In order of closing date:

Hunt Auctions October Internet Auction (ending on October 21)

Mile High Fall 2026 Premier Catalog Auction (ending on October 22)

Sirius Sports Cards Auction (ending on October 22)

Heritage Fall Sports Catalog Auction (ending on October 23-25 - see article below)

The Collector Connection Pre War Sports Cards & Memorabilia (ending on October 25)

Other active auctions:

Love of the Game Topps 75th Anniversary Auction (ends on October 31)

Rabbit Hole Auctions (ends on November 11 - see article below)

⚾ The Education Inside a Wax Pack: How Baseball Cards Taught Kids More Than the Game

💰 Restored T206 Honus Wagner Crosses $1 Million at Heritage Auctions

💰 Rabbit Hole Auctions Offers Vintage Cards and Unexpected Collectibles

⚾ Scoop Turns 80: Baseball Cards Trace Al Oliver’s 18-Year Career

🏒 New Book Examines Six Decades of Hockey Cards and the Hobby Behind Them

⚾ Baseball Cards of George Burns, the 1926 AL MVP on a Technicality

With the baseball season close to wrapping up, it got me thinking about seasonality. Modern baseball card values tend to move quite a bit during the season, up or down, reflecting how each player is performing. Meanwhile, the offseason can produce somewhat depressed card values since collectors don’t have baseball on the brain, with the notable exception of any big news about a player.

The natural question for me, then, is how do vintage baseball cards perform in-season vs. offseason? My assumption is that the baseball season will generally have a more positive effect on vintage values then during the offseason, since, like with modern cards, collectors are thinking about baseball and more apt to buy and dealers more apt to sell. This will be especially true if, for instance, a long-standing record is broken, bringing attention to the player whose record was eclipsed.

So I looked at the last year (Oct. 17, 2025, to Oct. 17, 2026), before and after the start of the MLB season, to see how Card Ladder vintage player indexes did.

To see how the rest performed, you can see the full 60-player results here.

Methodology:

There was a definite separation before and after the start of the MLB season, with 56 of the 60 players’ indexes increasing in value during the season, versus 43 of the 60 players’ indexes increasing in value during the offseason.

Meanwhile, the median (or middle) percentage gain for the offseason date range of the 60 vintage baseball card indexes was 6.58%, with the median percentage for the in-season date range of those same indexes was 22.33%, i.e., 3.39 times higher.

Both those results indicate seasonality influence. It should be noted, though, that trading cards generally have seen a notable increase in sales volume since February of this year, which helps produce increased card values, something coincidentally timed pretty close to when the MLB season started.

Knowing that, I looked at a variety of indexes to see how other sports compared, and included the Vintage Index (which includes both sports and non-sports cards):

Other than Soccer, the Baseball Index had the biggest relative change, further evidence that seasonality did play a part.

How did Player Indexes performed relative to the Baseball Index?

Notably, the Baseball Index does tend to skew modern, but with the Vintage Index percentages landing pretty close to Baseball’s in both periods, I think it’s safe to say that vintage baseball cards aren’t currently moving with as much velocity as the card market generally, but they are still increasing in value.

Unfortunately, due to the coincidental timing of the overall move of the card market, it’s difficult to determine how much seasonality has played a part over the last year for vintage baseball cards, so I’ll need to do the same research for the period from 2024 to 2025 to get a more accurate gauge.

Along with being an All-American at Arizona State University, Culp was also a celebrated wrestler, winning three Western Athletic Conference championships along with being the NCAA heavyweight champion in 1967.

Curley Culp - DT/NT/G

HOF Induction in 2013

Standout Stats:

As you can see, this is not a card that hits the market often, and there’s a relatively wide range of sale prices, with the average price landing at $33.05.