (data via Vintage Card Prices):

The above chart covers the only cards that finished above $75, with a few surprising names showing up (Rayfield Wright, for example, but his card is a high-number card that also tends to be off-center).

Picking up a rookie card for a guy like Earl Campbell, Steve Largent, Jack Lambert or Dan Fouts for between $50-75 seems like a pretty good deal to me.

There’s still value here, but we’re getting more into the guys in the trenches along with defensive backs.

Just three pass catchers are represented among the final 15 cards, including James Lofton, a player who retired as the career leader in receiving yards (and still sits at #12 all-time), but his rookie card is somehow just over $15.

Overall, my prediction was correct, with more than 78% of the cards landing below $75. Meanwhile, the average price of the 60 cards was $104.17, with a big assist from the Bradshaw, Payton, Staubach and Greene cards.

If you collect vintage football cards and are trying to be budget-conscious, I’d say that 47 of 60 HOF rookie cards averaging under $75 is pretty good news.

What do you think of the results?